The Pertinent, If Unexpected Role Of Boxed Mac-N-Cheese In Adulthood

6 min readDec 12, 2020

Eat it when you miss your parents.

Photo by FOODISM360 on Unsplash

It’s a dangerous thing, writing about boxed mac-n-cheese when there currently isn’t any in the house. But it’s mid-October in an election year: Cue the comfort-content! I want to talk about boxed mac-n-cheese, a culinary capsule moment that fell squarely into the “kid food” genre, long before nuggets existed in dinosaur shapes. It is a food product that meant a lot at the time, and in my opinion still holds sauce today. For children of the 80s and 90s, those currently waking to find Twitter trends handpicked by the Mad Hatter himself, there is emotion, memory, and solace hiding in the shape of a tubed noodle. You know I’m right.

The box I speak of is a classic, a pantry staple almost certain to be left behind by the prior occupants of your Airbnb. The blue and gold branding is a signpost of our youth, you’re familiar with its contents. Countless tiny noodles ready to double in size at boiling water’s touch and a powdered cheese packet typically shaken before use like a Polaroid. It is simplicity, it is artificial, it is home. It is, for some reason, never cast aside for a store brand, which is more than I can say for many a soggy bowl of cereal.

If, like me, you were a child before things like wellness and veganism and Instagram existed, there is a keen possibility your diet was 20–30% Kraft Mac-N-Cheese. I see no shame in this admission, quite the opposite. It’s a moment in home-menu history worthy of celebration, particularly if you were a kid who lived with their dad every other weekend. Could I skateboard down the street with a bowl of this golden goodness in my hand to the tune of Fleetwood Mac? Sure, but I have coordination problems and therefore do not belong atop things with wheels. I instead choose to explore the merits and wonders of boxed mac-n-cheese here, and in these trying times, discuss why we can’t push our carts past it now.

The familiarity is palpable. Sure, every family had their own assembly methods, maybe you’re even from a Velveeta household. But as far as the side dishes of our youth go, tiny pasta covered in false cheese was the literal gold standard in protein accompaniments. I mean really, as a child, did you ever eat this stuff when it wasn’t dangerously close to touching a chicken tender? Was there any meal ever attended where this delicacy wasn’t the first item consumed?? You know exactly how it tastes, exactly how it smells, you’re familiar with the consistency of the product dependent upon which adult prepared it. I would know my mother’s boxed mac-n-cheese at 50 paces, I tell you.

An old friend, modified for modern neurosis.

It didn’t end at the family table! Boxed mac-n-cheese followed along on my journey to adulthood. Would I have even survived college (hangovers) without EasyMac? The answer there friends, is no. I could have made the full boxed production, I did own a pot, but it was as if boxed mac-n-cheese knew that I was on my own for the first time, and to take things easy on me via microwavable capabilities. My future was uncertain, but dinner (breakfast?) was one stir away from handled.

We’ve grown. We’ve come to understand that ingredient lists aren’t supposed to look like that, and we know “powder” isn’t a word you want associated with cheese. So why then do I feel things each time I pass by boxed mac-n-cheese at the grocery store? It’s as if I’m receiving an energetic hug from the contents within printed cardboard and while I’m concerned for what this says about my culinary standards, honestly — I just want the good stuff.

I want something that makes sense. Something familiar, that hasn’t been fucked six ways from Sunday by time and the Republican party. Sorry, by Mitch McConnell. I’m tired of feeling scared all the time, and I was tired of it before a global pandemic. I don’t know what to do anymore, what to say, where to be, which way is up, down, or disinfected. But one thing I do still know is how to follow the most minimal of instructions on the side of a goddamned box.

So I buy it. I indulge my need for comfort, for familiarity. Then I buy three more because…you know, quarantine. I shed any shame or fear, ignoring the little voice in the back of my head that’s screaming “REALLY?!” and just prepare something that, for a moment at least, makes things okay. I have my carbohydrate hug in a bowl while I sit on the couch under a blanket while watching Golden Girls and crying at the theme song. And if that doesn’t sound like an afternoon to you you’re lying to us both.

Plane tickets are expensive, and in this day and age, risky. It seems to me that $1.99 (cheaper, if you don’t live in Brooklyn) seems a bargain price to pay to go home, and an entirely safe way to travel. Nutrition takes on many forms. Sometimes it’s riboflavin, sometimes it’s solace. In this year of chaos, corruption, and just plain ol’ bullshit, if there’s one thing remaining that I know for sure, it’s that there are worse things to consume than a little Kraft.

____________

Shani Silver is a humor essayist and podcaster based in Brooklyn who writes on Medium, frequently.

The Pertinent, If Unexpected Role Of Boxed Mac-N-Cheese In Adulthood

Written by Arif