Tomato Tomatoe: The Big MAC!

Macaroni and Cheese, the real big MAC! I’m going to lay it on the table, I’ve never been a huge fan of mac and cheese and I know that’s sacrilege if you love it. My cousin Mori loves it and if I think about macaroni then I think about Mori but I love her and I don’t love mac. Yes its cheese and yes its pasta and normally that would be great but I find it gets a bit dull after a while, I feel the same about risotto, it’s spoonful after spoonful of the same thing and I tire of it quickly.

Since being in America I find that my staunch views about macaroni are changing. The shift came the other week when I was out for dinner at Mizner Park in Boca Raton (if you’ve never been to this particular part of Florida then the best way to describe it is as Disney World for grown up’s - rich, white grown up’s that valet their Bentleys and Ferrari’s on perfectly landscaped streets). Each restaurant is dishing out their interpretation of America’s most beloved comfort dish and every celebrity chef and home cook appears to be doing the same.

The dish I had was lobster mac n’ cheese with shards of black truffle, it was sublime, it lifted the dish from comfort food to mouthfuls of indulgence. Rich yes, but I’ve never been against richness. Comforting yes but comforting in a cashmere and Swiss chalet sort of way. Expensive yes but… I have no rebuttal for that.

Mac and cheese has been a staple of the American diet for years, according to history it was served at the White House during Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency and it has commanded attention ever since. Kids and college students eat boxes of the stuff (Kraft sells over a million boxes of mac n’ cheese a day!) Moms serve it for supper, Southerners have it as a side dish with everything, restaurants serving only mac and cheese are popping up all over the Country and pretty much everybody other than Dr Atkins enjoys it on a regular basis.

A poor economy works to macaroni’s advantage as comfort food is, naturally, comforting in uncertain times and the onslaught of winter helps too. I think mac and cheese has got into my psyche, writing about it this week and seeing it on menus, TV shows and ad’s has made me long for a dish that I’ve not cared about for years. If you’re looking for something comforting this weekend pop open a bottle of wine, cook up your favourite mac recipe and stick your feet up.