Macaroni
Break into pieces one inch long and put in the dish you wish to fill, filling it only one-third full. Wash well and boil in a covered stewpan until soft and tender, drain off all the water; cover with this the bottom of a baking dish. Sprinkle over pepper and salt, grated cracker, bits of butter and grated cheese; then another layer of macaroni, etc., in the same order. When the dish is filled, pour over fresh milk until all is barely covered. Sift over pounded cracker and set in the oven. If it becomes too brown, sift over more cracker before serving.--Mrs. S. T.
Macaroni.
Boil one-half pound macaroni in water, with salt, one small onion and two blades mace.
Put in one sweetbread, chopped fine, or the same amount of fresh veal, the nice part being taken.
Boil till tender before taking it up, drain off the water and add one large spoonful butter, one-half pint milk, a quantity of grated cheese; one teaspoonful mustard; two teaspoonfuls black pepper, one pint skinned tomatoes, salt to the taste; one egg, beaten up, in a great improvement. Butter a deep dish bake and bake the macaroni a light brown. Have it served with a small bowl of grated cheese, of the best quality, so that each one may add what they like.--Mrs. M. C.
Macaroni.
Parboil enough macaroni to make a dish; lay alternate layers of macaroni, and grated cheese. Season with salt, pepper, and butter; and three eggs, well beaten, and enough milk to fill a dish. Sprinkle bread crumbs over top and bake.--Mrs. R.A.
Macaroni To one and one-half pound macaroni, add one pound beef, chopped fine. Make a stew of the beef with one quart water, one clove of garlic, catsup, tomato, or walnut, to suit the taste, one dessertspoonful currant jelly, salt and pepper. Boil the macaroni; put in a pan a layer of macaroni and a layer of cheese, with plenty of butter, using quarter of a pound of butter for the dish. Then pour the stew over the top, and bake fifteen minutes.--Miss M.B.B.
Four contributors' versions of baked macaroni, none of them what a modern reader means by macaroni and cheese. The instructions assume dried tubes cooked far past al dente and a cook who knows her own oven.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given in any of the four. All are gratins finished to a light brown: 350-375F is a workable modern range, 20-30 minutes for the layered versions. Miss M.B.B. specifies only fifteen minutes, her stew being already cooked when it is poured over.
- Boil the macaroni less"Until soft and tender" meant genuinely soft. Since the pasta then bakes in milk or stew for a further fifteen to thirty minutes, cook it a couple of minutes short of al dente or the finished dish will be mush.
- Grated and pounded crackerPlain unsalted soda crackers or water biscuits, crushed fine. Panko or dry breadcrumbs stand in directly; Mrs. R.A.'s version already calls for breadcrumbs.
- SweetbreadsThymus or pancreas of a calf, sold at good butchers and worth ordering ahead. They need soaking in cold water, a brief blanch and peeling of the membrane before chopping. The recipe's alternative — a like weight of lean veal — is the easier path.
- Blades of maceWhole pieces of the lacy aril around nutmeg, added to the cooking water and fished out. Two blades are roughly a quarter to a half teaspoon of ground mace, though ground will cloud the water and cannot be removed.
- Walnut catsupA dark, salty condiment of green walnuts, anchovy and spice, common in the period and still made commercially in Britain. Worcestershire sauce is the nearest widely available substitute; use it sparingly, as the currant jelly in the same recipe is doing the sweet-sour work.
- DessertspoonfulTwo teaspoons. A "large spoonful" of butter in Mrs. M.C.'s version is a tablespoon or a little more.
- Pint of skinned tomatoesA US pint, about two cups — one 14 oz can of peeled tomatoes, drained of the thinnest juice, comes close. Fresh tomatoes should be peeled and seeded so the dish does not go watery.
- The measure that isn't one"A quantity of grated cheese" is left entirely to the cook, and no type is named. For half a pound of macaroni, four to six ounces of a firm, well-flavoured cheese suits the dish, with more passed at table as Mrs. M.C. directs.
- YieldMrs. M.C.'s half-pound of macaroni with sweetbread should feed about four as a main course; Miss M.B.B.'s pound and a half with beef will fill a large baking dish and serve roughly eight.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1878, gathers contributions from named Virginia housekeepers, which is why four different macaroni dishes sit under one heading, each initialed by its author. Macaroni had been a Virginia gentry food for decades by then: Thomas Jefferson took an interest in pasta-making abroad and had a macaroni mould obtained for him from Italy, and served macaroni with cheese at Monticello; Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-wife of 1824 printed a baked macaroni recipe with butter and cheese of the same general kind. What is striking here is how far the range runs — from a plain milk-and-cracker gratin to a substantial dish of sweetbread, mustard and tomato, or a full beef stew poured over the top. Macaroni in this book is not a side dish or a children's supper but a made dish, dressed up according to what the household could afford.