As I am writing this, Christmas parades have been cancelled and the cold, wet and dreary winter weather is way too English for my taste. I didn’t emigrate to Coastal Georgia for this type of December gloom! However, there is a bright side to weekends when everyone just wants to stay inside as it puts me in the mood for making familiar and nostalgic comfort food. 

Mashed potatoes, pot roast or an Irish stew, chicken pot pie, grilled cheese, meatloaf and tomato soup all hit the spot with me. However, since moving to America in 2009 I now realize that there does not seem to be a more “American” comfort food than macaroni and cheese. I like to make recipes from scratch and creating a roux sauce is second nature to me but the many Americans who grew up on mac and cheese may never have had a version that wasn’t made with a powdered cheese mix to stir into the boiled macaroni.

Cheese is one of humanity’s ancient foods, said to have its roots over 7,000 years ago.

Possibly invented by chance when milk was transported or stored in containers made from a sheep’s stomach, the natural enzymes caused the milk to separate into curd and whey. It quickly became apparent that this curdled milk could be preserved much longer than its liquid counterpart – an innovative way to preserve milk in times predating any form of refrigeration. Cheesemaking was originally about survival as it was a way to preserve milk by making cheese so that there would be something to eat at a later date.

Pasta was introduced to America by early Italian immigrants, but Thomas Jefferson often gets credit for popularizing macaroni and cheese in the United States, having lived and traveled extensively in Europe. Pasta specifically baked with cheese had already become a popular dish in France by the time Jefferson traveled there in 1784 so his enslaved manservant James Hemings would certainly have learned to make it during his extensive culinary training in Paris. When they brought the recipe home to the Antebellum South of the early 1800s, macaroni and cheese became a celebration food, generally reserved for the weekends because it took time to prepare.

So how did this time-consuming dish move to a modern convenience food icon? It couldn’t have happened without the invention of processed cheese.

This took place in Switzerland in 1911 by heating Emmental cheese with sodium citrate, creating a smooth, meltable cheese that wouldn’t spoil on long journeys. Processed cheese is created by taking cheese that is then emulsified and cooked, rendering it much less perishable. Processing cheese was a good way to make food for soldiers at war, to turn safe but not-as-good-as- standard cheese into edible food, and to save producers when there was a glut in the market and too much cheese to sell. It was also a good way to get nutrients to people who didn’t have refrigeration.

Back in the USA, a Canadian named James L Kraft set up a cheese-delivery business in Chicago in 1903, with his brothers joining a few years later. They patented a spoil-resistant processed cheese similar to the Swiss process, which was sold in great quantities to the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1927 they acquired Velveeta, a process that combined bits of cheese and cheese byproducts into a blended product with a “velvety-smooth” texture, and the following year they merged with the Phenix Cheese Company, who a few years later would launch another top-selling Kraft product - Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Kraft had a Scottish Salesman in St Louis that had taken the initiative to sell his processed cheese with a box of macaroni rubber-banded to it for his customers. Kraft loved the idea and introduced what would become its most iconic branded product: a box of dried pasta combined with a package of long-shelf-life processed cheese powder called Kraft Dinner. It sold for 19 cents, took 9 minutes to prepare and promised to feed a family of four. Later rebranded as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in America, it was a massive hit.

As the 20th-century economy moved forward, driven by industrialization, convenience packaging and generally doing everything faster, it was elevated to an ideal affordable and convenient American food. Pasta and processed cheese are very cheap to make, easy to ship and store and takes little effort to prepare for dinner. The product stayed largely the same for decades, although about ten years ago Kraft Heinz removed all artificial flavors, preservatives, and synthetic colors from its iconic blue box. This change was a direct response to shifting consumer preferences for more natural ingredients. Today, there are vegan and gluten-free versions, and it continues to be a pantry staple across the globe, especially in the English-speaking world.

There is a lot more information at www. Britannica.com and www. smithsonianmagazine. com I will leave you with this anonymous quote that really encapsulates the definition of comfort food: “Mac and cheese is the food equivalent of a warm hug.”

God Bless America! Lesley grew up in London, England and made Georgia her home in 2009. She can be contacted at lesley@ lesleyfrancispr.com or via her PR and marketing agency at www.lesleyfrancispr. com.