March 12, 2021 • 61 mins
This creamy comfort food is a classic, whether it’s crafted or Krafted. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and industrial evolution of macaroni and cheese.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Bogelbaum. And today we're
talking about macaroni and cheese. Yes, I love mac and cheese. Um,
many of you have recommended this one, most recently Meredith,
but I know a b over the over the years,
it's been Legion. There were questions for this episode. The
(00:31):
mac and cheese has been Legion. Yes, and it is
one of my very favorite comfort foods, which is appropriate because, Lauren,
my quarantine anniversary is coming up March thirteen. Oh right, Yeah,
that's right, that's right, and I have a box of
mac and cheese set aside. That's a little bit weird
(00:54):
but beautiful, I feel. That's yes, I will take that. So,
growing up, my siblings and I each had a favorite
type of mac and cheese, which cracks me up, Like
it was all the Kraft mac and cheese, but I
like the shells, and my little brother like shapes. He
thought the cheese got in the crevices more. And then
(01:16):
my older brother was a classic elbow macaronian cheese type. Yeah. Yeah,
it just cracks me up because they're essentially the same
and it's kind of just how your cheese is getting coated.
Feld No, but that's an important part of the texture,
so you know, mm hmmm. I'm glad you can appreciate this. Uh.
(01:41):
And my mom used to make I know a lot
of a lot of you will think this is blasphemous,
but she used to make a fancy summer mac and
cheese and it had fancy summer mac and cheese. It
was a summer yeah. No, that's please continue, I need
(02:01):
to know. Yes, so it was. It was kind of
like those spiralized elbow pasta okay, um, zucchini, squashed tomatoes, onions,
and spicy peppers. But like with like the craft packet
more like was it made with a different cheese sauce.
I believe it was velvita. Oh okay, okay, yeah, that
(02:27):
was a good day whenever she made that. Yeah. Uh.
And those single serving mac and cheese cups, those were
a staple of my college years in Ramen, which I've
through researching this I've learned is very common in the
United States college experience. Yeah yeah, those Uh I was
I was just out of college when they debuted those
(02:49):
those cups. But for sure, Ramen was a staple of
my diet MHM, which I still love. I still love raman.
Oh yeah, oh god. I feel so lucky that that
I didn't have mac and cheese cups available to me. Yeah. Um.
And I really strongly remember how mac and cheese was
(03:11):
the first thing I was able to stomach after I
had the swine flu. I remember this so viscerally, and
it was the box stuff, but it was so warm,
it was so savory, so comforting, Oh my gosh, delicious.
And also twice when I was sort of homesick and
living abroad, and two separate instances, a friend made me
(03:35):
what they called it American dinner, which included things like
peanut butter pizza, spaghetti, and mac and cheese. I'm still
delighted by this every time I hear about it, Like,
I'm very confused, but very delighted. Yes, I love I
love the spaghetti and pizza. As we've talked about, like
(03:56):
the origin it's not so American, but that's what both
these people thought. And you know, I just gotta put
it in here. It always bumps me out. In the
film Home Alone, okay, when Kevin makes the mac and
cheese and then doesn't get to eat it. He's so
meticulous in his planning of his traps. He's got his
(04:17):
well drawn out maps, and then he knows they're coming
at nine pm, and he puts the back and cheese
down right at nine What you gotta plan it around
of your back and cheese better than that, I'm sorry.
Don't treat it like an afterthought, Kevin, geez, come on, Kevin,
(04:37):
he said a prayer over it. Yeah, it's a glass
of milk. I'm getting angry. I this is not a
detail that I recall from the Home Alone film, but
I am I am glad that you have brought it
to light. It is a travesty and it's not talked
(04:58):
about enough. I think it's I think we can all
learn something here. Prioritize yourself. I mean, yes, creating deadly
traps for for for harmless burglars um, but but also
make sure you're make sure you're you're got self care. Yeah,
(05:20):
you gotta feed yourself mac and cheese. Yeah, and he
went to a lot of trouble to get that mac
and cheese all right anyway? Yeah? Yeah, Mac and cheese
is also one of my very favorite foods. It's something
that if I'm like and and this is like like
like not to like bring the party down, but like
I have days sometimes when I'm like, I can't eat food?
(05:42):
Why all the time? Every day more than once a
day do we have to eat food? I'm a food podcaster.
I know, I it's ridiculous, but you know, but I
just get so in my head and sad that I'm
just like I don't want to eat, but I can
usually trick myself into eating mac and cheese. So yeah,
and it's I try not to do this. It is.
(06:04):
It is something I recognize in myself where I get
annoyed with picky people. I know that's a problem of mine,
but if people like I have a good friend and
she told me she doesn't care for mac and cheese.
She didn't say she didn't like it, she didn't care
for it, And like I had to tamp down on
the immediate like anger. I felt like that. I was like,
(06:26):
I like stepped back. What we took it? You took
it personally. I did. And my dad always say, he
used to say, don't tip, don't take it personally, but
I did. I did. We were at a food event
where you share dishes, so it was kind of a
you know, we were compromising. Oh oh yeah, oh so
(06:48):
you know that then it is personal. Yeah, that's why
I don't think I would have been as shaken otherwise.
But I was like, wait, we're not gonna I just
assumed that was an automatic Yeah, Mac and che right,
sure of course. Well, well, when in the incredible future
we are able to to hang out at the kind
(07:09):
of event where we have to share dishes again, I
I promise Annie, I will always be your backup on
the Mac and cheese, Yes, cheese back up. And we've
talked around mac and cheese and craft specifically a lot.
Some episodes that come to mind are our fifty Shapes
(07:30):
of Pasta episode in our Chitter episode Processed Cheese and Caeso,
But today we are not talking about those things have
plenty in the backlog if you want to get into it.
But this brings us to our question, yes, mac and cheese,
(07:53):
what is it? Well? Mac and cheese is a dish
made up of a pasta in a cheese sauce, served warm.
The pasta can vary, the cheese sauce can vary, the
cooking methods can vary. I would say that there are
two kind of like based varietals of mac and cheese. Um.
You've got the type that you make on the stovetop
(08:15):
or in the microwave from a package that contains dried
noodles in a packet of like cheese sauce or cheese
sauce starter. Um. And then you have the second type
that you make on the stovetop and or in the
oven by cooking noodles and making your own cheese sauce.
And there can be overlap. There's a little bit of
(08:35):
a genetic confusion, I would say in between these for sure.
Like the mac and cheese that my dad made for
dinner when I was a kid was not prepackaged, but
it was like he would just like make rottini and
take like a jar of cheese whizz, like pasteurized processed
cheese food product, and like just scoop the cheese whiz
onto the cooked pasta like maybe some butter, maybe some
(08:58):
butter on there to like help he's the sauce. But um,
but yeah, that was it. Cheese cheese was Yeah. That
that was his preferred brand over like a block of
velveta or something like that. Yeah, uh not not the
(09:18):
kind that comes like in a spray can. It wasn't
like a spray can. That's probably what you're thinking of.
It was. It was analogous to a block of velvita. Okay, yeah,
got it. If you are making, however, the cheese sauce
from scratch um, there are I mean, any number of
ways to accomplish that. But the sort of traditional is
(09:39):
by making a more ne sauce, which is the French
way of saying a thick, creamy cheese sauce. So you
start by making a rue, which is a flower plus fat,
usually butter cooked start breaking down the flour. Then you
add milk to make a bechamel um, which is nice
and creamy, and then add cheese to make it a
more ne, which is a thicker and richer. And as
(10:00):
we've talked about in nachos and cas so, achieving a
truly smooth incorporated cheese sauce can be difficult because many
cheeses don't melt completely evenly, but rather that the fats
and the other stuff will separate out and make sauces
go kind of oily and lumpy. Um. So it's sort
of a hack, as with nachos and case so you
can add some specialized ingredients that help emulsify the mixture,
(10:24):
make it, make it nice and nice and even um
like sodium citrate and yeah. Different recipes for mac and
cheese may include um, some some cheese added to the top,
or like really like a lot of extra mixed into
the sauce. Um, you can. You can do it with
all kinds of cheeses. Hypothetically, I think orange cheddar is
(10:47):
perhaps the one that we all think of when we
think of mac and cheese, although morena is usually a
white sauce. But this brings us to my sub question
to our question, which is why is the packaged stuff
often so violently orange? Tell me why, Lauren um. We
(11:10):
discussed this in detail on our Cheddar episode, but essentially
the answer is cheese fraught in the sixteen hundreds. Done. Yeah,
And this this happened because, uh, you know, when you
when you age at cheddar, um, it becomes yellow to
(11:33):
orange over time because molecules of beta carotene are are
released over time, and that beta carotene gets in there
when the cows that provided the milk that made the
cheese were being fed fresh grass or we're grazing on
fresh grass. I guess you don't like usually take a
handful and feed into a cow at any rate. Um. Yeah,
(11:55):
So this color was considered a mark of quality in
letters in the six undreds in England, and all of
a sudden people figured out that they could die their
cheese yellow to make it look like it was higher quality.
M h. And and it just kind of snowballed from there,
(12:17):
like we still I don't I don't know, I don't
know why violently orange. It cracks me up because in
the weird strange way of history, now, if I see
too mac and cheeses side by side, I'm going to assume,
right or wrongly, that the fancier, nicer, higher quality one
(12:39):
is the one that is not the orange color. This
is the flip. Why that all started? Yeah, because you
because you know that it's just food. Die if it's
if it's orange, there's no reason for it to be orange.
But yeah, I am, I have I have a kind
(13:00):
of a bad reaction to a natto, which is one
of the natural colorings that they used to make products
that color orange. Um, so I always go for the
white cheddar ones. Yeah, I love them so good, Oh
so good, so good. But yes, if you are not
making your own sauce. These packages can come in a
(13:22):
couple of different sub varieties. There's your powdered cheese variety,
to which you generally have to add an ingredient or two.
At home, it's like usually recommended that you add some
some milk or some butter to kind of make make
the sauce all all nice and creamy and come together.
You can just use water though most of the time,
and then you've got the type that come with with
(13:44):
usually these days little packets, little like a milar foil
plastic packets of ready ready cheese cheese. You don't need
to add anything to it's so gooey. Oh it's so good.
Yes it doesn't. It doesn't entirely taste like cheese, but
it tastes like dreams. It tastes like dreams. You know,
(14:09):
I don't even know what kind I picked out, So
I'm excited to see. Yeah, I was just you know,
I was trying to get out of there as quick
as possible, so I'm to get it into the cart
so I shall see. I'm sure it's good. Oh my gosh.
Now I'm overwhelmed with intense curiosity and concern that is
(14:32):
not back in cheese. Oh dear, well, I'll face that
after this podcast recording. Uh, let's talk about the nutrition. Okay,
it highly depends on what variety end ingredients you are
talking about here. Um, but you know, cheese is a
(14:53):
calorie dense food. That's rather the idea. Um, pasta tends
to contain a lot of carbs without having a lot
of five or and and mac and cheese tends to
be a heavily salted dish. Um. Processed cheeses tend to
be less calorie dense, but also less nutrient dense and
usually a little bit even more salt. Here. I mean,
mac and cheese is gonna fill you up and help
(15:16):
keep you going. I would say that if you're having
a type made from unprocessed cheeses, uh, you know, homemade sauce,
probably watch your serving size. Uh, eat a vegetable. Um.
