I love me the boxed Kraft Mac n cheese, though i’m acutely aware that making the real thing isn’t hard. However when i make mine i also add milk and cheese, sometimes i’ll add some saved bacon grease because i make bad life choices lol. I also like to add veggies and i tell myself its healthier.
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Looks like it hasn’t changed much.
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i’ll also add to the chorus about the Townsend’s catalog – such great stuff. i have the cap he’s wearing in this video, too. i wear it sleeping in winter, because my bald noggin gets chilly, haha. i’m surprised they don’t mention Thomas Jefferson’s connection to mac & cheese… i read somewhere that he was largely responsible for making it popular here, serving it at dinner to visiting dignitaries and such. his recipe is very similar to the one in the video, too.
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How did I not know about this? More things I need to watch. Sigh.
According to the video, this came from a London cookbook. A London home had a much smaller kitchen, usually, than a country home, and cookbooks reflect that. in a city home’s kitchen, there was a lot of time and space management to be done, and if you can have a kitchen maid/boy do a quick-n-dirty roux in a tossing pan at the last minute rather than taking up a burner to do a proper sauce, the cook can spend more time on the fiddly stuff. Besides, it’s foreign, so no one really knows what it’s supposed to properly taste like. Having it served at all is the point.
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The thing I love about the catalog is that a lot of the contents are – although authentic to the 17th or 18th century – frequently perfectly useful, and not even in an affected way. I’ve got a few things from them in my kitchen. Not sure you can find a cheaper hand-forged-in-the-US kitchen knife.
I also have a “I put nutmeg on my nutmeg” tee shirt, but that’s a different story.
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yes! i’ve been coveting the ceramic jar that says “LEECHES” on it for our kitchen for some time, but i really want to get a couple coats, a hat, and some spats patterns first. priorities, and all that.
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What a fascinating video. Usually I strongly prefer transcripts, but I made an exception for this one and I’m glad I did. Looking forward to seeing more videos from Townsends.
Also, obligatory BNL mention here. Can’t help but think of them whenever Mac 'n Cheese comes up.
I’ve actually really wanted to make that since i love mushrooms. Have you tried it?
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A while back I read the “Adventures of Ibn Butatta,” a modern-prose translation of “The Riylah of Ibn Butatta.” It’s a travelogue by a Islamic scholar / adventurer, who made it to Indonesia and possibly China going on a thousand years ago.
At one point he’s traveling through northern India, possibly in the Himalayas. And the party he’s with has, for dinner, macaroni. No word on what sauce they used.
Pasta has been around a long time!
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I’ve never made it, but my wife bought me some of the bottled stuff, which is delicious! It’s not thick like modern ketchup – more like an incredibly savory and palatable (and also vegetarian) Worcestershire sauce.
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That was my impression of it watching the video. And i believe one can save the solid food stuffs after making the sauce and dry it, and it can be used as a seasoning as well.
What a savage you are, jealousy is writhing through me.
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A beurre manie, even.
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Yeah, somehow they created a lazy beurre manie - they didn’t even mix the two. (Or maybe they did, but that wasn’t conveyed in the recipe? Those old recipes are vague as hell.)
Its rather difficult to make a good Mac and Cheese using the bechamel method. Sauce tends to get grainy or break.
Patti Labelle has it right. Custard based sauce.
So basically alfredo sauce.
No time to watch the video but in answer to the question:
How did they make macaroni and cheese back in the 18th century before powdered cheese packets became a thing?
Maybe in the 18th century Americans were still making recognisably real cheese?
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Discard the butt? Are you insane?
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