Everyone loves Mac & Cheese (who wouldn't love those crazy kids) but where did it all begin? How did this dynamic duo come to be? I was curious so I did some digging around.
Cheese is one of the oldest man-made foods (dating back to the prehistoric era). Because it is a fermentation-based product, the first incident of cheese "making" was probably just a happy accident but it's been around forever.
As far as the origins of pasta (aka macaroni)...well there's a long-standing argument on who gets official credit for that -- the Greeks, the Chinese, the Koreans, or the Italians. In my History of Food book (okay Mom's book, but on perma-loan to me), it states that term "macaroni", by which all pasta was known back in the day, is definitely of Neopolitan dialect...so for simplicity, we're siding with the Italians.
In the 13th & 14th centuries you start to see recipes for macaroni dishes that contained cheese and butter. In Italy it was considered a low class dish because of its simplicity, but in England it was possible to find a number of cookbooks that included recipes for macaroni dishes that were served with cheese but also sweetened with nuts and spices, or that contained cheese, milk and spices.
Early English macaroni recipes were brought to American by the Colonists, but it wasn't until the 1800s that macaroni and cheese recipes really started cropping up. Most of these were for baked macaroni and cheese.
Then in 1937, Kraft introduced the Macaroni & Cheese Dinner in a box (the original box was yellow, but was quickly changed to the iconic blue box we know and love today). It gained great popularity during World War II because it was affordable and an easy single meal in a box to make.
Nowadays, you see all kinds of variations in both boxed and homemade. People add all sorts of things to their baked mac and cheese like tomatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, Spam, and...sliced hot dogs. I'll be honest with you, I'm a Kraft M&C gal myself, original, not that fancy stuff. I can't help it, I LUV the cheese powder. OH! And here's something fun you can do with it. My friend Chell told me that she takes the cheese powder and sprinkles it on popcorn...I can't imagine it gets ANY better than that.
But you know, no matter how you doll it up, there's something about mac and cheese that just makes you feel at home and happy and full. So thank you cheese-discovering cavemen. Thank you ancient Italian macaroni makers. You rock(ed).
p.s. Don't forget to mark it on your calendar...July 14, National Macaroni and Cheese Day! Huzzah!
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