The nostalgic meal for families across Canada with Canadians buying 24% of the sold boxes across the entire world, Kraft Mac and Cheese was first marketed and sold in 1937 for 19 cents. Kraft Mac and Cheese lasted 2 years in your cupboard without spoiling and was first popularized during World War II and the Great Depression in the years that followed. The meal itself is rather simple to prepare with only other ingredients, besides the box itself, being water, butter and milk in just a few minutes sold 8 million boxes in just their first year and later on millions.
In World War II citizens resources were controlled- or rationed which meant that one was given a book of points that they could use to “spend” on various foods, but because one rationing ticket could get a family 2 entire boxes of the familiar blue box we know today providing a substantial meal. At my house we tend to add in various extra ingredients for extra texture and flavor and simply to feed more mouths. A can of corn or scrap bits of meat were thrown and served to hungry bellies.
Kraft’s version of Mac and Cheese however was not the first to invent the cheesy pasta dish and it wasn’t the first of processed cheese either and now chefs across the world have reinterpreted this dish and elevated it to a higher level with all different types of cheese and add ons sometimes there is just a craving that must be satiated with Kraft’s version. Many foods around the world and in families have their own versions of necessity food, born out of hardships. These foods not only feed but tell the story of how a family survived, Day to day with nothing much but a familiar-simplistic meal waiting for them at the end of long shifts and longer weeks.
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