National Mac and Cheese Day- July 14th

 How much we love food days, especially food days that contain macaroni and cheese 😊.

Macaroni and cheese, or "Mac & Cheese", is a dish that contains cooked macaroni and cheese sauce, usually cheddar cheese. The dish can contain additional ingredients like meat, vegetables and bread crumbs but the necessary ingredient is the cheese sauce.

Originally, the macaroni and cheese were prepared as an oven-baked pastry. But you can also cook or get the Mac & Cheese as a packaged dish, fry in a pan or heat in a saucepan.

The sauce that accompanies the macaroni is the Mornay Sauce (French: Sauce Mornay), which is a  béchamel sauce in which shredded or grated cheese is added. Add salt and spices such as black pepper and nutmeg to the sauce.

Mac & Cheese is considered in the United States and Canada as a comfort food, a food that usually contains a high amount of carbohydrates and fats that are eaten to encourage mentally.

The history of the Mac and Cheese

As early as the 14th century there is a record of pasta dishes with cheese in the Italian cookbook, Liber de Coquina, where a dish of pasta and parmesan was presented. In the Middle Ages, a dish of fresh, hand-cut pasta appeared that was incorporated into a mixture of melted butter and cheese in the English cookbook The Forme of Cury.

The first modern recipe for macaroni and cheese is included in Elizabeth Raffald book from 1770, The Experienced English Housekeeper. Raffald's recipe is for Béchamel sauce with cheddar cheese - a French-cooked Mornay sauce - mixed with macaroni, with scattered parmesan baked until bubbling and golden.

The Experienced English Housekeeper

Macaroni and cheese became a popular dish in Britain during the 1920s in both fast food and upscale restaurants.

In the United States, President Thomas Jefferson and his slave chef, James Hemings, met macaroni and cheese in Paris and returned with the recipe to Monticello, Jefferson's mansion. Jefferson was so fond of the pasta with the cheese, that he made detailed notes on the preparation process. In 1793 he asked the US Ambassador to France William Short to buy him a pasta machine but apparently the machine did not fit, as he later imported both macaroni and Parmesan cheese to Monticello. In 1802 Jefferson served "macaroni pie" at a state dinner Since then, baked macaroni and cheese have become a popular dish in the US among the upper class.

In the mid-1980s, Western U.S. cookbooks included recipes for macaroni and cheese dishes. Factory production of the main ingredients made the dish affordable, and the recipes made it accessible. But as mac and cheese became a popular dish in popular cuisine, it lost the attraction of the upper class.

Mac & cheese came to Canada by British immigrants who came from other parts of the British Empire. Mac and cheeses are very popular in contemporary Canada. The most popular brand of macaroni and cheese packages is Kraft Dinner. Mac & Cheese is seen as the national dish of Canada, before Poutine (a dish of potatoes, cheese and sauce found in Quebec). It is said that Canadians eat more mac and cheese than anywhere else in the world.

How to celebrate Mac & Cheese Day?

Of course the way to celebrate Mac & Cheese is to eat a good meal of macaroni with cheese. You can make your own recipe from home or make it from a package.

A pack of Mac & Cheese - just warm and serve! (source)

If you're vegan, no problem - there's also a pack of vegan Mac & Cheese on the iHerb website that Vegans recommend at.

Vegan Mac & Cheese (link)

July 14 is also SpongeBob's Birthday