Trap Kitchen: Mac N’ All Over the World: Bangin’ Mac N’ Cheese Recipes from Around the World

Norms are upended while elbows are tossed in this satisfying new work by the soul food cooks from Compton who hit it big with their Trap Kitchen enterprise. Their famous L.A. trap mac recipe brings down the proverbial house with its four-cheese blend and copious amounts of condensed cream of mushroom and cheddar cheese soup. The more than 50 other variations of cheese-drenched pasta scour the earth for inspiration, unencumbered by chapter breaks or organizing principles. Each, though, has at its base one of two types of sauce to which shredded cheese is added: a roux, or else a flourless sauce thickened with cream cheese. The former turns up in such savory options as Spanish chorizo mac, and Maine lobster mac with mild white cheddar (for “when you tryin to flex with all this lobster and shit”), while the latter goes to work in a Buffalo chicken mac as well as a Cuban medianoche mac with Swiss cheese, orecchiette, and marinated pork. Sporadically, the geographic theme will give way to rewarding risks such as Kraft dinner mac, which seeks to imitate the classic while thinking outside the box with the addition of ground beef seasoned with onion and garlic. No ounce of cheese or expletive is wasted in these deliciously outrageous recipes. (Jan.)