And if you are having a processed cheese type, still
watch your serving size and neat a vegetable, but also
consider balancing with like a little bit of extra protein. Oh.
(15:40):
See what I'm gonna have to do because I'm at
the end of my grocery cycle is all I have
left is the mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and lima beans.
So that's no, that sounds that us. That honestly sounds great.
I mean you know, like like that sounds like a
(16:01):
terrific meal to me. It does. I think it's not
what you would typically put together perhaps, but it's gonna work,
and I'm excited. I feel like there has to be
like a like a Swanson's Kids meal out there that
has exactly those ingredients. You're right, it is such a
child as for you. Yeah. Um yeah, I'm I'm always
really proud of myself when I tricked myself into eating
(16:23):
mac and cheese, and I also realized that I've got
like frozen spinach or something, and then that I'm like, yes,
I'm an adult almost kind of sort of see there's
a spinach vegetable is happening. Uhum. We do have a
whole bunch of numbers for you, we do. Okay, So
(16:46):
about a million boxes of Craft macaroni and cheese are
sold a day. Yeah, and when you open that up
to other brands aside from Craft um or I mean
including Craft, it's two million boxes of mac and cheese
a day in the United States alone, or probably more
because that number is from and yes, demand for mac
(17:10):
and cheese has risen with the pandemic somewhere around in
Canada at least, and it is popular in Canada. I
did not know this, where it's called Kraft Dinner r
k D. So good Canada A counselor about of box
(17:31):
macaroni sold a week. It's one point seven million of
seven million per week and that's fifty more than Americans. What, okay, well,
good job. M M. Maybe I'm not doing my part
in this. If I have to eat more mac and cheese,
(17:53):
I will. It is one of the top selling grocery
items in Canada, also popular in the UK, where it's
called macaroni cheese and we're cheesy pasta. And I love
this because this is like I I got the same
feeling reading that as I did when I realized, like
a few years after having originally picked up some of
(18:16):
the Harry Potter books that like, oh that's where creepy
pasta comes from. Oh, spellow tape is because they call
it cello tape over there, okay, right, oh yeah, okay,
I picked up all that either. There you go. When
we were first researching this, I say, as if we
were researching it together because you know, it was I
(18:40):
I was confused by the many articles that just called
it macaroni cheese and at first I thought it wasn't
a typo but now also popular in Black Southern cuisine
and traditions and shapes, SpongeBob is the one that comes
to my mind. Uh yeah, from my from childhood. I'm like,
(19:00):
I'm like, I'm pretty sure there were ninja turtle shapes
or something that it seems likely, but yeah, right now,
um craft offers a pop Patrol shapes, Unicorn shapes, and
a frozen two shapes. Oh oh, I'm sorry I have
seen those. UM. I'm so intrigued by the whole process,
(19:26):
like do you have to make a whole machine? Um?
It's probably a specific die for the machine because um,
as we talked about in our pasta Shape episode. And
if any of y'all, um do listen to The Sportful
You or or follow Dan Pashman on social media. UM
(19:47):
he's doing this ongoing series about his quest to make
his own pasta Shape. And so you've got a lot
of really great content out right now about UM I
just called it content. Heck, that's really industry of me.
I'm sorry. Um, he's got a lot of great material
out right now about how pasta is made and manufactured. Um,
(20:08):
but but so yeah, yeah, the basics of how you
get a pasta shape is that you make the dough
and then you push it through this machine and cut
it off through a die, through a through a shaped
thing like Plato, right, and then you cut it off
with a blade, and that's your pasta shapes. So U
so yeah, I imagine it's you know, not not free
(20:31):
but not too expensive. Okay. I love to be the
person who designed those, and it's like have you seen
my work? And the newest macaroni and cheese frozen too shapes?
That brings me to a philosophical question. Is it still
macaroni and cheese if the pasta is no longer macaroni
(20:55):
in shape? And I was thinking about this when you
were talking about addens to macaroni and cheese, because of
course people add any number of things into macaroni and cheese.
But like, but sort of similar to my feelings about like, well,
if you add more than like two ingredients to like
a grilled cheese sandwich, it's no longer a grilled cheese sandwich.
It's something else and cheese sandwich that has been grilled right.
(21:17):
And and I feel like Americans, especially maybe maybe it's
everywhere play fast and loose with the definition of mac
and cheese. Oh yeah, all kinds of things. I made
mac and cheese cups for our very own D and
D sessions back when we Yeah, and they had I
think they had bacon and maybe mushrooms, and then they
(21:38):
were talked with fresh core yeer. Oh those were good.
They were good. Man. Um yeah, you know, I think
I think it is still mac and cheese without the macaroni.
I think that um as as we will get into
on our history sections, the term macaroni itself has changed
so much over the years and meant so many things.
(22:00):
Macaroni has transcended the macaroni it has, oh deep. And then,
of course maccaroni and Cheese festivals really pushed the lines
of this philosophical question. I have been to one. It
was a lot, it was delicious. Yeah, that sounds like
(22:25):
I think there were twenty eight options. Oh my heck,
yeah that's that. Yeah. Yes, you can't see the face
I'm making, but it's one of intense regret but also pride. Yeah,
both of us just look kind of like worried. It's
a good word for it, um. And there are entire
(22:46):
mac and cheese restaurants, So yes, people have been playing
fast and loose, and clearly people love mac and cheese
and have loved it throughout time. Yes, and we will
get into that history. But first we are going to
take a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(23:14):
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So
as said at the top c R Cheese episodes for
for more context on this one and especially cheese and yes,
but in brief, um, she's making has been around for
thousands of years, possibly an accidental discovery, but certainly a
(23:36):
helpful one in terms of increasing the shelf life of
a protein product like dairy pasta. On the other hand, oh,
people like to debate this one. M but probably originated
in either Japan or China in three thousand five b C.
And traveled with merchants on the Silk Road to the
Middle East and Africa. Um. It was probably introduced by
(24:00):
merchants from these regions to Italy during the seventh century
sea and from there it spread throughout Europe separate episodes,
but you know, yeah, yeah, and extreme brief. In the
extreme brief, the word macaroni is possibly thousands of years old,
going back to when ancient Greeks established Neapolis and what
(24:22):
is now modern day Naples, sometimes between two thousand and
one thousand b c. E. The locals they are made
a dish called macaria, which I really love the sound.
I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, but I
love the sound of how I just pronusted. Maybe maybe
more like macaria or marea. That sounds like the macarina.
(24:43):
That's a different vibe than but you're right, it could be.
It does sound like a fantasy goddess. And it was
poticially named after a Greek goddess. It was a barley
flower pasta cooked with water. However it was pronounced. It
was later corrupted it in Italian to masharoni. Probably again
(25:05):
kind of lost to history, but that word in either
case for a long time at pasta at large is
kind of catch all. But okay. Mac and cheese, Yeah yeah.
The origins of macaroni and cheese are also a bit mysterious.
Some historians suspect it originated in Northern Europe, um that
(25:25):
perhaps Swiss Alpine herders were the originators of this dish,
or the Swiss precursor to it called Alpine herders macaroni,
which was essentially elbow pasta tossed with the local cheese
like a year and you can still get it to
this day um in in Switzerland and northern Europe. And
(25:46):
to me that does sound like mac and cheese. Yeah,
that's it. That's it, right, m Alpine herders that needed
to pack light and dry pasta didn't weigh much um
and they made of cheese themselves, resulting in this fortifying
dish that I am imagining. I can't believe I've never
(26:06):
had mac and cheese while hiking. Um perfect for a
cold and physically taxing environment. The first known recorded recipe
for a macaroni and cheese dish dates back to seventeen
sixty nine. It was from Elizabeth Rafald's book The Experienced Housewife,
with a sauce made of cheddar and bishomil, tossed with
(26:27):
noodles and topped with toasted breadcrumbs and parmesan. Or was
it because it could have been earlier. Some sources point
to a thirteenth century Italian recipe written in Latin, calling
for small two inch or five centimeter squares of sheet
pasta cooked in water and then covered with cheese, possibly
(26:49):
graded parmesan. There were two recipes in this book, in fact,
Macaroni Romaneschi and Macaroni's siciliani. And just a note, the
book that contained these recipes was published in the Italian
speaking area of Switzerland, so kind of maybe gives credence
to that other theory. Um, it seems to once again
(27:09):
come down to how you define macaroni and cheese. Yeah,
I mean, but cheese is good, pasta is good, agreed.
People were probably combining it in in various iterations in
places where both of those things were available. Indeed, if
they were smart, they were. This book also had recipes
(27:32):
for um and methods for making hollow pasta, including wrapping
dough around a stick, but these noodles were typically much
longer than the short elbow macaroni that we think of.
In eighteen sixty one, Mrs Beaton's Book of Household Management
included a recipe for cooked quote pipe shaped pasta topped
(27:54):
with toasted parmesan and or cheshire cheese and bread crumbs.
Being conclaimed that macaroni as a quote favorite food of
Italy and that they quote regarded as a staff of life.
It's that staff. I thought it was a typo and
maybe stuff now share like like like a like a
staff of life, like it like it holds, it holds
(28:16):
life up. Oh, remember the Kale scepter. If I got
a Kale scepter and a macaroni staff and I get an,
I feel like we're designing like a like a suite
of tarot at this point. Oh, I think we might
be oh interesting terrifying food tero powerful? Doesn't it be terrifying?
(28:40):
It could be both? Um. Well, soon after Mrs Beaton
said this, Alexandra Dumas three work grand at Dictionarire de Cuisine,
also claimed that the birthplace of macaroni and cheese was
in fact Italy. He even went on to claim that
Catherine Day Medici was responsible for introducing the dish to
(29:02):
France and neighboring countries in the thirties. However, Dumas himself
was not a fan of baccari and cheese, at least
as the stories go. Um He allegedly called it long
pipes of pity. Wow, we've had a lot of Good
harsh disses on food, and the most recent episodes py
(29:26):
Um and Yeah, as the tail goes. He disliked this
dish so much he got in a fight with Italian
composer Joaquino Rassini, who composed the William tell overture, after
he requested Rossini, a big proponent of maccaroni and cheese,
make the dish for Dumas. But then Dumas refused to
(29:49):
eat it. Wow, that's a low blow. That is like, hey,
would you make me this thing? I don't know if
I like it? Would you make it for me? I'm
not going to eat that. I'm not gonna get that. Wow,
that is salty, Alexander Duma. Holy heck yes. Salty. Pasta
(30:13):
was certainly popular in Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Wheat was affordable, industrialization made pasta production easy, and pasta
itself was filling in a good alternative to meat when
meat was prohibited on various days for the church going
crowds for religious reasons. Um However, there are no records
(30:33):
of hollow pastas in Naples in the fourteenth century, and
from what I read, that's telling because they kept pretty
good records about their pasta's, and a lot of the
Italian recipes from macaroni in the se hundreds were a
bit sweeter and spicier than what we'd expect these days,
featuring ingredients like cinnamon, sugar, and rose water. Meanwhile, the
(30:56):
dish and the alps was far simpler, often just pasta
are cream and cheese. Some seventy one documents from the
archives of a Swiss abbey detailed people using a thread
press machine to make hollow macaroni pasta, and an eighteen
thirty six cookbook from that region included a recipe for
(31:16):
macaroni that called for baking pasta with Parmesan or Swiss
a montal cheese. I didn't know how to look that up.
