While original homemade recipes include pasta, butter or cream, and Parmesan cheese, American cooks often improvised, using cheddar, Colby or more affordable processed cheese, and spices like nutmeg and mustard. In that year alone, 8 million boxes were sold, and the popularity of Kraft dinners continues today. Called "the housewife's best friend, a nourishing one pot meal," it was a fast, filling and inexpensive way to feed a family.
Of course, Kraft Foods introduced the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner in 1937, at the end of the Great Depression. He taught the recipe to his brother Peter Hemmings, who later served "pie called macaroni" at a state dinner hosted by Jefferson at the White House, introducing mac and cheese to America's elite.Įventually, Mary Rudolph, who took over hostess duties at the White House when Jefferson's wife died, included a macaroni recipe that with Parmesan cheese in her 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia Housewife." Hemmings learned French cooking techniques while in Europe with Jefferson before he was president, and when they returned to the states, Hemming put his own spin on macaroni and cheese. But it was Jefferson's enslaved Black chef James Hemmings who perfected the recipe. It is possible that he helped popularize macaroni and cheese, though, because he likely served it to dinner guests while president. Jefferson wasn't the first to introduce macaroni (with or without cheese) to America, nor did he invent the recipe. The dish was primarily reserved for the upper classes until the Industrial Revolution made pasta production easier.Īmateur historians have often credited Thomas Jefferson with introducing macaroni and cheese to the United States. In colonial America, casserole 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. From then on, macaroni and cheese grew in popularity across Europe.
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