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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcas, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcas, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H