Southern style macaroni and cheese is more than a side dish. It’s a cultural tradition. This one is extra cheesy, dreamy, and has a kick.
“To understand the evolution of macaroni and cheese is to realize that pursuit of the ‘cheapest protein possible’ has been a longstanding quest of the American food system.” – Gordon Edgar, Smithsonian Magazine
Macaroni and cheese is an all-American comfort food dish that comes in as many varieties as there are home cooks. The varieties are one of those matters that you just have to have an opinion on, and one where your choices might get you in hot water with someone who disagrees. Should it be baked or made stovetop? Is it a casserole? Do you prepare it with a custard or just cheese? Fancy cheese or just cheddar – or even processed cheese? Is it a side or an entrée? Is it for holidays or is it a “struggle meal”? You probably had immediate answers to each of these as you read them. My answers used to be strictly stovetop, cheddar, entrée, and decidedly not holiday-special. But my parents are from New York.
Whether we think of the dish as part of our holiday tables or part of a budget meal, there’s a consistent thread between the two: it can stretch a dollar, whether that’s to feed a crowd or an individual. This is perhaps most represented by the introduction of processed cheese. When Gordon Edgar, self-described cheese monger, served as a judge at a macaroni and cheese contest in San Francisco, he learned some home truths about the public’s preferences. While the judges chose a winner who used aged Vermont cheddar, the audience’s favorite used Velveeta. “Was it a hoax?” He wondered, “A working-class prank against elitism in food? Was this contest rigged by Kraft?” Actually, the chef had decided to make the best dish he could using the cheapest protein possible – an American food tradition, if there ever was one.
Processed cheese was invented over 100 years ago, in 1911, surprisingly in Switzerland. It’s cheese that’s emulsified and cooked, making it less perishable. The process also stops it from being a “living food” because it no longer changes with age. Velveeta was created in 1918, one of the innovations in this genre, like Kraft Singles, Easy Cheese, and Powdered “cheese” “sauces.” Velvetta is technically a “dairy-based processed food – with 22 ingredients – but it isn’t regulated as a cheese. As Edgar notes himself, the point of Velveeta and the origins of real cheese are actually the same – to “get as much edible food from a gallon of milk as possible.” In other words, cheese was invented to stave off milk’s natural aging process. In a way, processed cheese is a natural progression.
The other story of processed cheese in the macaroni world is the invention of a powdered packet found in a blue box, Kraft’s macaroni and cheese. It was introduced in 1937 – eight years into The Great Depression, with two more to go. It boasted that it could feed four people for 19 cents. And it paid off for them – they sold eight million boxes in a year. Their success continued through WWII when rationing meant fresh meat and dairy were hard to come by. As Rhodes writes in Smithsonian Magazine, it’s now a “standard incarnation” of the dish, and alongside Ramen noodle packets, emblematic of “college student cuisine.”
Before macaroni and cheese could regionally diversify, before it could have the option of processed cheese many years after its invention, it had to get to the shores of the United States. It’s generally agreed the first combination of pasta and cheese was eaten by royals in 14th century Italy. One of the oldest Italian medieval cookbooks, Liber de Coquina, includes a recipe called “de lasanis,” sheet noodles cut into squares and sprinkled with grated cheese. By the late 14th century, the idea had made its way to English royalty in the style of a layered lasagna-like dish. Thomas Jefferson is largely credited for bringing the dish to the U.S. in the 1700’s. On a trip to Europe, he fell in love with the dish and commissioned a macaroni extruder to be shipped by boat to Virginia so he could re-create it at home. Perhaps better phrasing is that he would have the dish recreated.
While Jefferson (and sometimes his daughter) is credited with the creation of American macaroni and cheese, he merely requested it be made for him by one of his enslaved servants. His head chef at Monticello was a man named James Hemings, the younger brother of Sally Hemings, and the half-brother of Martha Jefferson. (You’re reading that correctly – Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law fathered Hemings with an enslaved woman, just as Jefferson would father children with Sally Hemings; and yes, that makes Sally Hemings Martha Jefferson’s half-sister.) In the Spring of 1783, Jefferson arranged for Hemings to study under a French chef in Annapolis and would eventually send him to more training at the “Chateau de Chantilly,” an elite kitchen in France. The enslaved chefs of America’s plantations had a profound hand in creating American cuisine, including the adaption of European macaroni and cheese to what we know today. However, the same way that enslaved people and their labor was invisible to their masters, their innovations are invisible in history.