I always said elemental, and then I realized that it's
definitely not how it's spelled. That's probably not how it's pronounced. Yes,
glad I checked um. Switzerland's first cheese factory opened in
(31:39):
eighteen thirty eight. According to some sources, the first known
commercial production of elbow macaroni did take place in Switzerland
in eighteen seventy two. Now shifting um macaroni and cheese
in America may have evolved from pasta cast roles served
at New England church suppers recipes brought over from England end.
(32:00):
Until the Industrial Revolution made pasta making easier and cheaper,
dishes like this would have been, for the most part
reserved for the upper class. Yeah, and the amount of
milk and butter and cheese that you might put into
a dish like this would also have been cost prohibitive
before the Industrial Revolution. Right. Um. Thomas Jefferson's that guy
(32:24):
gets a lot of credit for injurdiscing back and cheese
to the US, which he definitely didn't. Um. He did
popularize it here after he brought the recipe back from
one of his trips to France or possibly Italy or
probably both, along with a pasta making machine, which was
necessary since yes, this pasta was not available in the US.
(32:47):
Some sort of this commercialized widely available share right Yeah yeah,
Um it was his enslaved chef James Hemmings and other
enslaved folks that cooked it, however, so he's like double,
he doesn't deserve the credit. Um and eight to President
Thomas Jefferson served macaroni and she's at a state dinner,
one attendee if this dinner was not impressed, describing quote
(33:09):
a pie called macaroni which appeared to be a rich
crest filled with the strillions of onions or shells, which
I took it to be tasted very strong and not agreeable.
Not agreeable, not agreeable. Well, I will say that Mary Rudolph,
who who stepped in as the White House hostess after
(33:30):
Jefferson's wife Martha passed away, did include later on when
she she wrote her cookback, The Virginia Housewife, in a
recipe for um uh macaroni and parmesan cheese. Mm hmmm um.
Which brings me to kind of like a side question here,
why all of this parmesan and some of these recipes,
(33:53):
certainly in America parmesan was kind of still is like
a fancy imported she so super super classy, you know. Um.
Some of the first cheese is made in America by
English colonists were cheddars, though um and cheddar would have
been much more available. So this is a mystery of history.
I you know, it's a it's a I haven't looked
(34:16):
deep enough into the availability of different cheeses in America
at the time. It's like right there, it just isn't
it just isn't quite together yet. You know, another cheese
hole for you, Lauren. Many all the time, they never stopped.
You have had You've had multiple sub questions in this episode.
(34:39):
I like it. There's a lot to think about. There
is a lot to think about. One day, return and
think about it further. But meanwhile, mac and cheese was
popular among enslaved people, particularly in the South. It was
sometimes viewed as a celebration or we in food, but
(35:01):
as time went on and after the emancipation, it became
an everyday food. Now stepping back a bit, we talked
about the origins of the macaroni and Yankee doodle dandy.
We talked about it briefly in our Chaps of pasta episode.
But just to go over it real quick because it
is interesting. This song, this tune was pinned several years
(35:27):
before the American Revolution. The first known reference took place
in seventeen sixty seven, and music historians believe a British
Army surgeon named Dr Richard Shackberg wrote it, or at
least part of it. Um Supposedly, it was meant to
mock colonial soldiers who fought alongside the British and also
(35:47):
just to dig to American colonist at large, or basically
not being very cultured or rich. So Macaroni in the
song referred to this highly fashionable group of English use
in the seventeen sixties and seventies. Think like show stopping
(36:07):
wigs and tight clothes and fancy pointed shoes, very striking,
very cash. Yeah, they made a huge impact on fashion
at the time, and apparently their favorite food was macaroni.
I can't blame them for that. So people started calling
them in their movement macaroni or and or macaroni eaters.
(36:31):
So the disc and the song is it's it's not
enough to stick a feather in your cap to be
a macaroni. Yeah, you got it, takes more. Yeah, you
can't just you can't just call anything macaroni. Yeah, you
can't fake that. Americans see through false Macaroni facade. Up
(36:55):
until the opening of America's first cheese factory in eighteen
fifty one, cheese was made on small farms, typically by women,
either a wife of the farmer or cheese made or
an enslaved woman. But with industrialization beginning with the opening
of this Bery cheese factory, men largely took over the
protection of cheese in these industrial spaces, as often happens.
(37:19):
Um processed cheese was invented in nineteen eleven, essentially a multified,
blended pasteurized cheese that drastically increased the shelf life, which
made way for products like Craft singles, Velvita, and eventually
powdered mac and cheese sauce. Uh. This innovation was helpful
in terms of feeding soldiers during war and for others
(37:41):
who didn't have access to refrigeration. Yeah. The U. S.
Military bought twenty five million cans quarter pound cans of
Craft processed cheese during World War One to ship out soldiers.
Dang dang dang, and Americans went all in on this,
says cheese to the point that American cheese did this
(38:02):
day denotes processed cheese. Yeah, which if you talk to
any American cheese makers, makers of cheese who live in America,
they get they get kind of testy about this, and
I can see why. Yeah, I got it. Um. And
then in seven Craft released their boxed macaroni and cheese.
(38:28):
This was during the Great Depression, so the convenience and
the nineteen cents price really caught the national eye. It
was cheap to make, it was easy to ship into store,
it was filling, it was delicious, and it was the
first American product to use processed cheese. Within a year,
eight or nine million boxes were sold. And I couldn't
(38:49):
quite track this down, but I'm nearly positive that these
boxes would have come with small tins of cheese sauce. Yeah,
because the technology for for plastics, for for making the
type of packets that we see today, for for the
wet cheese sauces hadn't been invented yet. Um, and we
were still in a wet sauce stage. I don't know
(39:10):
why that sounds so gross. I apologize. Can you imagine
if they redid like, you know, the Jurassic period, Cretaceous,
it's like dry sauce. What's I thought that sauce? Oh No,
there's so many projects I want to take on after
we do these episodes. That's one. Listeners, get on it.
(39:35):
You can do it. Uh. And this this box mac
and cheese. It's popularity really grew during World War Two,
when rationing limited availability of staples like dairy and meats. Um. Yeah.
World War two did also see the development of cheese
powder for the first time because processed cheese, although shelf stable,
(40:00):
was still heavy um. In this wet era, a branch
of the Army called the Quartermaster Core had been working
with various public and private labs, especially craft Um, to
h to dry and press cheese into a lightweight, nutritious
and tasty dust. Get the water out of there. It's
a lot more lightweight. U. S D. A dairy scientist
(40:22):
George Sanders, is credited with the first successful cheese powder
in and I'm not totally positive when that powder would
have made it into macaroni and cheese boxes, but maybe
it was right away. I'm not sure at any rate.
At any rate, UH sales of mac and cheese increased fivefold.
(40:47):
By some accounts, fifty million boxes were sold in nineteen
forty three alone, or possibly eighty million boxes. I saw
that number floated around. It was a lot of boxes,
lots of boxes. It helped that the company convinced the
US government to sell two boxes for one ration card. Yeah.
(41:08):
Smart Um products like this one also facilitated the ability
of women to enter the workplace in higher numbers. These convenient, quick,
easy meals. But I did want to put in here.
I saw some really sassy international articles that were like, oh,
those Americans can try to claim mac and cheese all
(41:28):
they want with this state with Kraft, but they can't.
And here's x y zeries why, Like we're sorry. Have
you been to Switzerland? Yes? And it's like a really
in depth They're like talking about the goats grazing them mountain.
Wait what okay? Um. In the nineteen fifties, some brands
(41:53):
sold cans of processed cheese um as, specifically macaroni cheese. Oh.
The craft Blue Box of Macaroni and Cheese debuted in
nineteen fifty four. Before that, the box was mostly yellow.
Spiral shaped noodles came out in nineteen five, and Velvita
(42:13):
shells and cheese in nineteen eight four. And then the
friendly Cheesy dinosaur mascot cheese a sourus Rex debuted in nine.
Uh if if y'all missed this blessedly for some reason.
Uh this is this is a bright orange bipedal dinosaur
(42:39):
and he's really into cheese. He's very excited about it.
He likes sings songs about it. He surfs on it
because it was so you can surf on anything. Yeah,
he's very active. Oh sure, yeah, and he was real cool.
He was real cool. His like tagline was like it's
(43:00):
cool to be cheesy. I don't know if he had
a voice. I can't remember. Oh I think he did. Yeah, yeah,
I mean unfortunately, unfortunately, the cool aid man is my
go to voice for nineties commercials. Share so that's what
I hear. But I'm pretty sure he did have a voice. Um, oh, no,
(43:24):
you're right, You're right, because it was all like, it's
the treesiest. Yeah, I think that he said, and Lauren
and I were discussing the fourhand. He really could have
only existed in this specific like been created better to
say this time it's I. I immediately was like, nineties, right,
(43:46):
it's extremely specifically. Yes, yes, And apparently this was his
legit thieve song when he was introduced. When he was
first introduced. Yeah, so I'm not gonna sing it, but
macaroni and cheese, macaroni and cheese. Oh the cheese. It
may be phony, but that's real macaroni in the macaroni
(44:07):
and cheese. So did they just they were just like, yeah,
that cheese is phony, but that mac and that mac
and cheese. We got one going for us. What's up phony? Well,
you know they were just trying. I know, they're just
trying to ride something with macaroni. Look, when I'm trying
to come up with titles, I understand you make certain
(44:28):
compromises and sacrifices that you might not be proud of.
But wow, they leaned all in to the phony Macaroni
and cheese. Um. In later commercials, cheese a source goes
to noodle Town Records a song called Cheese Me and
wins a Grammy made of cheese and just wanted to
(44:49):
say belated congrats on your wind. Mr rex Well deserved Yeah. Yeah.
When um, when he first went gold, he was featured
on the cover of the magazine Rock and Roni. Um,
and congrats on that too. It's something that many of
us aspire to and so few of us actually, uh
make it there. So I believe there were comic books. Um.
(45:11):
I there in the in the commercial in which he
won this cheese Grammy, like he's like singing to a
big audience of macaroni noodles. I recall every now and then, Lauren,
(45:32):
we have such a good delivery of things that you
say something and I'm like, is this a joke, and
then I'm like, what is real life rock ARRONI I
don't know. I don't know. Maybe we're all in a
mac and cheese commercial. I maybe we are. It's you're welcome.
