Like I say, by tasting it. It’s so mild that it has no flavor. Simple as that. And that’s at its very best.
Real cheddar has flavor. You know you’re eating it. If you put American cheese in a sandwich, anything else – including white bread – overwhelms it.
pulykamell – I actually like cream cheese, especially veggie cream cheese on a bagel. It also makes a good cheesecake precisely because it has so little flavor to impede the taste of the sugar and other ingredients. But the cheese was developed and made popular because it was basically tasteless neufchatel. Note that the more flavorful version never caught on until it was marketed as a low-fat cheese. That’s very telling.
Larry Mudd – an omelet with American cheese? <shudder> That’s where you really want something with flavor; I use emmethaler swiss, cheddar, and Parmesan (grate it myself).
I think you’re talking about American neufchatel, which is not really anything resembling actual Neufchatel, in my opinion. It’s still basically American cream cheese. Check my link above to see what real Neufchatel is.
I’m really starting to wonder if the people that that turn up their nose at American cheese have actually had any. And I don’t mean that plastic wrapped stuff. That’s vile.
Texture? What was wrong with the texture?
The texture when melted is creamier and less oily than say cheddar.
The American cheese I get at the deli has at least as strong of a flavor as a mild cheddar. I’d say it’s stronger than Colby. Heck, even Kraft Deli Deluxe is stronger than Colby.
It’s not like I don’t like stronger cheeses, I love them all. I like to cut off a chunk of Parmesan and just knaw on it as a snack.
Still, I have always tasted the American cheese in even the most robust sandwich. I just had a BMT from Subway. That’s a combo of Genoa salami, pepperoni and ham, on Italian herb bread with all the veggies subway has and red wine vinaigrette. It had provolone on it as well. I added a slice of American of my own and could most certainly taste it.
Like pulybamell I also suspect RealityChuck, that your taste buds might be fried. Or you’re just being a cheese snob.
That may be (all I have to judge on is the pictures on the website), but at least Boone’s Farm is wine. Most places which purport to serve cheesesteaks, the more apt comparison would be “…as kool-aid is to wine”.
And American cheese absolutely does have flavor, certainly more than white bread. I would say that its main virtue is its flexibility, not blandness: Anything you can use any sort of cheese whatsoever for, you can use American. It’s almost never the best choice, but it’ll work.
I don’t mean to say that the texture of the cheese itself is unpleasant, only that the texture of the omelette suffered from it, without the mitigation of enhanced flavour. I don’t think that the same omelette made with gouda would have necessarily had a nicer texture, but that’s okay because the cheese would have made it taste better. It’s a costs/benefits thing.
If the cheese doesn’t help out with the flavour, I’d rather leave it out altogether and have a lighter, fluffier omelette.
No fat mayo. What’s in it? Mayonnaise is flavored fat.
For a while I saw an advertisement for a not hot hot sauce. I would yell at the T.V. “Well then, that’s just sauce isn’t it!” It didn’t last very long.
P.S. They didn’t need to make a new not hot hot sauce. It’s already out there. It’s called Red Devil.
To each his own. If you (the general you) don’t like the flavor of American cheese, no prob. My Wife likes swiss in her omletes. This one little place we go specializes more in Huevos Rancheros. Turns out the cheese they kept on hand for swiss was that pre-wrapped stuff (not too much swiss in Mexican food). Um, bad idea.
Yes. Some otherwise entirely forgettable movie that I saw a fews years back contained the perfect catty comment on a person: “I couldn’t hate her any more if she was made out of non-fat mayo.”
I couldn’t hate non-fat mayo any more if it were made out of Glen Beck.