Guardian wine writer and cheese fiend Fiona Beckett was deluged with entries when she launched a mac and cheese competition on her website a couple of years ago. America boasts more than one restaurant serving nothing else.

Marlene Spieler has written a whole book about the stuff.

This, then, is my own personal mission of conversion. I have an inkling (best not explored) that it would occasionally put in an appearance in the school canteen, but it always puzzled me that, despite being largely made up of two of my very favourite ingredients, pasta and cheese, with no tomato to lend a spurious suggestion of health, I never took to the stuff. Search as I might, I can locate no fond memories of my mother serving up a bubbling bowl of the stuff on Sunday evenings, or even fobbing us off with the infamous Kraft version so beloved across the pond.