(45:56):
I'm glad I make you doubt the very nature of existence. Yes,
it's going to keep me on my toes. Who do cheeseus? Sorous?
Rex was gonna give me such a perplexing crisis. I
feel like the existential crisis is right there. In a smile,
I feel like there is You're right? U Um, Yeah,
(46:24):
I guess. I guess we need to do more research
into that, sometime, more horrifying, spiraling research. Yes, but we
must know what's up with Jesus source Rex. But all right,
that's for a later date if he has any connections
to the kool aid Man. Yes, let's talk about crafts.
(46:48):
Easy back cups, those things that helped me get through college,
those launched in two thousand and six. And yeah, these
are these are microwavable cups that you uh, you kind
with a little Does it come with a separate little
powder packet that you have to open up an add
in or is it already all in there? I can't
remember now, but anywhere you just add water putting the
(47:11):
microwave on. Yes, I will say not as good quality
as the box, but it does the job. It's very
quick cooking maccaroni, so it's a little bit um uh,
it does. It doesn't have the texture. It's not al dente,
you know. Oh you gotta have your cheese. Um Craft
dropped the artificial yellow dye from their boxed mac and
(47:34):
cheese mix, along with all artificial flavors and preservatives. They
didn't tell anybody for about a year that they done this,
and they called it quote the world's largest blind taste test. Yeah,
and I mean, of course it was in the ingredients
label you if you took the care to read that.
But um, but yeah. I do want to note here
(47:58):
that the term artificial kind of tricksy um. It only
means that a that a given ingredient is like human
made using chemistry, as opposed to natural ingredients, which are
derived from planter, animal or fungal or microbial, etcetera sources. Um. So,
an artificial flavor maybe chemically identical to a natural flavor. Um.
(48:20):
Natural doesn't necessarily mean healthier or more environmentally friendly or
otherwise better in any way necessarily UM. You unfortunately have
to like look at every single case individually, which I
understand is exhausting, but yes, that's often what food science
is made of. Exhaustion, joy and exhaustion. Speaking of um,
(48:46):
in The New York Times published this piece called the
chemicals in your mac and Cheese UM that caused a holster.
It was reporting on a study that was put out
by a bunch of advocacy groups. The study was not
pure viewed or published in a journal about this group
of industrial compounds called talates um showing up in powdered
(49:07):
cheese products. Talates by the way, if you ever, if
you happen to want to google more about this, is
spelled in the most confusing way possible, which is pH
t h A L A T E. And I had
to just stop the podcast recording for a moment to
go look up how the heck to say that, because
that's not a combination of letters. What is though? Anyway?
(49:30):
Talates um. Talates are used in manufacturing plastics UM, and
when those plastics are used in the manufacture or packaging
of food products, they can leach into those foods, especially
foods that contain fats. Like cheese because talates latch onto
fats um and and these compounds are linked to hormone disruption,
(49:52):
which isn't good. Europe has banned the use of most
talits in in uh in making plastics that will come
into contact with food. The U S has not. And
I'm gonna say that like, well, okay, a, your Mac
and Cheese is not the only problem. Like any cheese
product in the United States that has been through a
manufacturing facility that uses plastics, Yes, including like organic or
(50:15):
natural or whatever products UM may contain talits B. I
wouldn't say it's something to worry about too much, UM,
but it is definitely part of the case for choosing
less processed foods when you can yes, yes, well perhaps
not along those same lines, uh Craft Mac and Cheese
(50:41):
held promotion I bet a lot of you remember this,
announcing that the word dinner would be replaced with the
word breakfast on limited edition boxes of their mac and
cheese products. And they released these numbers. I can't remember,
but it was like a quarter of people surveys that
they ate it for breakfast, and so they were trying
to capitalize on that. You know, we eat your Mac
(51:02):
and cheese when you want to eat it. Yeah, yeah,
you do you but yeah, that that I mean, that
was definitely one of those headlines that was like, alright, cool,
corporate America has given up just as much as the
rest of us have breakfast. Yeah, Matt, mac and cheese
for breakfast. Whatever. That's fine, We're fine. Everything's fine here now.
(51:24):
Um And speaking of kind of uh nihilistic marketing campaign excellent.
At the beginning of this year, Craft launched this campaign
involving pink hued candy flavored mac and cheese. They made
(51:44):
a thousand boxes of this stuff, you know, like they're
their normal mac and cheese, but also includes a candy
flavor packet and you could enter a drawing online to
receive one. Though I'm not sure why you would do
other than Pierre curiosity. I feel like, I, uh, you know,
(52:05):
maybe I get the pink die. But when I heard
it was candy flavor, that was what made me stop,
like okay, what right? Because it was kind of for
Valentine's Day and I was like, well, that's sort of cute,
like share like why why orange? Why not beyond pink instead?
That's fine? But then when I was like, wait a minute,
like why yeah, and it's it's certainly this year, as
(52:29):
we've discussed, I feel like companies have kind of gone
all out in odd promotional choices. I can't remember which one,
but it might have been the Panera bread bowl, hands gloves. Oh,
one of my friends, No, it was the ritz Cracker.
It was the huge ritz cracker. That was the cheeseboard.
(52:50):
Oh huh. I texted it out and one of my
friends was like, I tried to get it, but you
have to win it, and like, so these things not
only you can't just get them anyway. Uh yeah. In uh,
there were there were a lot of write ups about
(53:11):
this pink candy flavored mac and cheese. Uh. The one
that um one Jaya sex Ana wrote for Eater included
the line um Craft in an explanation for its crimes,
says love makes people do strange things, which no, love
(53:32):
makes people listen to their partners podcasts. And I and
I felt very seen and kind of personally attacked by that.
So thank you, Jaya, Yes, thank you. That does crack
me up when I hear my friends kind of complaining
(53:53):
about this sort of thing and I'm like silent in
the background. I love an explanation for its crimes. That's
great too, Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a very
it was a very well written dis piece overall distract
in the food world. We a lot of them, a
(54:15):
lot of them coming up. Wow. Well jeez, I feel
like we've uncovered so many more things to say about
macaroni and cheese. But alas, we have to stop at
some point. We do, you know, maybe we can maybe
we can do a sequel, uh, involving all these side quests.
I'm back and cheese in yes, yes, yes, so that
(54:40):
that is what we have to say about mac and
cheese for today. Yes, but we do have some listener
mail for you. But first we have one more quick
brick for a word from our sponsor. And we're back.
(55:01):
Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and we're back with
Cheesy nineties. I don't know I should have. I wish
i'd listen to Cheese Astaurus Rex his hit song before
I attempted this, but I I feel like I feel
(55:22):
like you captured um the emotion anyway, it was beautiful
work of art or finger guns. Yeah, thank you, thank you,
Samantha wrote, I just listened to your Campbell stup episode
and I have a personal connection to this particular topic.
I had to share. A couple of years ago. I
(55:43):
was on a few dating apps. If you haven't used
them before, there ms read absolute show. So to make
the process a little more bearable, I jotted down some
of the gym's I came across in bios and messages
that were sent to me. I would commiserate with my
best friend and it would make us laugh. Two of
the most memorable things that guys opened with were as follows,
(56:06):
what's your favorite kind of soup? From Adam and Damn,
you're really cute. Definitely an eye catcher. Next message like
Campbell's good from Mark nine. Um, luckily? Oh and these
are their ages? Not there the screen names exactly? Um? Luckily.
(56:27):
Between messages like that and the constant bombardment of quotes
from the office, I found my person. Yes, a portion
of his bio was defending his love of zebra print,
and I thought he seemed almost obnoxiously honest. We're celebrating
our two year anniversary in a few days. Oh, that's
that's fascinating, and I'm I'm glad you got out. Yes, yes, congratulations,
(56:54):
that's so such a great story. But yeah, I have
to say, I've I've got a lot of bad pickup
lines in mind, but I don't think I've ever gotten
a soup based pickup line. I'm really trying to think,
uh and I and I also don't think I have.
I would love to know how common they are. I mean,
is this a thing, right right? People right know about
(57:17):
your soup based pickup lines? Yeah, I wonder. I wonder
if okay Cupid is still like really farming, if they
still exist and be if they're still farming all of
their users data and like really using it for like
kind of like social experiments still, because yeah, they had
some reports on like the way people would interact with
(57:38):
each other that we're fascinating. Maybe feel real weird about
having ever been on that website, but but I feel
like I feel like if anyone could tell us, it's
some someone like them, how many super related pickup lines
there are in the world. This is I need to
know unrelated. Iron wrote Your story of having dinner with
(58:02):
the Disney princesses also reminded me of my own Disney
related story. In my family went on a trip to Paris,
and while we were there, we stopped at Euro Disney.
We had a week of delicious food, but the food
in your Disney was overpriced. I'm in a wheelchair, so
me and my sister tried to do all the excess
full rights. Because I was in a wheelchair, we cut
(58:24):
short lines. There was one event we lined up for,
though we weren't really sure what it was. We gradually
saw a long line of little girls and realized it
was the line to see a Disney princess. It was
extremely embarrassing, and I quickly took a picture with the
princess and got out of there. The event is now
known as the Princess Incident. The Princess Isn't it is
(58:46):
a good name. I only got the picture. You know.
I love looking back at the pictures of our our evening.
They're they're very fascinating. It was fascinating is a great
word for it. Yes, because we Yeah, I was like
(59:07):
in my running gear, next aeal, like holding up a
fork like it's a dangle hopper. Like, yeah, like that
was our princess incidation. Yeah. It's been bugging me that
I forgot to mention during this Disney Cinderella's Castle story,
(59:28):
I forgot to mention one of my favorite really surreal
parts was that during the dinner, the way that they
would announce that more princesses were coming to the floor
to circulate and meet you was that they would ring
a giant gong. So this like gong would ring and
princesses would appear, like more and more princesses, and it
was so strong, it was, and and we didn't know
(59:50):
how many were coming. Yeah, and we didn't realize that.
I guess there's this expectation you'll get the pictures. So
we were kind of like, oh, we're good and they
were like no. They're like they're like, no, no, I
need you to take this picture with me. And we
were like okay, jasmin like which we eventually warmed up to,
(01:00:13):
but at first we were just very like like we're chill,
and they were like, no, we're here to make sure.
And I think even I think like even like a
like a one of the wait staff stopped by our
table to like make sure that we were like doing okay.
They were like, hey, we hear from our princesses that
you'ren't like not too into the photos, Like are you
having a bad time? We wanted you to have a
(01:00:35):
good time. Like a dungeon. Else Castle right, I'll take
the photos. It says we could have never been seen again.
It was a good time. It was no, it really was.
(01:00:56):
It was. It was magical. I promise no one forsst
to say that. Um. Thanks so much to both of
those listeners for writing in. If you would like to
write to us, you can. Our email is hello at
savorite pod dot com. We're also on social media. You
can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all three.
