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Macaroni
Mrs. M. C. Gridley.
Cook macaroni in water until soft; then put in a deep dish with alternate layers of grated crackers and cheese, a little salt; fill up the dish with milk and bake one hour.
A plain baked macaroni of the sort that predates the flour-and-butter white sauce most Americans now expect. The whole dish rests on the milk setting into a custard around the pasta, so quantities and oven heat matter more than the terse original suggests.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A moderate oven, 350F, is right for this: hot enough to set the milk and brown the top, gentle enough that it does not curdle or boil over.
- Do not cook the macaroni fully"Until soft" suits the harder dried macaroni of the period; modern dried pasta is better left firmly al dente, around two minutes short of the package time, since it will absorb milk for another hour in the oven.
- Grated crackersThese are plain unsalted or lightly salted soda crackers, crushed or grated to coarse crumbs. Saltines are the closest supermarket equivalent; reduce the added salt accordingly, or use plain dry breadcrumbs.
- CheeseA firm cheddar-type cheese, grated, suits the dish and is the likeliest thing a period household would have had. Roughly 8 oz for a 2-quart dish. Pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch and does not melt as smoothly.
- How much milk"Fill up the dish" is best read as pouring milk until it just reaches the top layer, rather than flooding the topping. For a 2-quart dish expect 2 to 3 cups. Whole milk sets better than skim.
- Assembly orderFinish with crumbs and cheese on top rather than macaroni, or the exposed pasta dries to leather. A few dots of butter on the surface help it brown.
- The hourAn hour at 350F is reasonable for a full deep dish, but check at 40 minutes. It is done when the centre is set and barely trembling and the top is golden; longer than that and the milk separates into grainy curds and whey.
- Quantities and yieldThe recipe gives no measured amounts beyond "a little salt". Half a pound of dry macaroni, 8 oz cheese, a cup of cracker crumbs and enough milk to fill fits a 2-quart dish and serves six as a side.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in the 1870s from contributions by named local women, one of the earliest and most widely copied American charity cookbooks, and this entry carries Mrs. Gridley's name in the way the whole genre did. Macaroni was still a slightly cosmopolitan ingredient in the American Midwest at the time, sold dried in long bundles and often described in cookbooks as Italian. What is notable here is the absence of a bechamel. The layering of cheese, crackers and milk makes what is essentially a savoury pudding, with cracker crumbs standing in for breadcrumbs as an American substitution. The roux-based macaroni and cheese that displaced it became standard in American home cooking over the following decades.