Say (mac &) cheese
Young judges noodle around to pick kids’ favorite
First, let’s stipulate that neonorange cheese powder in an unmarked packet is not a deal-breaker. And let’s allow, for the sake of getting through this, that sodium tripolyphosphate is just a fancy way of saying, “Man, that’s creamy!”
But when the Daily News summoned my kids and some pals to judge the five major brands of macaroni and cheese, there was one place where these angels feared to tread: Velveeta.
“That’s disgusting!” said 12-yearold Brooklynite Ella Fruchter, watching me squeeze the liquid cheese substance onto the Velveeta shells. “It’s like a scene from a horror movie.”
No wonder the “liquid gold” finished dead last in our mac and cheese survey, behind Kraft’s classic, Annie’s organic and new varieties from the makers of Pirate’s Booty and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish.
The purpose of empaneling the preteen Taste Kitchen was not simply to bury Velveeta, but to praise mac and cheese, an American classic.
Full disclosure: I’m a dad. Sometimes my kids get hungry (though being a dad, I usually discover this when I hear them sobbing and moaning). So, yes, sometimes I pull out a box of macaroni and cheese, knowing fully well that it’s full of fat and sodium — and will always get eaten without complaint.
Kraft has dominated the field since it was introduced in 1937, but organic versions from Annie’s and the justlaunched Pirate’s Booty are forcing parents to reconsider traditional buying habits and question whether the classic clumpy cheese powder they remember from their youth is right for today’s kids. It’s not, if you talk to New York chefs. “That yellow stuff in the packet? I’m not crazy about the flavor,” said
Marc Murphy of Ditch Plains, who makes macaroni and cheese with Gruyere. “People should skip the box and experiment with milk and cheese. It’s not hard.”
Maybe, but the fancier you get, the more likelihood that you’ll end up with full bowls sitting in front of your kids. Even Terrance Brennan, who makes mac and cheese with a proprietary blend of “artisanal Alpine cheeses” such as Comte, Gruyere, and Emmental at Artisanal restaurant, knows that.
“I have kids, and at one point I tried to get them to try my stuff and they still liked the Kraft mac and cheese better,” he says. “I don’t like it — not because I’m a food snob, but I just think it’s eek.”
Still, the job of the Daily News Taste Kitchen was to judge the leading supermarket brands. So we started boiling pasta and mixing powders. Here’s what our panel — Fruchter; Angela Tanzer, 13; and my kids, Jane, 12, and Ben, 6 — determined: