I stumbled upon the recipe for Civil War Mac & Cheese by accident. It can be found on Simply Recipes: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/civil_war_macaroni_and_cheese/
I was intrigued because I had never made a recipe from the Civil War before. Frankly, it didn't seem that difficult (and it wasn't). The dish is very simple to make. I normally cook macaroni in water. It's a lot better if you cook it in milk.
However, I was stunned when it came time to make the cheese sauce. I followed the directions exactly and discovered that my cheese to macaroni ratio was waaaay off. Based on the directions, there just isn't enough cheese sauce given the amount of macaroni. I did my best and made more, but it still wasn't enough. In the end, my macaroni looked like this:
Ok....so it doesn't look like the picture that goes with the recipe. But really, it didn't look THAT bad in person. The problem is it's not very creamy. This is a personal preference I think. So, at the end of the day I've learned to cook my macaroni in milk from here on out and that I adore creamy, gooey mac and cheese.
The photo on that recipe page does not look like what Civil War "maccaroni cheese" really would have looked like. They did not saturate the pasta with cheese but a creamy butter sauce.
ReplyDeleteIt's not what we are used to. I cook historic recipes all of the time. Your photo is closer in look to what it really would look like. I'm putting up a recipe for it soon on my blog and it really is not the comfort food we are used to.