The Internet Can't Get Over This Bizarre Ingredient In Drake's Mac And Cheese
We thought Drake could do no wrong in the eyes of the public. After all, he's one of the richest rappers in the world, and the richest under 40, for good reason (via Forbes). On October 23rd, Drake celebrated his 34th birthday with friends in Los Angeles, according to Hollywood Life; but all those social media well-wishes for the Canadian rapper and one-time Degrassi star came to a screeching halt after people got a look at Drake's birthday menu. Apparently, nothing can ruin a sterling reputation faster than a menu item that turns stomachs.
Someone grabbed a photo of the one-page menu and posted it on Twitter. The options start off nicely enough, with calamari, sushi, and a few salads. Then came the entrees, including chicken bolognese, steak frites, grilled cauliflower, and macaroni and cheese. A little something for everyone, right? The menu appeared to possibly have a minor typo, describing the same ingredients in both the cauliflower dish and the mac and cheese: sun-dried tomato, capers, raisins, and parsley. The Twitterverse latched onto what they imagined was the grossest mac and cheese ever created — and it was somehow Drake's fault. User @ImCordellTaylor tweeted, "@Drake, you and whoever catered your party got some explaining to do homie. WHO DEADA** PUTS RAISINS IN MAC & CHEESE?" Taylor went on in a comment underneath the tweet, "This takes a different kind of psychopath to think of this."
Drake's macaroni and cheese may have been inspired by his mother
Twitter user @dshepdfw thought Drake's birthday mac and cheese was yet another symptom of the worst year ever, tweeting "Drake out here having events serving mac and cheese with capers and raisins... I want 2020 burned to the ground," to which @tinclock replied, "Just in case you forgot he's Canadian, he came through with the reminder." We're not sure if putting raisins in macaroni and cheese is a Canadian thing. We're not even sure if raisins, capers, and sun-dried tomatoes were meant for cauliflower either, to be honest, but both seem doable. We did find a recipe for crispy cauliflower with capers and raisins from Bon Appétit, and a recipe for macaroni and cheese with radicchio and raisins over at Food & Wine, so who knows? Maybe the chef just had a lot of raisins and capers, and decided to throw them in both dishes.
There is also another argument to be made for Drake choosing to have raisins in his mac and cheese. As many of his fans know, Drake is close with his Ashkenazi Jewish mother Sandi Graham (via Forward), and noodle kugel is a traditional Jewish dish that often contains both raisins and cheese (via Bon Appétit). As Bon Appétit's associate food editor Claire Saffitz pointed out, people often confuse noodle kugel with some sort of strange, sweet macaroni and cheese. So there you have it, mystery possibly solved. If Drake would have just written "noodle kugel" on the menu instead of "mac n cheese", maybe people wouldn't have been so harsh.