(01:01:19):
Our handle is savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts in my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Bogelbaum. And today we're
talking about macaroni and cheese. Yes, I love mac and cheese. Um,
many of you have recommended this one, most recently Meredith,
but I know a b over the over the years,
it's been Legion. There were questions for this episode. The
(00:31):
mac and cheese has been Legion. Yes, and it is
one of my very favorite comfort foods, which is appropriate because, Lauren,
my quarantine anniversary is coming up March thirteen. Oh right, Yeah,
that's right, that's right, and I have a box of
mac and cheese set aside. That's a little bit weird
(00:54):
but beautiful, I feel. That's yes, I will take that. So,
growing up, my siblings and I each had a favorite
type of mac and cheese, which cracks me up, Like
it was all the Kraft mac and cheese, but I
like the shells, and my little brother like shapes. He
thought the cheese got in the crevices more. And then
(01:16):
my older brother was a classic elbow macaronian cheese type. Yeah. Yeah,
it just cracks me up because they're essentially the same
and it's kind of just how your cheese is getting coated.
Feld No, but that's an important part of the texture,
so you know, mm hmmm. I'm glad you can appreciate this. Uh.
(01:41):
And my mom used to make I know a lot
of a lot of you will think this is blasphemous,
but she used to make a fancy summer mac and
cheese and it had fancy summer mac and cheese. It
was a summer yeah. No, that's please continue, I need
(02:01):
to know. Yes, so it was. It was kind of
like those spiralized elbow pasta okay, um, zucchini, squashed tomatoes, onions,
and spicy peppers. But like with like the craft packet
more like was it made with a different cheese sauce.
I believe it was velvita. Oh okay, okay, yeah, that
(02:27):
was a good day whenever she made that. Yeah. Uh.
And those single serving mac and cheese cups, those were
a staple of my college years in Ramen, which I've
through researching this I've learned is very common in the
United States college experience. Yeah yeah, those Uh I was
I was just out of college when they debuted those
(02:49):
those cups. But for sure, Ramen was a staple of
my diet MHM, which I still love. I still love raman.
Oh yeah, oh god. I feel so lucky that that
I didn't have mac and cheese cups available to me. Yeah. Um.
And I really strongly remember how mac and cheese was
(03:11):
the first thing I was able to stomach after I
had the swine flu. I remember this so viscerally, and
it was the box stuff, but it was so warm,
it was so savory, so comforting, Oh my gosh, delicious.
And also twice when I was sort of homesick and
living abroad, and two separate instances, a friend made me
(03:35):
what they called it American dinner, which included things like
peanut butter pizza, spaghetti, and mac and cheese. I'm still
delighted by this every time I hear about it, Like,
I'm very confused, but very delighted. Yes, I love I
love the spaghetti and pizza. As we've talked about, like
(03:56):
the origin it's not so American, but that's what both
these people thought. And you know, I just gotta put
it in here. It always bumps me out. In the
film Home Alone, okay, when Kevin makes the mac and
cheese and then doesn't get to eat it. He's so
meticulous in his planning of his traps. He's got his
(04:17):
well drawn out maps, and then he knows they're coming
at nine pm, and he puts the back and cheese
down right at nine What you gotta plan it around
of your back and cheese better than that, I'm sorry.
Don't treat it like an afterthought, Kevin, geez, come on, Kevin,
(04:37):
he said a prayer over it. Yeah, it's a glass
of milk. I'm getting angry. I this is not a
detail that I recall from the Home Alone film, but
I am I am glad that you have brought it
to light. It is a travesty and it's not talked
(04:58):
about enough. I think it's I think we can all
learn something here. Prioritize yourself. I mean, yes, creating deadly
traps for for for harmless burglars um, but but also
make sure you're make sure you're you're got self care. Yeah,
(05:20):
you gotta feed yourself mac and cheese. Yeah, and he
went to a lot of trouble to get that mac
and cheese all right anyway? Yeah? Yeah, Mac and cheese
is also one of my very favorite foods. It's something
that if I'm like and and this is like like
like not to like bring the party down, but like
I have days sometimes when I'm like, I can't eat food?
(05:42):
Why all the time? Every day more than once a
day do we have to eat food? I'm a food podcaster.
I know, I it's ridiculous, but you know, but I
just get so in my head and sad that I'm
just like I don't want to eat, but I can
usually trick myself into eating mac and cheese. So yeah,
and it's I try not to do this. It is.
(06:04):
It is something I recognize in myself where I get
annoyed with picky people. I know that's a problem of mine,
but if people like I have a good friend and
she told me she doesn't care for mac and cheese.
She didn't say she didn't like it, she didn't care
for it, And like I had to tamp down on
the immediate like anger. I felt like that. I was like,
(06:26):
I like stepped back. What we took it? You took
it personally. I did. And my dad always say, he
used to say, don't tip, don't take it personally, but
I did. I did. We were at a food event
where you share dishes, so it was kind of a
you know, we were compromising. Oh oh yeah, oh so
(06:48):
you know that then it is personal. Yeah, that's why
I don't think I would have been as shaken otherwise.
But I was like, wait, we're not gonna I just
assumed that was an automatic Yeah, Mac and che right,
sure of course. Well, well, when in the incredible future
we are able to to hang out at the kind
(07:09):
of event where we have to share dishes again, I
I promise Annie, I will always be your backup on
the Mac and cheese, Yes, cheese back up. And we've
talked around mac and cheese and craft specifically a lot.
Some episodes that come to mind are our fifty Shapes
(07:30):
of Pasta episode in our Chitter episode Processed Cheese and Caeso,
But today we are not talking about those things have
plenty in the backlog if you want to get into it.
But this brings us to our question, yes, mac and cheese,
(07:53):
what is it? Well? Mac and cheese is a dish
made up of a pasta in a cheese sauce, served warm.
The pasta can vary, the cheese sauce can vary, the
cooking methods can vary. I would say that there are
two kind of like based varietals of mac and cheese. Um.
You've got the type that you make on the stovetop
(08:15):
or in the microwave from a package that contains dried
noodles in a packet of like cheese sauce or cheese
sauce starter. Um. And then you have the second type
that you make on the stovetop and or in the
oven by cooking noodles and making your own cheese sauce.
And there can be overlap. There's a little bit of
(08:35):
a genetic confusion, I would say in between these for sure.
Like the mac and cheese that my dad made for
dinner when I was a kid was not prepackaged, but
it was like he would just like make rottini and
take like a jar of cheese whizz, like pasteurized processed
cheese food product, and like just scoop the cheese whiz
onto the cooked pasta like maybe some butter, maybe some
(08:58):
butter on there to like help he's the sauce. But um,
but yeah, that was it. Cheese cheese was Yeah. That
that was his preferred brand over like a block of
velveta or something like that. Yeah, uh not not the
(09:18):
kind that comes like in a spray can. It wasn't
like a spray can. That's probably what you're thinking of.
It was. It was analogous to a block of velvita. Okay, yeah,
got it. If you are making, however, the cheese sauce
from scratch um, there are I mean, any number of
ways to accomplish that. But the sort of traditional is
(09:39):
by making a more ne sauce, which is the French
way of saying a thick, creamy cheese sauce. So you
start by making a rue, which is a flower plus fat,
usually butter cooked start breaking down the flour. Then you
add milk to make a bechamel um, which is nice
and creamy, and then add cheese to make it a
more ne, which is a thicker and richer. And as
(10:00):
we've talked about in nachos and cas so, achieving a
truly smooth incorporated cheese sauce can be difficult because many
cheeses don't melt completely evenly, but rather that the fats
and the other stuff will separate out and make sauces
go kind of oily and lumpy. Um. So it's sort
of a hack, as with nachos and case so you
can add some specialized ingredients that help emulsify the mixture,
(10:24):
make it, make it nice and nice and even um
like sodium citrate and yeah. Different recipes for mac and
cheese may include um, some some cheese added to the top,
or like really like a lot of extra mixed into
the sauce. Um, you can. You can do it with
all kinds of cheeses. Hypothetically, I think orange cheddar is
(10:47):
perhaps the one that we all think of when we
think of mac and cheese, although morena is usually a
white sauce. But this brings us to my sub question
to our question, which is why is the packaged stuff
often so violently orange? Tell me why, Lauren um. We
(11:10):
discussed this in detail on our Cheddar episode, but essentially
the answer is cheese fraught in the sixteen hundreds. Done. Yeah,
And this this happened because, uh, you know, when you
when you age at cheddar, um, it becomes yellow to
(11:33):
orange over time because molecules of beta carotene are are
released over time, and that beta carotene gets in there
when the cows that provided the milk that made the
cheese were being fed fresh grass or we're grazing on
fresh grass. I guess you don't like usually take a
handful and feed into a cow at any rate. Um. Yeah,
(11:55):
So this color was considered a mark of quality in
letters in the six undreds in England, and all of
a sudden people figured out that they could die their
cheese yellow to make it look like it was higher quality.
M h. And and it just kind of snowballed from there,
(12:17):
like we still I don't I don't know, I don't
know why violently orange. It cracks me up because in
the weird strange way of history, now, if I see
too mac and cheeses side by side, I'm going to assume,
right or wrongly, that the fancier, nicer, higher quality one
(12:39):
is the one that is not the orange color. This
is the flip. Why that all started? Yeah, because you
because you know that it's just food. Die if it's
if it's orange, there's no reason for it to be orange.
But yeah, I am, I have I have a kind
(13:00):
of a bad reaction to a natto, which is one
of the natural colorings that they used to make products
that color orange. Um, so I always go for the
white cheddar ones. Yeah, I love them so good, Oh
so good, so good. But yes, if you are not
making your own sauce. These packages can come in a
(13:22):
couple of different sub varieties. There's your powdered cheese variety,
to which you generally have to add an ingredient or two.
At home, it's like usually recommended that you add some
some milk or some butter to kind of make make
the sauce all all nice and creamy and come together.
You can just use water though most of the time,
and then you've got the type that come with with
(13:44):
usually these days little packets, little like a milar foil
plastic packets of ready ready cheese cheese. You don't need
to add anything to it's so gooey. Oh it's so good.
Yes it doesn't. It doesn't entirely taste like cheese, but
it tastes like dreams. It tastes like dreams. You know,
(14:09):
I don't even know what kind I picked out, So
I'm excited to see. Yeah, I was just you know,
I was trying to get out of there as quick
as possible, so I'm to get it into the cart
so I shall see. I'm sure it's good. Oh my gosh.
Now I'm overwhelmed with intense curiosity and concern that is
(14:32):
not back in cheese. Oh dear, well, I'll face that
after this podcast recording. Uh, let's talk about the nutrition. Okay,
it highly depends on what variety end ingredients you are
talking about here. Um, but you know, cheese is a
(14:53):
calorie dense food. That's rather the idea. Um, pasta tends
to contain a lot of carbs without having a lot
of five or and and mac and cheese tends to
be a heavily salted dish. Um. Processed cheeses tend to
be less calorie dense, but also less nutrient dense and
usually a little bit even more salt. Here. I mean,
mac and cheese is gonna fill you up and help
(15:16):
keep you going. I would say that if you're having
a type made from unprocessed cheeses, uh, you know, homemade sauce,
probably watch your serving size. Uh, eat a vegetable. Um.
