Gerome finds an early recipe for macaroni and cheese

While perusing The French Cook: A System of Fashionable and Economical Cookery for the Use of English Families (1827), Gerome found an early recipe for macaroni and cheese! The recipe is listed as the first entry under the section, Entrees that are to be served as soups, or which want much sauce, and are consequently to be served in deep dishes. Here is the recipe.

No. 1. Macaroni with Parmesan cheese

Boil some Naples macaroni in water, salt, and butter. When it is done, put into a stew-pan a quarter of a pound of butter, some rasped Parmesan cheese, some Gruyere or Swiss cheese, likewise a little pepper, and a spoonful of cream. Then drain the macaroni, and toss it till the cheese be well mixed with it; then pour it into a dish; sprinkle some rasped cheese over it, baste it with a little butter, and use the salamander* to make it brown, for the butter would turn to oil if you were to bake it in the oven.

*According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a salamander is a circular iron plate which is heated and placed over a pudding or other dish to brown it.

This cookbook was recently digitized through the Library’s Google Book Digitization Project.