Briona Lamback
December 11, 2023
Mac and cheese wasn’t always the creamy baked noodle dish we know and love today. Food historians trace its origins back to Europe, where it had simple pasta-and-cheese beginnings. Like our people do best, we learned the game and made it our own.
James Hemmings spent years closer to freedom while studying cooking in France than he ever would in the US, working at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation. When Hemmings returned to Virginia, he was Monticello’s chef de cuisine. There, he innovated and perfected mac and cheese.
Hemmings popularized it, heirlooming the knowledge for generations, primarily through enslaved Black women cooks. According to food historians, the over 200-year-old recipe uses half water and half milk to boil the pasta, giving the noodles a silky finish.
It’s a delicately layered dish that takes a certain level of finesse to master; that’s part of why it’s always been a special occasion food for our people. When corporations started mass producing the stovetop variety, we still leaned on ancestral recipes that required patience and intention.
We’ve always been innovative. Whatever you do, it’s up to you to use your talents to take up arms in our liberation movement. From food to fashion, using our brilliance to teach and empower each other is what will stick around and impact us for generations to come. Community is the true recipe for our success.
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