Ken Burns and Mary Ann Esposito Cook Up a History Lesson in Making Jefferson's Maccaroni Pie

Durham, NH (November 10, 2026) — Founding Father Thomas Jefferson may seem like a remote, epic figure, but did you know that he too loved mac and cheese? Filmmaker Ken Burns joins CIAO ITALIA host Mary Ann Esposito to talk history and cook up a revolutionary recipe during MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE, premiering Thursday, November 26th on New Hampshire PBS.

MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE was the brainchild of Esposito, who wanted a unique way to celebrate the nation’s 250th Anniversary. “I started thinking about food. Food led me to macaroni and cheese. Macaroni and cheese led me to Thomas Jefferson,” said Esposito.

Esposito first learned about Jefferson’s fondness for pasta while reading The Virginia Housewife, written by Mary Randolph, a cousin of Thomas Jefferson. The cookbook includes a recipe for Maccaroni Pie—spelled with two c’s—that it’s believed Jefferson first came across in Italy.  “Jefferson spelled it with two C’s, just because of the dialectical word for macaroni in Naples at the time he traveled.”

For Esposito, Randolph’s writing was the start of a culinary treasure hunt. “It really wasn’t a finite recipe,” she noted. She worked closely with historians at Monticello to recreate a historically accurate dish. For example, one instruction called for two wine glasses of milk.

“In the 18th century, a wine glass looked much different than our bulbous wine glasses,” Esposito pointed out.

They also took into account the experience of people central to the pie’s creation, principally James Hemings, the enslaved man who was Monticello’s celebrated chef. Hemings received his culinary training in France, not Italy, and likely learned to make his version of the pie at that time.

With the recipe for the dish in place, Esposito had a special finishing touch in mind for her special: “It was a kind of puzzle. Who knows the most about Thomas Jefferson? Ken Burns.” Burns also offered the kitchen of The Restaurant at Burdick’s in Walpole, NH, where he is part owner, as a filming location. 

Esposito found her fellow Granite Stater to be an ideal coworker. “He was curious. He had a lot of questions. He worked well with his hands.”

Yes, that’s right. Viewers will get to see one of America’s most respected documentarians with his sleeves rolled up and kneading out pasta dough while he talks about revolutionary history.

Of course, all this hard work begs the question: is this early American version of macaroni and cheese 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!”

MAKING JEFFERSON’S MACCARONI PIE will premiere on NHPBS on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26th, at 8:30 PM and will be available to stream online on the PBS App.

Sponsored by the Friends of Italian Americans and the May Ann Esposito Fund through the NH Charitable Foundation.

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