Recipes - Main & Side Dishes

[Front-Ranger]

I wonder, when did mac and cheese become a holiday dish? And why? My children were reminiscing about family meals when they were growing up and were mourning the lack of mac and cheese or pizza for dinner. They didn't get to eat the foods the other kids ate and liked to talk about. I personally thought a good pizza could be very nourishing and healthful but my then-husband was opposed to serving it at the dinner table. Odd, since he is of Italian descent.

You only have room for so many morsels of food at the holiday table, so why include something as mundane as mac and cheese? I will say that I often make a turkey casserole that has some kind of pasta and some kind of cheese as a way to use up the leftovers. I call this Turkey Tetrazzini. My mother used to make it although she had no Italian heritage of any kind. In fact, the dish is reputed to have been invented in San Francisco: "The original dish is named after the Italian opera star Luisa Tetrazzini. It is widely believed to have been invented circa 1908?1910 by Ernest Arbogast, the chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where Tetrazzini made her American debut at the Tivoli as Gilda in Rigoletto on January 11, 1905." This is according to Rosalie, a Houston Italian restaurant.

A similar dish that I make is Turkey Stroganoff. Here is the recipe that comes closest to what I do. However, I put in chopped spinach or chard. The recipe calls for parsley...I add that at the end. For the tetrazzini, I most often add chopped celery. I never add peas, which most of the recipes use.

[southendmd]

No mac 'n' cheese at my house.  Instead, I made a gratin of leeks and potato.  Very simple, from Melissa Clark of the NYT, it has earned great reviews.  Simply put, it's extremely thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes (with a Japanese mandolin that will make 0.5mm slices) layered with richly caramelized leeks in butter.  Cream is simmered with garlic, bay and thyme, then nutmeg is added and poured over the lot.  Topped with gruyere and baked.  Rich and amazingly sweet, it was a big hit next to Niman Ranch rack of lamb (flagrantly rare) and french beans sauteed with shallots. 

We are generally burgundy and/or rhone lovers, but this time we had a velvety bordeaux. 

Joey's son baked a round loaf of bread with spelt, rye and something else and it somehow overshadowed the whole menu! 

Dessert included Joey's famous homemade fruitcake, also stollen, miniature pralines and 20 year tawny port. 

Our dear friend Laurence did his traditional reading, this year Hans Christian Andersen's melancholic "The Fir Tree". 

I was happy to have cleaned up and made it to bed early. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I wonder, when did mac and cheese become a holiday dish?

Well, I found this, but somehow it doesn't strike me as a sufficient explanation. I don't get a sense of continuity in including mac and cheese on the holiday dinner table.

https://forgottennewengland.com/2012/11/11/macaroni-and-cheese-for-thanksgiving-thanksgiving-dinner-in-1883/#:~:text=If%20you%20were%20to%20sit,lot%20has%20changed%20since%201883.

[CellarDweller]

No mac 'n' cheese at my house.  Instead, I made a gratin of leeks and potato.  Very simple, from Melissa Clark of the NYT, it has earned great reviews.  Simply put, it's extremely thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes (with a Japanese mandolin that will make 0.5mm slices) layered with richly caramelized leeks in butter.  Cream is simmered with garlic, bay and thyme, then nutmeg is added and poured over the lot.  Topped with gruyere and baked.  Rich and amazingly sweet, it was a big hit next to Niman Ranch rack of lamb (flagrantly rare) and french beans sauteed with shallots. 

We are generally burgundy and/or rhone lovers, but this time we had a velvety bordeaux. 

Joey's son baked a round loaf of bread with spelt, rye and something else and it somehow overshadowed the whole menu! 

Dessert included Joey's famous homemade fruitcake, also stollen, miniature pralines and 20 year tawny port.

[Front-Ranger]

Every family celebrates the holidays in their own way. It's ironic that my children bemoan the lack of mac and cheese on the T-giving table and forget about the crown roast or the leg of lamb, doused in warmed Pern?d and flamed.

Jeff, that article states that mac and cheese was considered exotic and elegant. It was served by Thomas Jefferson at state dinners. Whereas now I consider it something to keep on the top shelf as an emergency food ration. Then, when you look at Paul's menu, the ingredients include potatoes, leeks, lamb, spelt, rye, beans and such, all foods that peasants would have eaten. But the way they're prepared, they're elevated to the height of sophistication! I call that pretty high entertainment!

[Jeff Wrangler]

I still have a newspaper article from 1981 that discusses an article from the December 1897 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal about the perfect Christmas dinner. No mac and cheese, but the menu given includes deviled spaghetti.

(Of interest to me is that the turkey is described as "Roasted Turkey with Chestnut Filling." The interesting thing to me is the use of the word filling. "Where I come from," that's what people call it, not stuffing, and certainly not dressing. The article also seems to assume that Christmas dinner is a mid-day meal, as there is a directive not to have "a heavy supper" after Christmas dinner. On the contrary, one should have "a light repast" at 7:30; the author's idea of a light repast is bouillon with some sort of crackers, broiled oysters on toast, lemon jelly in scooped-out oranges, and sponge cake.)

[Front-Ranger]

Interesting how the juxtaposition of food and the holidays reveals the complexity of our culture. Behind the question I asked about mac and cheese is the curiosity I have about changing food preferences. Certain foods, like m&c or lobster, rise and fall in popularity not just due to supply changes but also cultural, sociological, and even political (remember the discussion we were having about beer boycotts and country music last spring?) reasons.

All year I've been reading a fascinating (to me anyway) book titled A Revolution in Eating by James McWilliams. He starts with a chapter on the development of the cuisine of the West Indies and then another chapter on how the Pilgrims of New England developed their food and agriculture. The two areas formed extreme opposites in approach. Then, he discusses the Chesapeake Bay region and the Carolinas, which had approaches that were hybrids of the two extremes. I have yet to read about the Middle Colonies and the summation, which ties it all together. A brilliant book.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Of course, macaroni and cheese, whether served as part of a holiday meal or otherwise, is inexpensive and filling (especially inexpensive if you buy the boxed store brand).

Before I learned how apparently widespread is the practice of having mac & cheese as a side dish at a holiday dinner, I had a theory of how that came to be, but that theory was both racist and classist, so I'll keep that to myself.

[Front-Ranger]

Now here's a pasta and cheese dish that I would proudly serve during the holidays: Venetian Fiocchi! I had this at a local restaurant on Wednesday and am looking forward to making it myself. The little pasta "purses" are filled with a mild cheese and pear mixture, and are bathed in a light butter and sage sauce.

[serious crayons]

I had a theory of how that came to be, but that theory was both racist and classist, so I'll keep that to myself.

Actually, I think your theory is correct, but I wouldn't call it "racist" or "classist" -- i.e., negative or critical. A quick google indicates what I suspected: that it's a custom in the South, and particularly in the Black community.

None of us here at the moment are from either. But I know I never heard of such a thing until I was at least in adulthood. Which of course is when I moved to the South, to a city with a mostly Black population. I don't have any clear memory of attending a New Orleans Thanksgiving dinner and suddenly seeing m&c, but I do think they occurred at around the same time.

I don't think it's racist any more than saying that matzo ball soup is a traditional Jewish cuisine is anti-Semitic. As for classist, most customs traditional in the Black community are going to come from poorer families almost by definition. And mac 'n' cheese, even if it's not boxed Kraft, is relatively inexpensive.