And if you are having a processed cheese type, still
watch your serving size and neat a vegetable, but also
consider balancing with like a little bit of extra protein. Oh.
(15:40):
See what I'm gonna have to do because I'm at
the end of my grocery cycle is all I have
left is the mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and lima beans.
So that's no, that sounds that us. That honestly sounds great.
I mean you know, like like that sounds like a
(16:01):
terrific meal to me. It does. I think it's not
what you would typically put together perhaps, but it's gonna work,
and I'm excited. I feel like there has to be
like a like a Swanson's Kids meal out there that
has exactly those ingredients. You're right, it is such a
child as for you. Yeah. Um yeah, I'm I'm always
really proud of myself when I tricked myself into eating
(16:23):
mac and cheese, and I also realized that I've got
like frozen spinach or something, and then that I'm like, yes,
I'm an adult almost kind of sort of see there's
a spinach vegetable is happening. Uhum. We do have a
whole bunch of numbers for you, we do. Okay, So
(16:46):
about a million boxes of Craft macaroni and cheese are
sold a day. Yeah, and when you open that up
to other brands aside from Craft um or I mean
including Craft, it's two million boxes of mac and cheese
a day in the United States alone, or probably more
because that number is from and yes, demand for mac
(17:10):
and cheese has risen with the pandemic somewhere around in
Canada at least, and it is popular in Canada. I
did not know this, where it's called Kraft Dinner r
k D. So good Canada A counselor about of box
(17:31):
macaroni sold a week. It's one point seven million of
seven million per week and that's fifty more than Americans. What, okay, well,
good job. M M. Maybe I'm not doing my part
in this. If I have to eat more mac and cheese,
(17:53):
I will. It is one of the top selling grocery
items in Canada, also popular in the UK, where it's
called macaroni cheese and we're cheesy pasta. And I love
this because this is like I I got the same
feeling reading that as I did when I realized, like
a few years after having originally picked up some of
(18:16):
the Harry Potter books that like, oh that's where creepy
pasta comes from. Oh, spellow tape is because they call
it cello tape over there, okay, right, oh yeah, okay,
I picked up all that either. There you go. When
we were first researching this, I say, as if we
were researching it together because you know, it was I
(18:40):
I was confused by the many articles that just called
it macaroni cheese and at first I thought it wasn't
a typo but now also popular in Black Southern cuisine
and traditions and shapes, SpongeBob is the one that comes
to my mind. Uh yeah, from my from childhood. I'm like,
(19:00):
I'm like, I'm pretty sure there were ninja turtle shapes
or something that it seems likely, but yeah, right now,
um craft offers a pop Patrol shapes, Unicorn shapes, and
a frozen two shapes. Oh oh, I'm sorry I have
seen those. UM. I'm so intrigued by the whole process,
(19:26):
like do you have to make a whole machine? Um?
It's probably a specific die for the machine because um,
as we talked about in our pasta Shape episode. And
if any of y'all, um do listen to The Sportful
You or or follow Dan Pashman on social media. UM
(19:47):
he's doing this ongoing series about his quest to make
his own pasta Shape. And so you've got a lot
of really great content out right now about UM I
just called it content. Heck, that's really industry of me.
I'm sorry. Um, he's got a lot of great material
out right now about how pasta is made and manufactured. Um,
(20:08):
but but so yeah, yeah, the basics of how you
get a pasta shape is that you make the dough
and then you push it through this machine and cut
it off through a die, through a through a shaped
thing like Plato, right, and then you cut it off
with a blade, and that's your pasta shapes. So U
so yeah, I imagine it's you know, not not free
(20:31):
but not too expensive. Okay. I love to be the
person who designed those, and it's like have you seen
my work? And the newest macaroni and cheese frozen too shapes?
That brings me to a philosophical question. Is it still
macaroni and cheese if the pasta is no longer macaroni
(20:55):
in shape? And I was thinking about this when you
were talking about addens to macaroni and cheese, because of
course people add any number of things into macaroni and cheese.
But like, but sort of similar to my feelings about like, well,
if you add more than like two ingredients to like
a grilled cheese sandwich, it's no longer a grilled cheese sandwich.
It's something else and cheese sandwich that has been grilled right.
(21:17):
And and I feel like Americans, especially maybe maybe it's
everywhere play fast and loose with the definition of mac
and cheese. Oh yeah, all kinds of things. I made
mac and cheese cups for our very own D and
D sessions back when we Yeah, and they had I
think they had bacon and maybe mushrooms, and then they
(21:38):
were talked with fresh core yeer. Oh those were good.
They were good. Man. Um yeah, you know, I think
I think it is still mac and cheese without the macaroni.
I think that um as as we will get into
on our history sections, the term macaroni itself has changed
so much over the years and meant so many things.
(22:00):
Macaroni has transcended the macaroni it has, oh deep. And then,
of course maccaroni and Cheese festivals really pushed the lines
of this philosophical question. I have been to one. It
was a lot, it was delicious. Yeah, that sounds like
(22:25):
I think there were twenty eight options. Oh my heck,
yeah that's that. Yeah. Yes, you can't see the face
I'm making, but it's one of intense regret but also pride. Yeah,
both of us just look kind of like worried. It's
a good word for it, um. And there are entire
(22:46):
mac and cheese restaurants, So yes, people have been playing
fast and loose, and clearly people love mac and cheese
and have loved it throughout time. Yes, and we will
get into that history. But first we are going to
take a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(23:14):
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So
as said at the top c R Cheese episodes for
for more context on this one and especially cheese and yes,
but in brief, um, she's making has been around for
thousands of years, possibly an accidental discovery, but certainly a
(23:36):
helpful one in terms of increasing the shelf life of
a protein product like dairy pasta. On the other hand, oh,
people like to debate this one. M but probably originated
in either Japan or China in three thousand five b C.
And traveled with merchants on the Silk Road to the
Middle East and Africa. Um. It was probably introduced by
(24:00):
merchants from these regions to Italy during the seventh century
sea and from there it spread throughout Europe separate episodes,
but you know, yeah, yeah, and extreme brief. In the
extreme brief, the word macaroni is possibly thousands of years old,
going back to when ancient Greeks established Neapolis and what
(24:22):
is now modern day Naples, sometimes between two thousand and
one thousand b c. E. The locals they are made
a dish called macaria, which I really love the sound.
I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, but I
love the sound of how I just pronusted. Maybe maybe
more like macaria or marea. That sounds like the macarina.
(24:43):
That's a different vibe than but you're right, it could be.
It does sound like a fantasy goddess. And it was
poticially named after a Greek goddess. It was a barley
flower pasta cooked with water. However it was pronounced. It
was later corrupted it in Italian to masharoni. Probably again
(25:05):
kind of lost to history, but that word in either
case for a long time at pasta at large is
kind of catch all. But okay. Mac and cheese, Yeah yeah.
The origins of macaroni and cheese are also a bit mysterious.
Some historians suspect it originated in Northern Europe, um that
(25:25):
perhaps Swiss Alpine herders were the originators of this dish,
or the Swiss precursor to it called Alpine herders macaroni,
which was essentially elbow pasta tossed with the local cheese
like a year and you can still get it to
this day um in in Switzerland and northern Europe. And
(25:46):
to me that does sound like mac and cheese. Yeah,
that's it. That's it, right, m Alpine herders that needed
to pack light and dry pasta didn't weigh much um
and they made of cheese themselves, resulting in this fortifying
dish that I am imagining. I can't believe I've never
(26:06):
had mac and cheese while hiking. Um perfect for a
cold and physically taxing environment. The first known recorded recipe
for a macaroni and cheese dish dates back to seventeen
sixty nine. It was from Elizabeth Rafald's book The Experienced Housewife,
with a sauce made of cheddar and bishomil, tossed with
(26:27):
noodles and topped with toasted breadcrumbs and parmesan. Or was
it because it could have been earlier. Some sources point
to a thirteenth century Italian recipe written in Latin, calling
for small two inch or five centimeter squares of sheet
pasta cooked in water and then covered with cheese, possibly
(26:49):
graded parmesan. There were two recipes in this book, in fact,
Macaroni Romaneschi and Macaroni's siciliani. And just a note, the
book that contained these recipes was published in the Italian
speaking area of Switzerland, so kind of maybe gives credence
to that other theory. Um, it seems to once again
(27:09):
come down to how you define macaroni and cheese. Yeah,
I mean, but cheese is good, pasta is good, agreed.
People were probably combining it in in various iterations in
places where both of those things were available. Indeed, if
they were smart, they were. This book also had recipes
(27:32):
for um and methods for making hollow pasta, including wrapping
dough around a stick, but these noodles were typically much
longer than the short elbow macaroni that we think of.
In eighteen sixty one, Mrs Beaton's Book of Household Management
included a recipe for cooked quote pipe shaped pasta topped
(27:54):
with toasted parmesan and or cheshire cheese and bread crumbs.
Being conclaimed that macaroni as a quote favorite food of
Italy and that they quote regarded as a staff of life.
It's that staff. I thought it was a typo and
maybe stuff now share like like like a like a
staff of life, like it like it holds, it holds
(28:16):
life up. Oh, remember the Kale scepter. If I got
a Kale scepter and a macaroni staff and I get an,
I feel like we're designing like a like a suite
of tarot at this point. Oh, I think we might
be oh interesting terrifying food tero powerful? Doesn't it be terrifying?
(28:40):
It could be both? Um. Well, soon after Mrs Beaton
said this, Alexandra Dumas three work grand at Dictionarire de Cuisine,
also claimed that the birthplace of macaroni and cheese was
in fact Italy. He even went on to claim that
Catherine Day Medici was responsible for introducing the dish to
(29:02):
France and neighboring countries in the thirties. However, Dumas himself
was not a fan of baccari and cheese, at least
as the stories go. Um He allegedly called it long
pipes of pity. Wow, we've had a lot of Good
harsh disses on food, and the most recent episodes py
(29:26):
Um and Yeah, as the tail goes. He disliked this
dish so much he got in a fight with Italian
composer Joaquino Rassini, who composed the William tell overture, after
he requested Rossini, a big proponent of maccaroni and cheese,
make the dish for Dumas. But then Dumas refused to
(29:49):
eat it. Wow, that's a low blow. That is like, hey,
would you make me this thing? I don't know if
I like it? Would you make it for me? I'm
not going to eat that. I'm not gonna get that. Wow,
that is salty, Alexander Duma. Holy heck yes. Salty. Pasta
(30:13):
was certainly popular in Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Wheat was affordable, industrialization made pasta production easy, and pasta
itself was filling in a good alternative to meat when
meat was prohibited on various days for the church going
crowds for religious reasons. Um However, there are no records
(30:33):
of hollow pastas in Naples in the fourteenth century, and
from what I read, that's telling because they kept pretty
good records about their pasta's, and a lot of the
Italian recipes from macaroni in the se hundreds were a
bit sweeter and spicier than what we'd expect these days,
featuring ingredients like cinnamon, sugar, and rose water. Meanwhile, the
(30:56):
dish and the alps was far simpler, often just pasta
are cream and cheese. Some seventy one documents from the
archives of a Swiss abbey detailed people using a thread
press machine to make hollow macaroni pasta, and an eighteen
thirty six cookbook from that region included a recipe for
(31:16):
macaroni that called for baking pasta with Parmesan or Swiss
a montal cheese. I didn't know how to look that up.