Jefferson held legal ownership of over 600 people in his lifetime. He freed two while he was alive, and five in his will after his death. James Hemings was one of the individuals freed after Jefferson’s death, on the condition that he teach his recipes to a still-enslaved person, his brother, Peter. As Tara Okwemba writes in The History of Slavery in the Cultivation of Mac & Cheese, an untold story of American cuisine is the passed down recipes of enslaved people.
As Food Historian Adrian Miller writing for Culture: The Word on Cheese, has explained, macaroni and cheese has “multiple identities” in Black American communities. In times of need, the pasta and processed cheese some families received as government assistance could be made into a satisfying quick meal. And in prosperous times, rich custardy casseroles graced Sunday tables. As Okwemba said, macaroni and cheese is a “sacred and unifying dish” in Black communities. Writing for the Charlotte Observer, Kathleen Purvis remarks on the racial divide of the dish. She says, “In Black culture, for the most part, macaroni and cheese is the pinnacle, the highest culinary accolade. Who makes it, how it’s made and who’s allowed to bring it to a gathering involves negotiation, tradition and tacit understanding.” A boxed version, she adds, would be like “stabbing your grandmother in the heart.” Generally for Whites, the dish is satisfying but not very special, and seeing it on a holiday table would be “as out of place as ripped blue jeans in church.”
I’d say it’s pretty expected for macaroni and cheese to be a holiday side dish in most White Southern families too. Though this is likely because of the influence of Black culture on all Southern traditions. I recall a phone conversation years ago with my parents, Floridians by way of New York, where I was filling them in on the dishes I was planning for my first year hosting Thanksgiving dinner. I remember their confusion, “macaroni and cheese? … never heard of that [being served for a holiday dinner.]” In acclimating to viewing macaroni and cheese as a holiday dish, I also acclimated my go-to recipe to a more soul food version of macaroni and cheese than the version I grew up with. This divide is the one Purvis highlights as the difference between “Becky’s Mac & Cheese” and “Your Mama’s Mac & Cheese.” So this is not the recipe I grew up with, but it’s the recipe I learned when I wanted to produce a real Southern Mac & Cheese.
Southern Mac & Cheese
Course: SidesDifficulty: Easy8-12
servings40
minutes40
minutesIngredients
- Pasta-Cheese Mixture
8 oz elbow macaroni
1 cup extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup Colby cheese, shredded
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
4 TBSP butter, cubed
4 TBSP cream cheese, cubed
8 oz American cheese, cubed [see Note 1]
- Custard-Spice Mixture
1 1/2 cups buttermilk [see Note 2]
1/3 cup half & half
2 TBSP sour cream
1 egg
1/2 TBSP seasoned salt
1/2 TBSP freshly cracked black pepper
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/2 tsp cajun seasoning
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
a dash of ground cloves
1/2 tsp paprika (for topping - not part of spice mixture)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare your pan. I always use my 7 x 11 glass pyrex. You can use a larger rectangular pan - this will make it thinner and it won't need to cook as long, or you can use a smaller coverage 8x8 pan. Grease your pan so it's waiting for you.
- Grate your cheeses (cheddar, Colby, and Jack) and combine together in a large bowl. Remove about half of the shredded cheese to a separate bowl; save for topping at the end.
- Cut your butter, cream cheese, and American cheese into cubes. Add to large bowl with remaining shredded cheddar, Colby, and Jack.
- Prepare macaroni according to box directions, choosing the "al dente" method. Remember, the pasta will continue to cook in the oven.
- After draining the pasta, immediately place hot noodles into large bowl with cheese, butter, and cream cheese. Mix to combine. The cheese will begin to melt. It doesn't have to be completely combined, but allow cheese to mostly melt into pasta. Move mixture to prepared dish.
- Make the custard: whisk together the buttermilk, half & half, sour cream, egg, and all seasonings except paprika. Beat until totally combined, with no streaks of egg.
- Sprinkle on a thin layer of cheese, then pour the custard over it The liquid should come just to the top of the noodles. Sprinkle on another layer of cheese, then paprika.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until browned to your liking. Let sit for at least 10 minutes before serving. I’m for real: let it sit. At LEAST ten minutes!
Notes
- Note 1: You can swap the American cheese and cream cheese for 8 oz of Velveeta (cubed)
- Note 2: You can swap the buttermilk for 12 oz evaporated milk
