![]() Although not in a cookbook, we also get the first mention of macaroni in 1279 from the inventory of the belongings of a deceased military officer. In these books, the pasta is again layered with cheese and respectively called lasanis and lasagne, the latter purposefully fat-laden for maximum comfort. Both of the anonymous cookbooks from as early as the 13th century, Liber de coquina and Libro della cocina, contain a recipe for a layered pasta and cheese dish, suggesting that the dish had been carried on straight through from antiquity and the Middle Ages. Surviving the Dark AgesĪfter Cato, the written record of the pasta-and-cheese combination falls off the radar, because centuries pass before we have another surviving cookbook in Italian. Festive recipes like these became inextricably linked with the taste of pasta and cheese and thus became embedded in the collective memory as a marker of culinary identity. It was made with layers of cheese packed between stacked sheets of whole grain dough. “Placenta” (pronounced with a hard c) is one of those. ![]() In it, he included a few recipes for ritual gatherings and holidays that bring together what could be construed as pasta and fresh cheese. The earliest mention that we have of pasta and cheese being joined together dates back as far as 160 BCE, when Marcus Porcius Cato, ultraconservative senator of the then Roman Republic, wrote his treatise on running a vast country estate, De Agri Cultura. When it comes to macaroni and cheese history, we’ve got a lot more unpacking to do. But that tidy origin story is just an example of a gastromyth-a food-related tall tale that snowballed as it’s been told to new generations. A Budweiser ad from 1948 shows an illustration of Jefferson himself, serving plates of freshly made pasta to fellow forefathers. Often, Hemings is left out of the story completely and Jefferson alone is the protagonist. Jefferson not only financed the lavish crash course in gastronomy but smuggled a pasta machine back from Naples so that Hemings could introduce macaroni and cheese to the elite families of the American South. The most famous version of the story goes like this: Thomas Jefferson brought an enslaved James Hemings to France to study culinary arts. But how did a combination of cheese and pasta-two European cultural exports-become one of America’s best-known staples? A top layer of grated cheese, browned to a golden crust, will add the final irresistible allure to this quintessentially American dish. The voluptuous, squishy sound of walking barefoot through mud promises success. As you stir, the plump elbows surrender to the thick, creamy orange cheese sauce. You’re making up a macaroni and cheese casserole for the neighborhood potluck.
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