I always said elemental, and then I realized that it's
definitely not how it's spelled. That's probably not how it's pronounced. Yes,
glad I checked um. Switzerland's first cheese factory opened in
(31:39):
eighteen thirty eight. According to some sources, the first known
commercial production of elbow macaroni did take place in Switzerland
in eighteen seventy two. Now shifting um macaroni and cheese
in America may have evolved from pasta cast roles served
at New England church suppers recipes brought over from England end.
(32:00):
Until the Industrial Revolution made pasta making easier and cheaper,
dishes like this would have been, for the most part
reserved for the upper class. Yeah, and the amount of
milk and butter and cheese that you might put into
a dish like this would also have been cost prohibitive
before the Industrial Revolution. Right. Um. Thomas Jefferson's that guy
(32:24):
gets a lot of credit for injurdiscing back and cheese
to the US, which he definitely didn't. Um. He did
popularize it here after he brought the recipe back from
one of his trips to France or possibly Italy or
probably both, along with a pasta making machine, which was
necessary since yes, this pasta was not available in the US.
(32:47):
Some sort of this commercialized widely available share right Yeah yeah,
Um it was his enslaved chef James Hemmings and other
enslaved folks that cooked it, however, so he's like double,
he doesn't deserve the credit. Um and eight to President
Thomas Jefferson served macaroni and she's at a state dinner,
one attendee if this dinner was not impressed, describing quote
(33:09):
a pie called macaroni which appeared to be a rich
crest filled with the strillions of onions or shells, which
I took it to be tasted very strong and not agreeable.
Not agreeable, not agreeable. Well, I will say that Mary Rudolph,
who who stepped in as the White House hostess after
(33:30):
Jefferson's wife Martha passed away, did include later on when
she she wrote her cookback, The Virginia Housewife, in a
recipe for um uh macaroni and parmesan cheese. Mm hmmm um.
Which brings me to kind of like a side question here,
why all of this parmesan and some of these recipes,
(33:53):
certainly in America parmesan was kind of still is like
a fancy imported she so super super classy, you know. Um.
Some of the first cheese is made in America by
English colonists were cheddars, though um and cheddar would have
been much more available. So this is a mystery of history.
I you know, it's a it's a I haven't looked
(34:16):
deep enough into the availability of different cheeses in America
at the time. It's like right there, it just isn't
it just isn't quite together yet. You know, another cheese
hole for you, Lauren. Many all the time, they never stopped.
You have had You've had multiple sub questions in this episode.
(34:39):
I like it. There's a lot to think about. There
is a lot to think about. One day, return and
think about it further. But meanwhile, mac and cheese was
popular among enslaved people, particularly in the South. It was
sometimes viewed as a celebration or we in food, but
(35:01):
as time went on and after the emancipation, it became
an everyday food. Now stepping back a bit, we talked
about the origins of the macaroni and Yankee doodle dandy.
We talked about it briefly in our Chaps of pasta episode.
But just to go over it real quick because it
is interesting. This song, this tune was pinned several years
(35:27):
before the American Revolution. The first known reference took place
in seventeen sixty seven, and music historians believe a British
Army surgeon named Dr Richard Shackberg wrote it, or at
least part of it. Um Supposedly, it was meant to
mock colonial soldiers who fought alongside the British and also
(35:47):
just to dig to American colonist at large, or basically
not being very cultured or rich. So Macaroni in the
song referred to this highly fashionable group of English use
in the seventeen sixties and seventies. Think like show stopping
(36:07):
wigs and tight clothes and fancy pointed shoes, very striking,
very cash. Yeah, they made a huge impact on fashion
at the time, and apparently their favorite food was macaroni.
I can't blame them for that. So people started calling
them in their movement macaroni or and or macaroni eaters.
(36:31):
So the disc and the song is it's it's not
enough to stick a feather in your cap to be
a macaroni. Yeah, you got it, takes more. Yeah, you
can't just you can't just call anything macaroni. Yeah, you
can't fake that. Americans see through false Macaroni facade. Up
(36:55):
until the opening of America's first cheese factory in eighteen
fifty one, cheese was made on small farms, typically by women,
either a wife of the farmer or cheese made or
an enslaved woman. But with industrialization beginning with the opening
of this Bery cheese factory, men largely took over the
protection of cheese in these industrial spaces, as often happens.
(37:19):
Um processed cheese was invented in nineteen eleven, essentially a multified,
blended pasteurized cheese that drastically increased the shelf life, which
made way for products like Craft singles, Velvita, and eventually
powdered mac and cheese sauce. Uh. This innovation was helpful
in terms of feeding soldiers during war and for others
(37:41):
who didn't have access to refrigeration. Yeah. The U. S.
Military bought twenty five million cans quarter pound cans of
Craft processed cheese during World War One to ship out soldiers.
Dang dang dang, and Americans went all in on this,
says cheese to the point that American cheese did this
(38:02):
day denotes processed cheese. Yeah, which if you talk to
any American cheese makers, makers of cheese who live in America,
they get they get kind of testy about this, and
I can see why. Yeah, I got it. Um. And
then in seven Craft released their boxed macaroni and cheese.
(38:28):
This was during the Great Depression, so the convenience and
the nineteen cents price really caught the national eye. It
was cheap to make, it was easy to ship into store,
it was filling, it was delicious, and it was the
first American product to use processed cheese. Within a year,
eight or nine million boxes were sold. And I couldn't
(38:49):
quite track this down, but I'm nearly positive that these
boxes would have come with small tins of cheese sauce. Yeah,
because the technology for for plastics, for for making the
type of packets that we see today, for for the
wet cheese sauces hadn't been invented yet. Um, and we
were still in a wet sauce stage. I don't know
(39:10):
why that sounds so gross. I apologize. Can you imagine
if they redid like, you know, the Jurassic period, Cretaceous,
it's like dry sauce. What's I thought that sauce? Oh No,
there's so many projects I want to take on after
we do these episodes. That's one. Listeners, get on it.
(39:35):
You can do it. Uh. And this this box mac
and cheese. It's popularity really grew during World War Two,
when rationing limited availability of staples like dairy and meats. Um. Yeah.
World War two did also see the development of cheese
powder for the first time because processed cheese, although shelf stable,
(40:00):
was still heavy um. In this wet era, a branch
of the Army called the Quartermaster Core had been working
with various public and private labs, especially craft Um, to
h to dry and press cheese into a lightweight, nutritious
and tasty dust. Get the water out of there. It's
a lot more lightweight. U. S D. A dairy scientist
(40:22):
George Sanders, is credited with the first successful cheese powder
in and I'm not totally positive when that powder would
have made it into macaroni and cheese boxes, but maybe
it was right away. I'm not sure at any rate.
At any rate, UH sales of mac and cheese increased fivefold.
(40:47):
By some accounts, fifty million boxes were sold in nineteen
forty three alone, or possibly eighty million boxes. I saw
that number floated around. It was a lot of boxes,
lots of boxes. It helped that the company convinced the
US government to sell two boxes for one ration card. Yeah.
(41:08):
Smart Um products like this one also facilitated the ability
of women to enter the workplace in higher numbers. These convenient, quick,
easy meals. But I did want to put in here.
I saw some really sassy international articles that were like, oh,
those Americans can try to claim mac and cheese all
(41:28):
they want with this state with Kraft, but they can't.
And here's x y zeries why, Like we're sorry. Have
you been to Switzerland? Yes? And it's like a really
in depth They're like talking about the goats grazing them mountain.
Wait what okay? Um. In the nineteen fifties, some brands
(41:53):
sold cans of processed cheese um as, specifically macaroni cheese. Oh.
The craft Blue Box of Macaroni and Cheese debuted in
nineteen fifty four. Before that, the box was mostly yellow.
Spiral shaped noodles came out in nineteen five, and Velvita
(42:13):
shells and cheese in nineteen eight four. And then the
friendly Cheesy dinosaur mascot cheese a sourus Rex debuted in nine.
Uh if if y'all missed this blessedly for some reason.
Uh this is this is a bright orange bipedal dinosaur
(42:39):
and he's really into cheese. He's very excited about it.
He likes sings songs about it. He surfs on it
because it was so you can surf on anything. Yeah,
he's very active. Oh sure, yeah, and he was real cool.
He was real cool. His like tagline was like it's
(43:00):
cool to be cheesy. I don't know if he had
a voice. I can't remember. Oh I think he did. Yeah, yeah,
I mean unfortunately, unfortunately, the cool aid man is my
go to voice for nineties commercials. Share so that's what
I hear. But I'm pretty sure he did have a voice. Um, oh, no,
(43:24):
you're right, You're right, because it was all like, it's
the treesiest. Yeah, I think that he said, and Lauren
and I were discussing the fourhand. He really could have
only existed in this specific like been created better to
say this time it's I. I immediately was like, nineties, right,
(43:46):
it's extremely specifically. Yes, yes, And apparently this was his
legit thieve song when he was introduced. When he was
first introduced. Yeah, so I'm not gonna sing it, but
macaroni and cheese, macaroni and cheese. Oh the cheese. It
may be phony, but that's real macaroni in the macaroni
(44:07):
and cheese. So did they just they were just like, yeah,
that cheese is phony, but that mac and that mac
and cheese. We got one going for us. What's up phony? Well,
you know they were just trying. I know, they're just
trying to ride something with macaroni. Look, when I'm trying
to come up with titles, I understand you make certain
(44:28):
compromises and sacrifices that you might not be proud of.
But wow, they leaned all in to the phony Macaroni
and cheese. Um. In later commercials, cheese a source goes
to noodle Town Records a song called Cheese Me and
wins a Grammy made of cheese and just wanted to
(44:49):
say belated congrats on your wind. Mr rex Well deserved Yeah. Yeah.
When um, when he first went gold, he was featured
on the cover of the magazine Rock and Roni. Um,
and congrats on that too. It's something that many of
us aspire to and so few of us actually, uh
make it there. So I believe there were comic books. Um.
(45:11):
I there in the in the commercial in which he
won this cheese Grammy, like he's like singing to a
big audience of macaroni noodles. I recall every now and then, Lauren,
(45:32):
we have such a good delivery of things that you
say something and I'm like, is this a joke, and
then I'm like, what is real life rock ARRONI I
don't know. I don't know. Maybe we're all in a
mac and cheese commercial. I maybe we are. It's you're welcome.
