Cheese in my country is and always has been yellow. Sure you might see some gourmet cheeses that are different colours, but pretty much every cheese I have seen, on television, in the paper, in other people’s houses or wherever has been yellow.
All my life I have seen orange coloured cheese in American media that has reached me. It purplexes me. Orange seems such an unwholesome and unnatural colour - at least compared to what I assumed was the natural colour of the cheese making process (yellow). Why would people choose to buy and eat something which to my perhaps naive eyes, seems to perpetuate the myth that when it comes to American food products they can and do pump it full of whatever they like at any stage of the process.
Can anyone enlighten me about the realities of American cheese? Anyone actually made orange cheese themselves and how did you do it?
Cheddar and “American” cheese are the only two types I can think of that are orange. And even cheddar has whitish varieties. Of course, Northern California is all about cheese (and wine) snobbery, so maybe my glasses are orang^M^M^M rose-colored.
I was vacationing in Normandy last year, and while walking into a grocery store I overheard a loudmouth American tourist (are there any other kinds? US citizens really stick out like sore thumbs in Europe) remarking to her husband with a disgusted tone, “I couldn’t find any chedder.”
What is American cheese? Any cheese made in the US? Cheddar cheese is an English cheese, isn’t it? Named for both the town and the process of weighing down the blocks.
I saw on a Food Network show that orange cheese is made by adding bixin from annato seeds to normal cheese. This was because cheese color varied by season from pale white to deeper yellow, so to make the cheese a uniform color year-round, some enterprising cheese company in America decided to color it orange.
“American” cheese is the kind you get in pre-packaged slices like one would put on a white bread sandwhich. I’d refer to it as a “cheese product” more than an actual cheese.
Yeah, if you look at the package on American cheese slices it actually says “cheese food” or “processed cheese food” rather than “cheese.” There must be some FDA definition of cheese that it doesn’t meet.
Pasteurized process cheese, for example, is made from one or more cheeses, such as cheddar or colby, and may have cream or anhydrous milkfat added. The cheese is blended and heated with an emulsifier—typically a sodium or potassium phosphate, tartrate, or citrate—and other optional ingredients such as water, salt, artificial color, and spices or other flavorings.
The cheese is then poured into molds to solidify and is later packaged. This processing produces a smooth, mild-tasting cheese that melts easily. For pasteurized process cheese, the final product can have a maximum moisture content of 43% and must have at least 47% milkfat. An interesting twist is that the product alternatively can be labeled as pasteurized process American cheese when made from cheddar, colby, cheese curd, granular cheese, or a combination of these; when other varieties of cheese are included, it must be called simply American cheese.
The main advantage it has over regular cheese is that it melts smooth and doesn’t break down; making it ideal for dips and for dishes such as macaroni & cheese.
The US of course has a very large cheese industry (rooted in states like Wisconsin and California) that produce numerous types of “real” cheese.
Yeah, if you look at the package on American cheese slices it actually says “cheese food” or “processed cheese food” rather than “cheese.” There must be some FDA definition of cheese that it doesn’t meet.[/quote]
Don’t be jerks, guys. American cheese also comes in the real cheese variety. Go to a deli sometime, you can watch them slice it off of a big block. It’s real cheese.
Pasteurized process cheese, for example, is made from one or more cheeses, such as cheddar or colby, and may have cream or anhydrous milkfat added. The cheese is blended and heated with an emulsifier—typically a sodium or potassium phosphate, tartrate, or citrate—and other optional ingredients such as water, salt, artificial color, and spices or other flavorings.
The cheese is then poured into molds to solidify and is later packaged.
It’s the hot dog of cheeses.
I love cheese. It’s my biggest food vice–more so than junk food or sugar or what have you. But I can’t stand processed stuff like Velveeta and American cheese. I’ll sometimes eat American on things, if there’s no other option, but I prefer the real stuff. Give me some two-year Grafton cheddar from Vermont over processed cheese any day, even if it doesn’t melt as smoothly.
Yeah I’d like to highlight the fact that American cheese is made from actual cheese, and not vegetable oil or whatever western Europeans think it’s made from.
