Macaroni and Cheese: Which style?

For the record, my  mother's heritage was German from Russia.  She had grown up in Western Oklahoma and lived all her life in the Southwest.   I doubt she had mac and cheese as a child but she made it often enough when I was a kid.   She'd put the salted water on to boil, grate the cheese from the hunk that always in the refrigerator, cook a couple of handfulls of  pasta, drain it, and mix cheese, macaroni, margarine and a little milk in the pan for final heating.  Never used a a prepackaged product or a recipe.  It did not take much longer than the description did to write, or to make it from a box.  Waiting for the water to boil is the longest part.   If it was for company I think she put more cheese on top and baked it, but the basic version was a quick lunch with a hot dog.
 
That was sixty years ago and there were fewer prepackaged items available.  Many many simple cooking tasks were done as a matter of routine.  But I've never understood the mentality of buying mac and cheese in box.

Thanks for the Noodles Romanoff recipe.  What ever possessed Stouffer's to discontinue their frozen version?

I like Stouffer's macaroni and cheese, and Kraft.  I like the kind with the cheese in a pouch you squeeze out.  If I make the powdered, I open another box and use an extra cheese packet. 

   That extra packet of cheese powder is doubling the sodium in an already high sodium  food. I will usually add some other ingredient like egg yolk to help make it creamier.Maybe a little grated Parm or Cheddar.

David O.

There is an entertainer and cook book writer named Sheila Ferguson.  I am not familiar with her acting or singing career but read her cookbook, Soul Food, which was published in 1989.   In the cover information on the book she stated she was then living in the UK and had written the book to help her daughters be aware of their heritage.   There are several interesting stories in the book.  IIRC she says that Senate Bean Soup and Pepperpot Soup as eaten by Washington's troops at Valley Forge should be attributed to black cooks.  Her recipe for mac and cheese is perhaps  the most extravagent and richest I've ever seen.  I think it has three pounds of cheese for one pound of macaroni amd a can of evaporated milk and so on.  I have to wonder if it is not a phantasy recipe.  Man, what a dish to take to a church supper!
 
I wander if anyone else on this message board has read her book?
 
http://www.sheilaferguson.com/bio.html
 
 

I grew up eating the blue box stuff although my mom made a great Italian mac and cheese with ground beef, tomato chunks, ricotta, mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Sort of a mac and cheese/lasagna combo. I also ate a lot of Kraft mac and cheese in college and can easily polish off an entire box myself (my heart goes out to whomever said they shared a box between 4 people ) I personally perfer the stovetop style non baked version as I too find the baked version too dry. It is one of my favorite meals/sides and order it quite frequently. This is a little bit off topic but does anyone know why a lot of restaurants, mainly Diners in NJ, offer mac and cheese with fish/crab/seafood cakes as a Friday night dinner special? I understand fish on Friday, but they have other seafood specials on Friday and every other day for that matter. It's almost guaranteed that I can go into a diner on Friday and get some variation of that special. Any thoughts?

Dave

I do a Macaroni and Cheese with sauteed Jalapenos. When it is done I put it into a Poblano Pepper and make a Chili Rellno out of it. Sounds strange but it works. When you bake the Macaroni and Cheese spread it thinner in the pan so it browns on the top and gets a little crunchy and make sure the crunchy stuff goes into the Poblano Chili....Russ

DPuro329


This is a little bit off topic but does anyone know why a lot of restaurants, mainly Diners in NJ, offer mac and cheese with fish/crab/seafood cakes as a Friday night dinner special? I understand fish on Friday, but they have other seafood specials on Friday and every other day for that matter. It's almost guaranteed that I can go into a diner on Friday and get some variation of that special. Any thoughts?

Dave

 
As you inferred, this tradition would go back to the days when a common home-cooked meal on Fridays would feature fried fish of some type.  During the depression and the years following, people who might not be able to afford a more expensive whole fish (or just wanted to be economical) would make fish cakes from fish scraps or leftover fish from a previous meal, with bread chunks added to "stretch" the fish.  The macaroni and cheese, also very filling and low cost, was added to give everyone more protein (in the cheese).  Since Diners were the original "eating out" restaurants for the "common" folk, it is not surprising that they would feature a menu item that many people would remember from their childhood as being a favorite that was cooked and eaten at home.

I think it has to do with the "Fasting" aspects of fish on Friday.  Mac & Cheese has the connotation of a fasting food, therefore it ties in

The history of mac and cheese:
http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/topic_id/16/id/105/

I dunno. When you start out by writing "there can be no doubt" it usually means, I'm sure of it so I need to do no research.