(45:56):
I'm glad I make you doubt the very nature of existence. Yes,
it's going to keep me on my toes. Who do cheeseus? Sorous?
Rex was gonna give me such a perplexing crisis. I
feel like the existential crisis is right there. In a smile,
I feel like there is You're right? U Um, Yeah,
(46:24):
I guess. I guess we need to do more research
into that, sometime, more horrifying, spiraling research. Yes, but we
must know what's up with Jesus source Rex. But all right,
that's for a later date if he has any connections
to the kool aid Man. Yes, let's talk about crafts.
(46:48):
Easy back cups, those things that helped me get through college,
those launched in two thousand and six. And yeah, these
are these are microwavable cups that you uh, you kind
with a little Does it come with a separate little
powder packet that you have to open up an add
in or is it already all in there? I can't
remember now, but anywhere you just add water putting the
(47:11):
microwave on. Yes, I will say not as good quality
as the box, but it does the job. It's very
quick cooking maccaroni, so it's a little bit um uh,
it does. It doesn't have the texture. It's not al dente,
you know. Oh you gotta have your cheese. Um Craft
dropped the artificial yellow dye from their boxed mac and
(47:34):
cheese mix, along with all artificial flavors and preservatives. They
didn't tell anybody for about a year that they done this,
and they called it quote the world's largest blind taste test. Yeah,
and I mean, of course it was in the ingredients
label you if you took the care to read that.
But um, but yeah. I do want to note here
(47:58):
that the term artificial kind of tricksy um. It only
means that a that a given ingredient is like human
made using chemistry, as opposed to natural ingredients, which are
derived from planter, animal or fungal or microbial, etcetera sources. Um. So,
an artificial flavor maybe chemically identical to a natural flavor. Um.
(48:20):
Natural doesn't necessarily mean healthier or more environmentally friendly or
otherwise better in any way necessarily UM. You unfortunately have
to like look at every single case individually, which I
understand is exhausting, but yes, that's often what food science
is made of. Exhaustion, joy and exhaustion. Speaking of um,
(48:46):
in The New York Times published this piece called the
chemicals in your mac and Cheese UM that caused a holster.
It was reporting on a study that was put out
by a bunch of advocacy groups. The study was not
pure viewed or published in a journal about this group
of industrial compounds called talates um showing up in powdered
(49:07):
cheese products. Talates by the way, if you ever, if
you happen to want to google more about this, is
spelled in the most confusing way possible, which is pH
t h A L A T E. And I had
to just stop the podcast recording for a moment to
go look up how the heck to say that, because
that's not a combination of letters. What is though? Anyway?
(49:30):
Talates um. Talates are used in manufacturing plastics UM, and
when those plastics are used in the manufacture or packaging
of food products, they can leach into those foods, especially
foods that contain fats. Like cheese because talates latch onto
fats um and and these compounds are linked to hormone disruption,
(49:52):
which isn't good. Europe has banned the use of most
talits in in uh in making plastics that will come
into contact with food. The U S has not. And
I'm gonna say that like, well, okay, a, your Mac
and Cheese is not the only problem. Like any cheese
product in the United States that has been through a
manufacturing facility that uses plastics, Yes, including like organic or
(50:15):
natural or whatever products UM may contain talits B. I
wouldn't say it's something to worry about too much, UM,
but it is definitely part of the case for choosing
less processed foods when you can yes, yes, well perhaps
not along those same lines, uh Craft Mac and Cheese
(50:41):
held promotion I bet a lot of you remember this,
announcing that the word dinner would be replaced with the
word breakfast on limited edition boxes of their mac and
cheese products. And they released these numbers. I can't remember,
but it was like a quarter of people surveys that
they ate it for breakfast, and so they were trying
to capitalize on that. You know, we eat your Mac
(51:02):
and cheese when you want to eat it. Yeah, yeah,
you do you but yeah, that that I mean, that
was definitely one of those headlines that was like, alright, cool,
corporate America has given up just as much as the
rest of us have breakfast. Yeah, Matt, mac and cheese
for breakfast. Whatever. That's fine, We're fine. Everything's fine here now.
(51:24):
Um And speaking of kind of uh nihilistic marketing campaign excellent.
At the beginning of this year, Craft launched this campaign
involving pink hued candy flavored mac and cheese. They made
(51:44):
a thousand boxes of this stuff, you know, like they're
their normal mac and cheese, but also includes a candy
flavor packet and you could enter a drawing online to
receive one. Though I'm not sure why you would do
other than Pierre curiosity. I feel like, I, uh, you know,
(52:05):
maybe I get the pink die. But when I heard
it was candy flavor, that was what made me stop,
like okay, what right? Because it was kind of for
Valentine's Day and I was like, well, that's sort of cute,
like share like why why orange? Why not beyond pink instead?
That's fine? But then when I was like, wait a minute,
like why yeah, and it's it's certainly this year, as
(52:29):
we've discussed, I feel like companies have kind of gone
all out in odd promotional choices. I can't remember which one,
but it might have been the Panera bread bowl, hands gloves. Oh,
one of my friends, No, it was the ritz Cracker.
It was the huge ritz cracker. That was the cheeseboard.
(52:50):
Oh huh. I texted it out and one of my
friends was like, I tried to get it, but you
have to win it, and like, so these things not
only you can't just get them anyway. Uh yeah. In uh,
there were there were a lot of write ups about
(53:11):
this pink candy flavored mac and cheese. Uh. The one
that um one Jaya sex Ana wrote for Eater included
the line um Craft in an explanation for its crimes,
says love makes people do strange things, which no, love
(53:32):
makes people listen to their partners podcasts. And I and
I felt very seen and kind of personally attacked by that.
So thank you, Jaya, Yes, thank you. That does crack
me up when I hear my friends kind of complaining
(53:53):
about this sort of thing and I'm like silent in
the background. I love an explanation for its crimes. That's
great too, Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a very
it was a very well written dis piece overall distract
in the food world. We a lot of them, a
(54:15):
lot of them coming up. Wow. Well jeez, I feel
like we've uncovered so many more things to say about
macaroni and cheese. But alas, we have to stop at
some point. We do, you know, maybe we can maybe
we can do a sequel, uh, involving all these side quests.
I'm back and cheese in yes, yes, yes, so that
(54:40):
that is what we have to say about mac and
cheese for today. Yes, but we do have some listener
mail for you. But first we have one more quick
brick for a word from our sponsor. And we're back.
(55:01):
Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and we're back with
Cheesy nineties. I don't know I should have. I wish
i'd listen to Cheese Astaurus Rex his hit song before
I attempted this, but I I feel like I feel
(55:22):
like you captured um the emotion anyway, it was beautiful
work of art or finger guns. Yeah, thank you, thank you,
Samantha wrote, I just listened to your Campbell stup episode
and I have a personal connection to this particular topic.
I had to share. A couple of years ago. I
(55:43):
was on a few dating apps. If you haven't used
them before, there ms read absolute show. So to make
the process a little more bearable, I jotted down some
of the gym's I came across in bios and messages
that were sent to me. I would commiserate with my
best friend and it would make us laugh. Two of
the most memorable things that guys opened with were as follows,
(56:06):
what's your favorite kind of soup? From Adam and Damn,
you're really cute. Definitely an eye catcher. Next message like
Campbell's good from Mark nine. Um, luckily? Oh and these
are their ages? Not there the screen names exactly? Um? Luckily.
(56:27):
Between messages like that and the constant bombardment of quotes
from the office, I found my person. Yes, a portion
of his bio was defending his love of zebra print,
and I thought he seemed almost obnoxiously honest. We're celebrating
our two year anniversary in a few days. Oh, that's
that's fascinating, and I'm I'm glad you got out. Yes, yes, congratulations,
(56:54):
that's so such a great story. But yeah, I have
to say, I've I've got a lot of bad pickup
lines in mind, but I don't think I've ever gotten
a soup based pickup line. I'm really trying to think,
uh and I and I also don't think I have.
I would love to know how common they are. I mean,
is this a thing, right right? People right know about
(57:17):
your soup based pickup lines? Yeah, I wonder. I wonder
if okay Cupid is still like really farming, if they
still exist and be if they're still farming all of
their users data and like really using it for like
kind of like social experiments still, because yeah, they had
some reports on like the way people would interact with
(57:38):
each other that we're fascinating. Maybe feel real weird about
having ever been on that website, but but I feel
like I feel like if anyone could tell us, it's
some someone like them, how many super related pickup lines
there are in the world. This is I need to
know unrelated. Iron wrote Your story of having dinner with
(58:02):
the Disney princesses also reminded me of my own Disney
related story. In my family went on a trip to Paris,
and while we were there, we stopped at Euro Disney.
We had a week of delicious food, but the food
in your Disney was overpriced. I'm in a wheelchair, so
me and my sister tried to do all the excess
full rights. Because I was in a wheelchair, we cut
(58:24):
short lines. There was one event we lined up for,
though we weren't really sure what it was. We gradually
saw a long line of little girls and realized it
was the line to see a Disney princess. It was
extremely embarrassing, and I quickly took a picture with the
princess and got out of there. The event is now
known as the Princess Incident. The Princess Isn't it is
(58:46):
a good name. I only got the picture. You know.
I love looking back at the pictures of our our evening.
They're they're very fascinating. It was fascinating is a great
word for it. Yes, because we Yeah, I was like
(59:07):
in my running gear, next aeal, like holding up a
fork like it's a dangle hopper. Like, yeah, like that
was our princess incidation. Yeah. It's been bugging me that
I forgot to mention during this Disney Cinderella's Castle story,
(59:28):
I forgot to mention one of my favorite really surreal
parts was that during the dinner, the way that they
would announce that more princesses were coming to the floor
to circulate and meet you was that they would ring
a giant gong. So this like gong would ring and
princesses would appear, like more and more princesses, and it
was so strong, it was, and and we didn't know
(59:50):
how many were coming. Yeah, and we didn't realize that.
I guess there's this expectation you'll get the pictures. So
we were kind of like, oh, we're good and they
were like no. They're like they're like, no, no, I
need you to take this picture with me. And we
were like okay, jasmin like which we eventually warmed up to,
(01:00:13):
but at first we were just very like like we're chill,
and they were like, no, we're here to make sure.
And I think even I think like even like a
like a one of the wait staff stopped by our
table to like make sure that we were like doing okay.
They were like, hey, we hear from our princesses that
you'ren't like not too into the photos, Like are you
having a bad time? We wanted you to have a
(01:00:35):
good time. Like a dungeon. Else Castle right, I'll take
the photos. It says we could have never been seen again.
It was a good time. It was no, it really was.
(01:00:56):
It was. It was magical. I promise no one forsst
to say that. Um. Thanks so much to both of
those listeners for writing in. If you would like to
write to us, you can. Our email is hello at
savorite pod dot com. We're also on social media. You
can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all three.
(01:01:19):
Our handle is savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts in my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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