Making Mac and Cheese Better with N.C. Mountain Cheese

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.] 

How much more would Thomas
Jefferson enjoyed baked macaroni
if he had used cheese from Ashe
County?

What’s the most important ingredient in macaroni and cheese? Except for the love that the preparer personally adds, is one item more important than anything else?

The questions may seem frivolous because today the recipe at home can be quite simple – unless you’re Thomas Jefferson, who was so consumed with serving the perfect macaroni that he bought a pasta-making machine in Europe. For his baked macaroni dish, he also imported cheese from France. Too bad that he probably didn’t know how good cheese from the mountains of North Carolina could be.

Continue reading at the NCFood blog ...