Macaroni & Breakfast
And other items to enjoy
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Speaking of which, I’m deeply interested in trying these two breakfasts:
Image: Envisioning the American Dream
And Called It Macaroni
It is often said that Thomas Jefferson brought macaroni and cheese to America. This is obviously absurd - for one thing, if anyone in Jefferson’s family was responsible for the dish arriving in the U.S., it was his brother-in-law James Hemings.
But another point that sticks in my craw is this: what we call macaroni and what people in the late 18th/early 19th century called macaroni are not the same. Alexandre Dumas called macaroni “long pipes of pity” (he did not care for it); a guest at Monticello wrote that he mistook the pasta for “strillions of onions.” In fact, the often-noted macaroni press that Jefferson had shipped to Virginia from Naples was actually a mold for long, thin pasta. You know, spaghetti. In Italian, “maccheroni” was a catch-all term for a number of dried pastas. Jefferson and his cohort didn’t know that they could get more specific.
Even today, in the U.S., “macaroni product” covers about a dozen types of Italian noodles. What we call macaroni - elbow pasta - probably originated in what is now Switzerland (totally different culinary culture than Naples), and was most often used in soups. A lot of people claim to know who invented macaroni and cheese as we know it, and when, but it’s too much of a mash-up of western European ingredients and techniques to pinpoint. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter. But Thomas Jefferson is not part of the story.
Food-Related Laffs:
Munya!
More Food Reading:
A little explainer on ramyeon, plus some tips on how best to enjoy it.
Some background on the explosion of food writers going independent (like me!) and publishing their own newsletter, videos, etc. With some quotes from Smart Mouth friend Max Falkowitz of Fire Escape Bonsai.
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