Like every other patriotic American, I love macaroni and cheese. Classic, with a twist, baked, stovetop, dripping with Velveeta, out of a box--give me all the mac and cheese and I will give it a home in my belly.
I often think about the histories of the dishes I like, which I suppose you might expect from a grad student in history. Whenever I try something new, I always make a point to try to find out where it comes from, who has historically eaten it, and how it has been influenced by various cuisines. I don't know, it always seems important to me. As I made macaroni and cheese earlier this week, something often taken for granted as 'Murkan, I started to wonder the same things about what has become a quintessentially American dish. So, if you're as curious as I was, follow me below the fold. Or, you can skip to the end, where I share my favorite macaroni and cheese recipe.
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I had long heard the legend that Thomas Jefferson was the inventor of macaroni and cheese. I never put much stock in it, and I always assumed it to be either false or highly exaggerated like most other common-knowledge legends, but I never really dug around to find out for sure. But no, as I suspected, macaroni and cheese has a long history that does not start with Jefferson. That's not to say that he didn't help popularize the dish in the United States, although even that tends to be a little exaggerated. He was a lover of macaroni, that's for sure, and he certainly did eat a version of macaroni and cheese. From Jack MacLaughlin's book Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder:
Macaroni was a highly fashionable food in late eighteenth-century Paris, and Jefferson not only enjoyed the dish but also commissioned William Short to purchase a machine for making it. The machine was later shipped to America. Jefferson also investigated the manufacture of macaroni during his trip to northern Italy and drew a sketch with detailed notes on the extrusion process. When Short was in Italy, he sampled the local product and concluded that the cooks of Paris made better pasta than he could get at Naples. Apparently, the macaroni machine that Short bought was either not durable or unsatisfactory, for in later years Jefferson imported macaroni and Parmesan cheese from Marseilles for his use at Monticello. While in France, he also copied a recipe for making macaroni ("Nouilly a maccaroni") without a machine. This recipe makes clear that what was eaten as macaroni was what Americans today would term spaghetti — the dough was rolled thin and cut into strips, and each strip was then rolled with the hands into a noodle shape.
More on Jefferson, who is said to have served the dish at an 1802 state dinner:
Amateur historians have often credited Thomas Jefferson with introducing macaroni and cheese to the United States. That probably isn't true, but he did help make it popular. He dined on the dish during his time in Italy; he loved it so much that he brought a pasta maker back with him to the U.S. and served the dish at the White House in 1802. Mary Rudolph, who took over hostess duties at the White House when Jefferson's wife died, included a macaroni recipe that with Parmesan cheese in her 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia Housewife."
So yes, Jefferson loved him some mac and cheese (which he probably called "macaroni pudding" and was a little different from what we know as macaroni and cheese today), but the
inventor of the dish? No. As for the true origins of macaroni and cheese, nobody really knows for sure. A
Smithsonian article on the subject
traces it back to a recipe that was scribbled down in Northern Europe in 1769. There is also apparently a similar pasta and cheese recipe that hails from the 13th century.
The Liber de Coquina, or Book of Cooking, an Italian cookbook from the 13th century, includes a recipe called de lasanis that foodie historians believe is the first macaroni and cheese recipe. The recipe calls for sheet pasta cut into two-inch (50-millimeter) squares, cooked in water and tossed with grated cheese, likely Parmesan.
Macaroni and cheese certainly has European roots, but that's no surprise. In the colonies, it was a popular New England church supper dish, but it was typically reserved for the upper classes. Only with industrialization did pasta dishes become common. Wherever and whenever macaroni and cheese comes from, it has evolved considerably over the years, with Kraft
really popularizing (and proletarianizing) the dish in America with its boxed version during the Great Depression.
Kraft Foods introduced its boxed macaroni and cheese in 1937, when America was in the throes of the Great Depression. The product could serve four for 19 cents, and the company sold 8 million boxes of its quick-and-easy macaroni and cheese in a year. With rationing in effect during World War II, the boxed mix continued to gain in popularity; staples such as fresh meat and dairy were in short supply. It's now the standard incarnation of the dish, and along with ramen noodles, the Kraft Dinner (as it's known in Canada) is a mainstay of college student cuisine.
And we know the rest of the story and the myriad of mac and cheese recipes that now proliferate. And now, of course, we tend to use cheddar, not Parmesan. Which is just as well, I think.
The macaroni and cheese I grew up with (when I wasn't eating Kraft) was based on the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens cookbook version, made with (you guessed it) Velveeta. On special occasions, we might get chunks of bread (not to be confused with breadcrumbs) broken up and drenched in butter on the top.
This version is certainly yummy, but my favorite way to make mac and cheese is a Chef John recipe from Food Wishes. You might recognize that name from the last unprogressive, insensitive, gluten-filled spicy pasta recipe I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It's no coincidence--Chef John has contributed a number of recipes and methods to my repertoire, and consider this a second plug for Food Wishes, one of those gems on the Internet more people need to know about. Anyway, I would be remiss if I didn't share my favorite mac and cheese recipe in a mac and cheese diary, so here goes.
It's really a pretty classic mac and cheese recipe, so I hope you're not expecting anything revolutionary. What sets this version apart are the spices and other ingredients that go into it, some of which I'd never tried in macaroni and cheese before. Start, of course, by heating up a large pot of water, generously salting it (I'm sure it's been said a million times, but generously salting is so important), and cooking a pound of elbow macaroni al dente.
This macaroni and cheese, like many others, starts with a béchamel sauce. And the béchamel sauce, of course, begins with a roux. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and wait for it to sizzle. Whisk in 1/4 cup of flour, along with some dried thyme, ground white pepper, and cayenne (yes, cayenne), and cook for 3 or 4 minutes to get rid of the flour's raw edge.
Then, whisk in 1 cup of whole milk and make sure there are no lumps (cold milk will prevent that). Add 2 more cups of milk, and then grate in some fresh nutmeg, drizzle in some Worcestershire sauce, and add a full teaspoon of salt.
Simmer that for about 8 minutes. While it's simmering, grate 12 ounces of sharp cheddar cheese--preferably something semi-good that costs more than $1.79 at Kroger. I like Tillamook, which is pretty good but not that expensive, but that's just me. Anyway, reserve 3/4 to 1 cup of cheese for the top. Split the rest into halves and add one half at a time to the thickened sauce. Then, one last ingredient that will make this delish: a teaspoon (or, hell, go crazy and add a tablespoon--I did!) of Dijon mustard. The cheese sauce is now done. You can't tell in this picture how gooey and delicious it is, but let's just say it "accidentally" got on my fingers and in my mouth several times.
Put the cooked macaroni in a large baking dish and distribute the cheese sauce. Top with the reserved cheese.
To give this a
really nice, crispy crust, mix 1/2 cup of Panko breadcrumbs with a tablespoon of melted butter. Spread that over the top and it's ready for the oven.
Pop it in at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for exactly 20 minutes. And then feast your eyes.
A dusting of parmigiano-reggiano never killed anybody, but the angel on my shoulder won this time and I resisted.
It's kind of light and not dripping with cheese like the kind my mom made, but that's how I like it, and it's
plenty cheesy. Anyway, that's how I make mac and cheese. What's your favorite way?
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