A Culinary Dream

~ Clarissa

Folks, do you know what I really want to try?

Mac and cheese. 

It’s a part of life that escaped me completely, and I’m insanely curious what it tastes like. But it’s only ever served on kid menus so I never get a chance. 

So I’ll make one out of a box, for a more complete cultural experiment. 

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Published by Clarissa

23 thoughts on “A Culinary Dream”

    1. Seriously, I saw your post on twitter and came rushing to the blog hoping to warn you in time not to commit this act of culinary sacrilege.

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      2. “to warn you in time not to commit this act of culinary sacrilege.”

        Hey, if you’re a Catholic of any stripe (Pope Francis’ enlightened Western version [“I love queers, almost”], or the Eastern Orthodox type [“Putin is clearly the savior of Eastern Europe”], or the South American variety [“Viva la Revolution, as long as it’s socialist and anti-American”], then you’re undoubtedly guilty of some sacrilege for not being radical enough, and so are definitely going to Hell, anyway .

        So you might as well enjoy the available American culinary delights along the way. Add some scattered bits of ground beef to your macaroni and cheese recipe — and you’ll taste Heaven along the trail before the flames of Hell overwhelm your damned soul.

        Klara and N will probably be spared your fate , since neither your daughter nor your husband are responsible for your mortal sins of the palate.

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  2. The first time should be all-American out of the Kraft brand box. After that, there’s time for fancier, homemade versions. I like homemade with smoked Gouda.

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  3. There are no Boston Markets or KFCs or just southern barbeque or soul food places in your area? No “New American” places either? Of course the fancy places put things like lobster and crab meat in it.

    If you’re going to make it from a box, if they ask you to use milk and butter, use it.
    My mother would just skip that step and use water to mix with the Kraft cheese packet, which meant it had to be eaten promptly or it would dry up.

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      1. The cheese in the cheese packet isn’t really cheese. You shouldn’t think too much about what it really is.

        Boxed mac and cheese has its place, but you should also try some from scratch recipes, there are many different ones using all sorts of cheeses.

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  4. What were you doing in Canada? I thought Kraft Dinner was to Canadian cuisine what borsht is to Ukrainian? Or is Kraft Dinner subordinated to poutine in Quebec so it’s the anglophone Canadian national food?

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  5. Well, if you MUST go the box route, know that it’s made just up the road from you. The cheese mines are right under the giant Kraft factory here in C-U. Or at least, that’s what we tell the kids.

    If you want to try something closer to homemade, the Mac n’ cheese at Cracker Barrel is pretty good. Or sneak into a church potluck. My kids actually prefer the box stuff, probably as a result of having grown up with it.

    I didn’t grow up with it at all. My father hated it, regarded it (as a result of growing up during the Depression) as “poor people’s food,” the stuff you eat when you can’t afford anything else. So we never had it and it wasn’t until
    I got to college that I learned about the boxes. A roommate would vary it by using a can of tomato or mushroom soup on occasion instead of butter and milk, making it a larder staple.

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  6. You’re probably going to find it inedible because of the salt. The mac and cheese at Panera is decent.

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  7. All these people say boxed is the worst. But when you’re a college student and a box of mac and cheese is fifty cents, it quickly becomes a staple. It’s also one of the few mac and cheeses I can eat, since I never developed a taste for cheese and many from-scratch recipes are far too rich for my lactose intolerance. Tell us whether you liked it!

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    1. “this is almost making me nostalgic”

      I like the almost. Unlike many Americans, I can’t eat processed crap all the time, but like most Americans I can eat some and even enjoy it.

      I was never a huge mac and cheese fan but I used to love chicken noodle mix

      I don’t think the brand I bought was Kraft though, I think it was a southern off brand, I sort of remember a white and tan box but I can’t find it on google.

      I actually miss jiffy corn muffin mix

      I tried to improvise a version here from local ingredients and the first time worked but every subsequent effort just turned into grey-yellow goo….

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        1. Those things are truly great.

          Google the commercial, what would you do for a Klondike bar? I would like to dig out the original but am at work so cannot take the time at this moment. But it is important to have this American junk memory (as it were).

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        2. Have you tried cream horns? They used to be my favorite but the ones in Poland (when available which is seldom) use whipped cream instead of the merinquey-marshmallowish filling I loved in my younger years.

          Recently in Slovakia I found the type I like. I was going to bring back a big bag but realized they would probably get smashed on the train (or I’d go into a sugar coma by eating them all to pass the time on the trip).

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      2. I had forgotten chicken noodle mix! That and the macaroni and cheese were used on teenaged camping trips, some of the first times our parents let us go off alone, so I associate them with beautiful settings and silly fun.

        Jiffy corn muffin mix is actually good and is not really junk, as I recall.

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