Mac and Cheese

Southern baked macaroni and cheese — elbow macaroni bound in a custard of eggs, evaporated milk, butter, and an aggressive quantity of sharp cheddar, baked until the top is golden and the interior is creamy and just set — is a fundamentally different dish from the stovetop, roux-based mac and cheese served in restaurants. The Southern version is a custard, not a sauce. It is baked, not stirred. It is a holiday dish, a church potluck dish, a Sunday dinner standard that occupies the same cultural position on the Black Southern table as green bean casserole on the white Midwestern table — except that mac and cheese is better, more important, and more passionately argued about. James Hemings — Thomas Jefferson's enslaved chef, who trained in Paris (see WA diaspora thread) — is credited with introducing macaroni and cheese to the American table after Jefferson encountered pasta in Italy and France. The dish's American origin story begins with an enslaved Black chef.