Mac and cheese: can this classic comfort food be considered an authentic pasta dish and what do Italians really think?

One of the worst mistakes tourists make in Italy is ordering a dish of macaroni and cheese, thinking they’re in for the treat of an authentic take on their favourite pasta dish, only to find the waiter frowning and eyebrows raised. “Eh?”

Mac and cheese doesn’t even exist in Italy. Italians would never add milk mixed with spices to pasta. The cheeses used as a pasta topping or as an ingredient are usually Parmigiano, pecorino sheep cheese or Gorgonzola. There’s no cheddar in Italy. And no macaroni either.

Macaroni is a twisted Italian-sounding term for maccheroni, a type of short, tubelike pasta often with ridges and larger than the one used in mac and cheese, which is curly and smooth.

So where does this dish come from? It’s a hybrid. Surprisingly, it does have distant Italian roots but it’s considered a British and American dish, says food historian Anna Maria Pellegrino, a member of the Italian Academy of Cuisine. 

“Macaroni cheese is an Anglo-Saxon twist of a typical Italian dish made with pasta and cheese which was exported to the UK and US by Italian emigrants in the 18th century and then in between the two world wars. They held on tight to their culinary habits, but at some point adapted and contaminated the dish with the local ingredients they found in those new countries, twisting also the maccheroni original shape and eventually changing the recipe”.

In the US, mac and cheese became so popular as a fast food it was first canned and shelved in supermarkets in the 1930s. Canned pasta is an abomination for Italian palates.

The pasta in the macaroni cheese is boiled beyond any admissible point (Italian pasta is always al dente), soaked in milk, and then baked in the oven. So it’s twice cooked. Butter, nutmeg and Cheddar cheese are usually added.