National Macaroni and Cheese Day

When: July 14

National Macaroni and Cheese Day celebrates the baked pasta casserole that has been comforting Americans for generations — from grandma's kitchen to the blue box.

A food holiday worth celebrating

Thomas Jefferson served something like it at Monticello. Kraft sold 8 million boxes in 1937. The two dishes share a name and almost nothing else.

Macaroni and cheese existed in medieval Europe — a 14th-century English cookbook called "Forme of Cury" contains a recipe for "makerouns" that layers pasta with melted butter and cheese. The Italian equivalent, "maccheroni al formaggio," appears in Italian cookbooks from the same period. Pasta baked with cheese was wealthy household food — both pasta and aged cheese were expensive enough to mark status at the table. Thomas Jefferson encountered a pasta dish while serving as Ambassador to France in the 1780s and brought his enthusiasm — and possibly a pasta-making machine — back to Monticello. His enslaved chef James Hemings, who had been trained in the finest kitchens in Paris, adapted the dish for Jefferson's dinner parties. What Jefferson served in the 1790s was an elegant, French-influenced baked macaroni with Parmesan and butter — far from a weeknight staple. Hemings negotiated his freedom after years of service and died in 1801. His name was not attached to the dish he helped...