• orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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    15 days ago

    White dude here. Growing up, my mom always baked it like the left one. She would drop pieces of bread on top so it would toast up. It’s still the best mac and cheese I’ve had to this day and now I need to make it. RIP mom.

      • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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        15 days ago

        It is generally true, due to a bunch of factors. Personally, I’ve observed 2 factors:

        1. a lot of culinary tradition was lost by the boomers and their parents due to the advent of mass-produced, packaged food and the Great Depression. A lot of very basic, holistic techniques like making broth, rendering fat, became less common as magazine recipes, refrigeration, and boxed food encouraged discrete “buy x y z for recipe A” instead of having an assortment of preserved veggies/meats, broth, lard from previous days etc, to work with and learn from. I was genuinely confused to find my dad had to teach himself a lot of it in his 20s and my mom never learned.

        2. Economic/cultural history. A lot of families didn’t see making food better as worth sparing any effort or time on. My grandma’s boiled veggies and potatoes, no seasoning, and meat fried in a pan, no sesoning, eaten and cleaned up as quickly as possible come to mind.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
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          15 days ago

          It depends on the location, honestly. A lot of country grannies can cook, because they depended on what they could provide for themselves, milk, eggs, butter, cheese, canning, freezing, smoking. A lot of sub/urbans couldn’t do that and lost the art.

        • taiyang@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          Can confirm 1, dad grew up on TV dinners and canned food; and somehow Grandma thought it was ok to add ketchup to make spaghetti sauce. That second one might be 2, too, actually.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        15 days ago

        Man, it’s gotta have 3 or more large eggs, a pound of block or hoop (not Velveeta) cheese, grated + some to go on top, and real butter. If it’s not golden brown with crispy edges, it’s not done. Even better if it has shrimp, crab, or lobster in it.

        • ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          Like macaroni pie, I love breadcrumbs on top and just an ungodly amount of mature cheddar… literally by weight more than the pasta, and some milk!

        • Darnton@piefed.zip
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          15 days ago

          Technically, the roots of mac and cheese can be traced as far as medieval Italy, but in the same way that Italian noodles were born in China.

          Yeah, because Italian “noodles” weren’t born in China. That is a myth that has long since been busted.

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    I make it my goal in life to defy the white people can’t cook stereotype. My wife’s family is the epitome of this, so I’m the designated chef for a lot of our family dinners. My Mac n Cheese is stupid good though.

    Freshly grated cheeses (sharp cheddar, gruyere/fontina, smoked gouda, parmigiano reggiano) and a bit of American for that sodium citrate emulsifying power, melted into a piping hot beschemel with Dijon, mustard powder, paprika, a pinch of thyme, and a hit of cayenne. Mix in some drained elbow or penne pasta, cooked to just al dente in well salted water, in a baking dish. Depending on my mood/desire for texture, either top with reserved cheese or some seasoned, buttered, well-crushed Ritz crackers. Bake until browned nicely.

    Been making Mac like this for a few years and it is regularly the favorite of the meal. Gotta use a variety of cheeses that give you strong cheesy flavor, creaminess, smokiness and nuttiness. The mustard is also important to cut the richness of the cheese.

    • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      I make it my goal in life to defy the white people can’t cook stereotype.

      The most delicious way to be a race traitor o7

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        If there’s a race war, I’mma be on the side with the seasoning. Gumbo, bbq, jerk chicken, greens… I’ll leave you guys the tuna casseroles and cobb salad.

    • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Damn. I’m diabetic and on a low carb diet. I’ve been wanting to try and make a cauliflower version of Mac and cheese and your comment makes me want to try it even more.

      I miss carbs 😭

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        You’d need to replace the bechemel to eliminate the carbs in the flour. You can make a similar sauce with butter, cream cheese, heavy cream, chicken broth, and an egg yolk. It will taste a bit cheesier than typical beschemel, but that is hardly problem for mac n cheese. And the wheat pasta needs to be changed out, obviously. You could always get low carb pasta, or just replace the mac entirely. The sauce would go great on some steamed/roasted veggies too. Like broccoli or cauliflower, green beans, mushrooms, etc.

        • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          Thanks for the tips. How much flour is in there? Small amounts of carbs is ok, it’s unavoidable, really. I’ve had some decent low-carb pastas.

          • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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            15 days ago

            For the recipe I use, it calls for equal parts, 4 tbsp (1/4 cup), butter and flour and 2.5 cups milk. Which is 23-24 gram of carbs from the flour and 28-30 grams from the milk.

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
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    14 days ago

    I don’t know why I think this way, but the left image looks too hot to eat while the right image looks too cold for it to taste good.

  • pachrist@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Just so everyone here knows, these pictures do not need to be mutually exclusive. You can do both.

    • smh@slrpnk.net
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      15 days ago

      Same. I might be biased because my mom would get the frozen mac&cheese dinner and bake them, and the macaroni was always over done and grossly mushy. The cheese also tasted weirdly grainy.

  • KuroiKaze@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Every single time someone tells me they put their heart and soul into something like the left one full of ingredients that sound magic,I take a bite and it’s hella mid.

    Dickeys BBQ makes the best version of the one on the right of any chain I’ve been to. Dip waffle fries in it for majesty.

    • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      15 days ago

      You can absolutely make baked mac like the left and have it be amazing, but I’m with you that most people don’t make “proper home made” mac and cheese nearly as well as they think they do, even if the top looks ll delicious like in the pic. Coincidentally, the best mac and cheese I ever made looked like the right, but that was only because people were getting impatient so I decided to skip the baking part.