Hawkeye: Why Yelena Loves Mac & Cheese And Hot Sauce

Everyone loves mac & cheese with hot sauce, but there's an extra-special reason Yelena Belova makes it her meal of choice in Disney+'s Hawkeye. Florence Pugh made her MCU debut in 2021's Black Widow, playing adopted sister of Natasha Romanoff and fellow Black Widow agent, Yelena Belova. The pair reunited in the aftermath of Captain America: Civil War, and while Natasha ultimately returned to the Avengers, Yelena would continue dismantling Dreykov's network. Unlike her uber-intense sister, however, Yelena finds the more comedic side of assassination, not afraid to crack a joke as she cracks some bones.

The chaotic duality of Yelena Belova is on full display in her long-awaited Hawkeye exchange with Kate Bishop. Hunting down Clint Barton, Yelena decides to pay Hawkeye's new sidekick a visit, breaking into Kate's apartment and waiting for her arrival. To kill time, Yelena takes it upon herself to cook macaroni & cheese in Kate's single-forked kitchen, offering some to the young archer herself when she finally turns up. While no one needs any extra reason to cook mac & cheese, Yelena's culinary habits are actually an emotional MCU callback.

In Black Widow's opening sequence, Natasha and Yelena are children growing up in Ohio as part of an undercover Soviet operation, with Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz) masquerading as their parents. The two young girls are preparing a family meal for when their "father" comes home, and young Yelena tells Melina, "I want mac & cheese!"

Yelena still championing the benefits of dairy-laden pasta tubes highlights how Florence Pugh's character is carrying memories of her undercover family into adulthood. Despite the family unit dissolving when the mission ended (and both parents consigning their adopted children to the Black Widow program), Ohio was a treasured time for Natasha and Yelena - the younger sister especially. Just as tastes and smells have a habit of conjuring up beloved forgotten memories, Hawkeye shows how mac & cheese reminds Yelena of the happy family unit from Black Widow's opening. Verbally sparring with Kate Bishop, Yelena also reveals how much she loves American Christmases, and this too is a callback to that four-piece undercover family in Ohio. Before the operation began, the quartet reenacted Christmas days in a Russian studio, so that the photographs and footage could be used as a cover story. Despite the subterfuge, Natasha and Yelena still look back fondly on those times, and Hawkeye gives the younger sister a perfect excuse to revisit her American childhood.

Both the mac & cheese line and the Christmas addiction demonstrate how Yelena is honoring her Russian family in the MCU's present day. Despite everyone separating (or, in Black Widow's case, dying), Yelena has learned to appreciate those childhood years sat around a table with her parents and sister by eating the same meals they enjoyed as a family back in the day. Hawkeye episode 5 even expands on Yelena's taste for pasta, when Florence Pugh's vest-clad assassin pleads, "My daddy says it's good for you" in reference to Red Guardian and mac & cheese.

The addition of hot sauce, however, has a very different explanation - Yelena's pasta topping came entirely from Florence Pugh herself. In an interview with Buzzfeed, Bertie (Hawkeye co-director) revealed how on-set riffing resulted in a hot sauce bottle being thrown Yelena's way instead of a different object, and Pugh (a big fan of hot sauce) came up with the idea of putting it all over the mac & cheese. Yelena's Hawkeye return neatly blends the MCU's past and present... with a generous splash of real life.

More: Hawkeye: Every Marvel Easter Egg & Reference In Episode 5

Hawkeye concludes Wednesday on Disney+.