Noodling around

We got our first microwave oven in 1978. It was one of the freestanding models, as opposed to the built-in we have today, it was about the size of a Buick, and was almost that heavy. 

And it wasn't nearly as powerful as today's micronukers, so that's why our worldwide home appliance makers keep right on getting better. 

Speaking of which...I resisted trying this for a long time, but it turns out that if you want noodles for dinner, you don't have to heat a steaming cauldron of water and moisten up the kitchen. I've been microwaving spaghetti and other pastas for a while, and once you learn how much water and how long to nuke it, you'll be pleased, I promise you.

So! That makes me wonder why we would buy boxes of macaroni and cheese. That orangish powdery "cheese" is sort of, well, cheesy, and I'm here to promise you, you can have a really nice side dish by putting water on pasta in a bowl in the microwave, zapping it for 4-8 minutes depending, and then turning it out in a strainer. Dump it back in the bowl from the strainer, add a little salt and olive oil and whatever kind of REAL cheese you like, toss it, and there ya go.

I bring all this up to mention that the good folks at Kraft aren't sure people are up to writing the whole "macaroni" word on the grocery list, so they are about to change the name of America's favorite side dish.

After 85 years, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese will now be known as Kraft Mac & Cheese. It's meant to "reflect the way fans organically talk about the brand," the company announced last week. Look for the new packages in August.

 

The new box will have the new name featured alongside a tuned-up logo and a new blue color scheme that "amplifies the brand's most recognizable asset — the noodle smile."

Kraft is making these changes to emphasize that their noodle dish is "comfort food." Other noodle and cheese boxes are right next to Kraft on the shelves, all bragging about how much healthier they are.

Kraft has also raised the prices on their mac and "cheese," but then again the prices of everything are going up, so....the company notes "the upward trend in packaging, transportation, ingredients and labor costs persists, reaching levels not seen in decades."

Save money, buy store-brand noodles and mac it yourself!

By the way, since nobody asked, we're getting ready to sing that "Yankee Doodle Dandy" song again, and that "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni" does not mean that early Americans thought their hats were pasta. Upperclass young Englishmen of the day took trips to Europe to become worldly, and would return to Britain with a taste for fancy wigs, skinny Italian pants, and pasta for dinner. England soon lumped the food and the clothing styles together, calling such young men "Macaroni." Think of Harry Styles, but without wi-fi. 

The English who came here to suppress our glorious revolution sneered at Americans who thought that a fancy feather in one's cap would make one Styles-ish. "So you think you're macaroni, eh?" was a challenge no one could resist.

The rest of the war didn't go well for the British, either.