When you think of Ken Burns, it’s unlikely that you picture the filmmaker with his sleeves rolled up and his hands in pasta dough. But when CIAO ITALIA host Mary Ann Esposito asked America’s favorite documentarian to help her out in the kitchen this summer, Burns was happy to oblige.
“I had no idea that this would wind up with Ken Burns,” said Esposito happily. She came up with the idea for MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE while looking for a way to celebrate the Italian-American contribution to America’s founding.
Join Mary Ann Esposito and Ken Burns in the kitchen for MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE, premiering Thanksgiving night, Thursday, November 26, at 8:30 PM on NHPBS.
How macaroni led to Jefferson
“I started thinking about food. Food led me to macaroni and cheese. Macaroni and cheese led me to Thomas Jefferson,” said Esposito. “It was a kind of puzzle. Who knows the most about Thomas Jefferson? Ken Burns.”
Macaroni and cheese is, of course, a classic American comfort food, but the connection between mac and cheese and the writer of the Declaration of Independence is less obvious. It starts to come together more clearly, however, when you learn that Esposito began her professional career as a history teacher.
“Why is it called this? Who first made this? How many variations are there?”
This might not come as a surprise to fans of CIAO ITALIA, where Esposito has always included the history of a dish in her research process. “Everything that we do for the show involves digging into history,” she pointed out. “Why is it called this? Who first made this? How many variations are there?”
She suspects macaroni and cheese, in some form, has been around for quite awhile. “There was macaroni, called by a different name in ancient Rome, and there was cheese,” Esposito noted. “There always was cheese!”
Recreating a historic recipe
Given her passion for both food and history, it’s not surprising that Esposito had already read one of America’s first and most influential cookbooks, The Virginia Housewife, written by Mary Randolph. Randolph was a cousin of Thomas Jefferson’s and included in her book a recipe for a macaroni pie that Jefferson served at Monticello.
“It really isn’t a finite recipe,” Esposito said. She worked closely with historians at Monticello to recreate an authentic version of the recipe, based on Randolph’s writing and other likely influences.
For example, Jefferson is believed to have come across Maccaroni Pie while in Italy, however, the recipe would have actually been created by James Hemings, Monticello’s enslaved chef, whose culinary training in France probably influenced the dish.
Esposito also drew inspiration from the documented reactions of guests who dined on macaroni pie. One diarist, Reverend Manasseh Cutler, wrote of “a pie called macaroni, which appeared to be a rich crust filled with the strillions of onions.” His dining companion, Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition, explained to the reverend that they were actually eating noodles covered in parmesan.
“Jefferson spelled it with two C’s, just because of the dialectical word for macaroni in Naples at the time he traveled.”
As becomes apparent in MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE, Cutler and Lewis weren’t dining on the elbow macaroni we know today. “Pasta was more a gourmand name for macaroni. Even when I was growing up, pasta was always called macaroni, no matter what it was,” Esposito explained. “Jefferson spelled it with two C’s, just because of the dialectical word for macaroni in Naples at the time he traveled.”
Ken Burns joins the kitchen
With the recipe for the dish in place, Esposito had a special finishing touch in mind for her program: having Ken Burns join her to provide his extensive knowledge on both Jefferson and the Revolutionary era.
“I thought he was great to work with,” exclaimed Esposito. “He was curious. He had a lot of questions. He worked well with his hands. He had a lot to offer in terms of the historical perspective on Jefferson.”
As fascinating as this history is, it begs the question: is this early American macaroni pie any good? On the day of filming, Esposito recalled, one of the production’s gaffers called dibs on the pie. “He ate the whole thing, so he must have liked it!”
Behind the scenes
Go behind the scenes with Ken Burns and Mary Ann Esposito! Click through the slideshow below for photos from the filming, or watch our behind-the-scenes video.
MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE will premiere on NHPBS on Thursday, November 26th at 8:30 PM and will be available to stream online at nhpbs.org/maccaroni.