Krasdale Kolumn #1

In the first installment of what we hope to be a regular Cosmodrome feature, Krasdale Kolumn will feature reviews of the foods and aesthetics of Brooklyn's favorite generic food empire. We start off with the most ubiquitous and favorite of their catalogue:

Name: Krasdale Macaroni & Cheese Dinner

This is the holy grail of the Krasdale Empire. No Brooklynite’s pantry is complete without at least 10 boxes squirreled away. The clutch dinner food that is perfect for that week between paychecks or grocery trips. The perfect food that is filling and not completely unsettling.

Krasdale Macaroni and Cheese Dinner was our first exposure to the finer foods of the Kradale oeuvre. Unemployed and walking the aisles of C-town for the first time, we were looking for something cheap that would stick to our ribs to fuel a month of wall building. Hesitant to buy what we assumed was a generic box of mac and cheese, but also hesitant to buy the $1.09 boxes of Kraft, we stocked up with some of each. We ate the Kraft first, staying within our comfort zone, but found ourselves opening our first black box much sooner than we expected. The box describes the flavor as “smooth and creamy”, and boy is it. The macaroni tends to be slightly smaller and thinner than Kraft, allowing for less surface area for the cheese sauce to stick and we assume it is this slippage that results in the cheese sauce being creamier. That or the chemicals involved don’t bond as well with the milk and butter to thicken and coagulate correctly. Either way, it becomes an adventure of flavor and texture in our mouths that was not experienced throughout our childhood. We're hooked. We’ll occasionally buy a box of Kraft (or, gasp!, Annie’s) merely for nostalgic value, but for what its worth, our 25 cents couldn’t be used in a better way.

Price: As low as 4/$1.00
Ingredients: Enriched Macaroni [Enriched Wheat Flour (Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid)], Cheese Sauce [Whey, Modified Corn and Wheat Starch, Salt, Dried Cheddar/Blue Cheeses (Pastuerized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt Enzymes) Lactic Acid, Dried Butter (Cream, Salt), Natural Flavor, Artificial Colors (Yellow 5, Yellow 5 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 6 Lake, Red 40 Lake), Disodium Phosphate, Disodium Guanylate, and Disodium Inosinate, Thiamine Hydrocholoride, Buttermilk.