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Italian Manner of Cooking Macaroni
One and a half pound macaroni, parboiled with a little salt, and one clove garlic. One pound of beef chopped fine, lean and fat stewed with one pint tomatoes.
Alternate layers of macaroni and the stewed beef with grated cheese. Add cayenne pepper, salt, butter, and a little wine.
A thick layer of grated cracker crumbs and cheese on top. Serve with a stand of grated Stilton cheese.--Mrs. R.R.
A layered baked macaroni in the style of 1870s American "Italian" cookery, written in the telegraphic shorthand of the period. The gaps are real: no oven temperature, no baking time, and no quantity for the cheese.
- Parboil, don't cookThe macaroni goes into the dish underdone, since it finishes in the oven absorbing sauce. Six to seven minutes in salted water is enough for dried tubes; the garlic appears to be there for scent in the cooking water, and would presumably be lifted out rather than served.
- The meat is the hingeOne pound of beef to one pint of tomatoes wants a genuine stew, not a quick browning. Give it 45 minutes to an hour at a bare simmer, or the assembled dish will be watery and the beef grainy.
- "One pint tomatoes"Roughly 2 cups, i.e. about one 14-15 oz tin with its juice, or the equivalent in fresh tomatoes; the original does not say which. A plain tin of whole peeled, broken up, is the simplest stand-in.
- Oven and timeNone is given. As a modern working suggestion, bake at around 375F for 30 to 40 minutes, until the crumb top has browned and the edges bubble.
- Grated cracker crumbsPlain hard water crackers of the sort then common are the likeliest article, effectively a dry biscuit. Plain crackers or dried breadcrumbs stand in; taste before adding salt.
- "A little wine"Perhaps 2 to 3 tablespoons. The original lists it with the cayenne, salt and butter at the assembly stage rather than in the stew, though stirring it into the meat and letting it cook a moment is the easier modern handling.
- The cheesesThe layering cheese is unspecified; grated Parmesan or a firm aged cheddar both fit the era's practice. Allow roughly 6 to 8 oz in total for a 1.5 lb batch of macaroni.
- A "stand" of StiltonProbably a whole cheese or wedge brought to table on a stand or dish, though the wording could as easily mean a dish of the cheese ready grated. Either a bowl of grated or crumbled Stilton passed at table answers it.
- YieldA pound and a half of macaroni with a pound of beef fills a large deep dish and serves eight to ten generously.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was assembled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives, which is why this recipe ends with initials rather than a byline. What the book calls the "Italian manner" is really the mid-Victorian Anglo-American idea of Italian cooking: macaroni, tomato, and grated hard cheese, baked in layers with a browned crumb crust. Macaroni is often said to have been familiar in Virginia since Jefferson's time, and it is frequently described as having been treated more as a cheese dish than a tomato one, though the recipe here pairs it with a stewed beef and tomato sauce. The Stilton at the end is pure English table custom: a whole cheese on its stand, passed for each diner to grate as they liked, a practice that survives now mainly with Parmesan in restaurants.