Who Invented Macaroni and Cheese?

People like pasta and people like cheese, so is there a single origin story for mac and cheese? Learn how this dish was developed in today's episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbam here. Macaroni and cheese may
well be the ultimate comfort food. A warm bowl of
starchy pasta and melted cheese has the potential to make
everything right with the world. So who came up with
the idea to combine elbow macaroni with creamy cheese to

(00:25):
create this simple, yet perfectly complimentary concoction. Although noodles trace
back to ancient China and the surrounding areas circa b c.
And cheese was developed even earlier in various places where
humans kept milk producing animals. Mac and cheese itself has
roots in Italy. An Italian cookbook from the thirteenth century

(00:47):
called the liberd Coquina or Book of Cooking, includes a
recipe that historians believe is the first macaroni and cheese recipe.
This recipe calls for sheet pasta cut into two inch
or five cimeter squares, cooked in water, and then tossed
with grated cheese, likely parmesan. If you're thinking that that
doesn't sound much like the milty mac and cheese we

(01:09):
know today, you're right, and for that the earliest examples
maybe from the Swiss Alps. A couple of centuries later.
The first known recorded recipe for what we would currently
call macaroni and cheese dates back to seventeen sixty nine.
It appeared in Elizabeth Raffold's book The Experienced Housewife and
consisted of cheddar cheese melted into a thick bechamel sauce,

(01:31):
tossed with noodles and topped with toasted bread crumbs and parmesan.
But wherever they came from, pasta and cheese dishes grew
in popularity across Europe. In Colonial America, castrole dishes similar
to today's mac and cheese were served at New England
church suppers, where they probably originated from receipts or recipes

(01:51):
passed along from English relatives. The dish was primarily reserved
for the upper classes until the Industrial Revolution made both
pasta and cheese easier to produce and thus cheaper. But
Thomas Jefferson sometimes gets credit for introducing macaroni and cheese
to the United States, which he did not, but he

(02:12):
did help make it popular. He dined on the dish
during his time in Italy, and he loved it so
much that he brought back a pasta maker with him
to the United States and had his enslaved. Black chef
James Hemmings served the dish at his dinners, including at
the White House in eighteen o two. Mary Rudolph, who
took over hostess duties at the White House when Jefferson's
wife died, included a macaroni recipe with parmesan cheese in

(02:35):
her eighteen four cookbook The Virginia Housewife. Craft Foods introduced
the Craft Macaroni and Cheese dinner in seven, at the
end of the Great Depression. After research during World War
One created shelf stable pasteurized process cheese. The Craft dinner,
called the housewife's best Friend and nourishing one pot meal,

(02:56):
was a fast, filling and inexpensive way to feed a family.
In that year alone, eight million boxes were sold. World
War two saw the development of powdered cheese, making craft
dinners even less expensive and more popular. American cooks making
their own homemade cheesy pasta often improvise using cheddar, Colby

(03:16):
or yes, the more affordable process cheese and spices like
nutmeg and mustard. Today, gourmet versions call for a variety
of cheeses including grey Air, Smoked Gooda, and Goat, plus
adens like bacon, tomatoes, shalats, and more. So the answer
to today's question is that no single cook can really
lay claim to the original macaroni and cheese recipe, but

(03:39):
we can all lay claim for our own favorite. Today's
episode was written by Marie Willsey and produced by Tyler Clain.
For more on this and lots of other cheesy topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a
production of iHeart Radio. Or more podcasts in my heart Radio,
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(04:00):
listen to your favorite shows. H