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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Karima Moyer-Nocchi, "The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America" (Columbia UP, 2026)
Description: Today, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, a staple of weeknight dinners, family gatherings, and Soul Food restaurants. Humble though the dish may seem, its history is filled with surprising twists and turns. Renaissance cardinals and popes dined on elaborate pasta-and-cheese concoctions laced with costly spices. In the eighteenth century, wealthy young Englishmen made macaroni a symbol of continental sophistication. Black women, whose contribution has long been overshadowed, played a crucial role in establishing the dish as an American tradition from the nation’s founding through the Civil Rights Movement.
The Epic History of Macaroni an...