Victorian Recipe - Maccaroni Cheese

I stumbled across this recipe while looking though my 1861 Godey's Woman's Book. In our reenactment group we like to try to cook food that would have been served during the civil war. So I was pretty excited to find a receipt for Macaroni and Cheese! Often times spectators will ask if what we are cooking is from the Civil War Era. It is nice to be able to say with certainty, "Yes, it was made back then!"

Maccaroni Cheese.- Wash six ounces of maccaroni, put it in plenty of boiling water and a good deal of salt, let it boil half an hour, drain it in a colander; grate a quarter of a pound of rich cheese, place the maccaroni and cheese in alternate layers, in a shallow quart pie dish, letting the cheese come on the top; fill the dish with milk, in which a little butter has been melted 9but the milk must scarcely be seen in the dish), and upon this again place some small bits of butter; it should be placed in a very hot oven, where it will bake at the top and bottom equally in half an hour.

Now in order to make Civil War era macaroni and cheese you can't buy it in the cute Craft Boxes! But it must be made the old fashion way. I have not had macaroni made like this in a long time!

Please not the difference in spelling of macaroni and maccaroni. In my Godey's book it was spelled with two c's we now spell it with one c. So not only does it take less time to make now it also takes less time to spell!