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Comment by simonsarris | Hacker News Reader

I love this blog.

The 18th century mac and cheese from this blog[1] has caused me to change my default mac and cheese recipe, substituting eggs for heavy cream, since I always have eggs but hate to be bothered to buy heavy cream (and then forget about it for weeks if I don't use it). Other times I'll make bechamel (flour/butter/milk) and add eggs at the end anyway. I still dress the mac up more than the ancient recipe (cayenne powder, nutmeg, cumin are usually a minimum), but switching in or just adding eggs never occurred to me and is surprisingly delightful.

[1] http://rarecooking.com/2014/06/30/maccarony-cheese/

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Adding nutmeg to taste to savory foods is actually very early modern of you, as it happens! It was the last of the medieval spices to retain a prominent place in 18th century cuisine (besides pepper of course). For instance it shows up over one hundred times in "The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy" (1784):

https://books.google.com/books?id=dYIEAAAAYAAJ&dq=nutmeg&q=n...

You use heavy cream in macaroni cheese? Is that an American thing? I've only ever known it as a mixture of egg/cheese/milk/breadcrumb.

Maybe it's a British thing, we have a lot of traditions which date from the war - cornflour custard, eggy mac cheese, margarine, boiling hot tea...

I'm not really sure what the normal american way is. At this point I've made mac+cheese in every way possible. (ie for a while I was trying milk instead of water when cooking the pasta, and attended the pot as it cooked on a slow simmer. It works OK)

Since you're British I recommend you try making "Mac+Cheese tikka masala", basically use your favorite recipe for chicken tikka masala but swap out the chicken and no rice, and the sauce will call for (among other things) heavy cream! It is a crowd pleaser for sure.

The normal American makes crappy mac-n-cheese from a box :-) However, I've never heard of eggs in it. Sounds interesting, in a pasta carbonara sort of way. Is it a baked recipe, or "sauce & noodles" deal?

I typically make a roux, add a sharp/extra sharp cheddar to it to make a very tangy cheese sauce, then stir in the cooked macaroni, and a touch of paprika and cayenne and sprinkle breadcrumbs on top. Sometimes I will add feta or a little blue cheese if I have any on hand. My Midwestern wife adds Velveeta since she likes the extra creaminess and it's how her mom made it. Either way is fine with me.

Ronald Reagan mac and cheese uses an egg [0].

I haven't tried it, but molecular gastronomists (or are they modernists?) use sodium citrate to keep real cheese creamy when it's heated [1].

0. http://lincolnslunch.blogspot.com/2012/02/ronald-reagan-maca...

1. http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/silky-smooth-macaroni-an...

If not heavy cream then straight butter is fairly common in north america, yes.

I use butter and milk, so heavy cream is probably reasonably close to the same thing.

I also use real, quality cheese. Tillamook sharp cheddar and fresh-grated parmesan, by preference.

That box crap from Kraft doesn't merit the name. If that were a new product, I don't think they'd be allowed to call it "mac and cheese" under current regulations.

béchamel (which would include flour, butter, and some sort of cream) and cheese is the classic sauce for Mac and cheese.

That's odd, they substituted the (Double) Gloucester and Cheshire cheeses - are they not possible to obtain in the US?

Looks like a tasty recipe. We might try that (although a member of the Household is lactose-intolerant, so I'd better get the lactase capsules ready if we do).

I've always added eggs. Also a bit of Worcester sauce, which is worth trying almost anywhere you get cheese or need a savoury flavour (providing no-one's vegetarian/etc).

I have a cheese shop that I go to on a fairly regular basis, and for the life of me I can't remember seeing any cheeses that were not made in the US. Our FDA has a thing for destroying people's lives over raw milk (seriously, they go into full stormtrooper mode, kicking down doors, shoving guns into people's faces), which probably prevents most cheeses from around the world passing customs.

The FDA isn't that big a deal.

I routinely see cheeses from France, Germany, Italy, Finland and probably Canada, as well as the domestic producers: New York and Wisconsin are big.

Boston-area people: go to Russo's, in Watertown. I have seen Double Gloucester there, and several other English cheeses (my kids have a thing for Wensleydale; blame Wallace and Gromit). I don't think I've ever seen Cheshire, but I've never been looking for it.

> Finnish

I wish I could get Leipäjuusto here in the UK.

The FDA is a huge deal if they don't like you or something you have (or are getting shipped into the country). You don't know jackbooted fascists until you've caught the attention of the FDA. Serious as a heart attack.

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