this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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Just wanted to say that the hate on American cheese is unjustified. American cheese is just cheddar that has been heated to 170f (iirc) for long enough to kill bacteria and make it shelf-stable. They add an emulsifier (again, iirc) to help it bind better and have a more pleasant texture.
All other criticisms of America are valid, but the cheese doesn't deserve the hate it gets.
Check out Nile Red on Nebula, (or YT if that's your bag). He makes American Cheese from the ground cheddar up and you can watch. Having done so, I agree with you.
Honestly if you ever tasted anything else than cheddar and mozzarella, you know that americans cheese is something else. I'm willing to bet you could leave some slices in a forest and no animal would touch it.
It's cheddar and Colby Jack with some emulsifiers to make them mix better, that's about it
Kraft singles have preservatives in them so they're großer for sure, but that's not the only kind of American cheese there is
No I DONT know why my keyboard autocorrected that to use the German letter but it's funny so I'm leaving it as is
I'm sure there's a lot of good american cheese but I thought this "cheese product" was the subject. I actually enjoy it from time to time, but I can't bring myself to think of it as cheese. Like cheez weez for example, I like it sometimes, but it's just a different product in my mind. And man that Halloween orange color... just... who got this idea...why?
I'd go with "rubbery".
"Pleasant" in the context of what it would be otherwise. My understanding is that, without the emulsifier, it would be crumbly and kinda chalky, and not hold a form very well.
I'm sorry, but have you never had actual Cheddar?
They missed that American is a mix of cheddar and Colby Jack, so it's not easy to mix the 2 without an emulsifier
I have, and it's <chef's kiss>.
I agree, the american cheese is an Interesting and useful invention. At the end of the day it's just emulsified cheese. Similiar to emusified sausages and meat products, which are popular all around the world.
I much rather hate american insistace on substituting technique and culinary education with cream, corn syrup, sugar and butter, for example cacio e pepe or carbonara.
They are?
Mortadellas, doctors sausage, frankfurters etc. should be emulsified afaik
Aren't they just finely ground? I mean when they're made properly.
Sir I just work here.
If by 'more pleasant texture' you mean 'no texture whatsoever' then yes, I suppose so.
You forgot to mention that it's watered down. That's what the emulsifier is for, to make the oils in the cheese mix well with the added water. The concept is fine - for some applications - if it were only that, but this is hyper-processed American food we're talking about here. Gotta pad out that ingredient list:
The above is the standard Kraft singles ingredient list, and at a glance is the shortest one I saw on their website.
But it's a great source of phosphates! Where else are you going to get your phosphates?
Literally this is why it gets hate. It’s not remotely Cheddar. Real Cheddar is deliberately none of these things. I love a crunchy cheese crystal and a crumbly organic texture. To each their own, but it’s not Cheddar, barely cheese. I’d have it in a burger, but only because so few places will melt real cheese properly. Brie is pretty good in a burger. Is Somerset Brie really Brie? Time for a Frenchman to tell me to gtfo…
I didn't say it was cheddar. I said it was made from cheddar. It's decidedly not cheddar, which is why it's not called "cheddar".
"almost" Cheese product....
That's Velveeta or canned cheese, explicitly not what's being discussed
American cheese is an actual cheese product
They are discussing cheese slices, or singles as they are sometimes called. And I don't think those are cheese, but a cheese product.
gtfo.
IMHO, it has three purposes:
If your Kraft singles are too precious, I think the Dollar Tree brands stray even further from gods light.
wtf would you put that on apple pie? Pie deserves a nice sharp white cheddar
Wait wtf you put American cheese on your apple pie?!?
Are you from the US? I’ve never heard of that, and honestly I’m horrified and intrigued
There's a joke/urban myth that it's the law in Wisconsin that restaurants have to serve a slice of cheese with apple pie.
We did used to have a law that oleo (margarine) had to be sold undyed, which made it a sickly-looking blue-ish white. This was to protect the state's dairy industry. Only butter could be yellow. People near the borders used to bootleg yellow margarine back across the border from other states. The law was dealt a mortal blow when one of our state representatives publicly took a blind taste test in order to prove that butter was better...
...and failed. His family had been worried about his health, and was surreptitiously substituting yellow margarine for butter in their meals. (In an amusing historical twist, now that we know about the danger of transfats, we know that butter is indeed better.)
I think it might be an “older people in the south” thing. (Like all boomers and older I’ve talked to about it know about it, usually not younger) I worked at a diner for a bit, and it would be Silent Generation types that would order it.
It’s pretty good, but real cheddar would be better. It’s that similar salty/sweet combo that makes French fries and a McFlurry better than sex.
i heard of it as kid on some cooking show on PBS in the 90s. I thought it was super weird, but my mom had heard of it. Except it was cheddar cheese, not american. I tried it and thought it was pretty good, so i bring it up when people talk about apple pie. it never fails to weird them out if they've never tried it!
I wonder if one of the problems is your comparison of American cheese to what I’m guessing might be American cheddar. I say this because most (and I know there are some niche outliers) American cheddars are pretty awful. It tastes processed, rubbery and bland.
When I, a Brit, lived in the USA for 4 yrs I quickly learned the only good cheddar was the NZ or UK stuff. I say this as someone who has gone through at least 1-3 blocks of various British cheddars a week for almost 40 yrs.
I wonder if you have had imported (not just branded as “English cheddar” before for example? It might blow your mind… but also if American cheddar is all you have know it might not taste all that good - we all have our tastes shaped by our upbringing.
American Cheese is not actually cheese. It is cheese food product. Even deli American cheese is not cheese.
Legally they can't label it as cheese, but get anyway with cheese being part of the name.
Because it's made out of cheese. Legally if you take something that is cheese and use it as an ingredient in another food, then it is no longer "cheese", it is "cheese food". The first ingredient is cheddar
The west mocks homeopathy but practices it with it's own food.
Processed cheese is only called "American cheese" by Americans.
The rest of the world doesn't call it that, and it's strange to see that some of you take it on as part of your national identity.
@JacksonLamb @SPRUNT 'American cheese' is a specific type of cheese. I think the closest thing we have in the UK, we'd call 'plastic cheese' but even Kraft cheese slices/Kraft singles aren't 'American cheese' as they have extra milk in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American/_cheese
Thank you. I did not realize their processed cheese was even worse than Kraft.
I'm partial to the odd Laughing Cow on toast.
Your assuming a lot. I just like cheese.
Then why were you calling it a criticism of America?
That does not make sense.
They said that in the broader context of saying they don't think American cheese deserves the hate it gets. It was qualifying their defense of American cheese by saying they aren't just blindly defending any criticism of America but honestly like the cheese.