I find American cheese to be rather bland and tasteless. If you introduced some mold into it (like bleu cheese), and let it sit for a while, could you make a more flavorful cheese out of it? Take something like “Velveeta” (cheese “food”)- cold you do the same with that stuff?
American cheese is fine. American “cheese product” is what you’re talking about it. I am not a cheesemaker, and therefore not blessed, but I’d imagine you could do something with the former. But not everything can be aged. Most wines and beers cannot.
You can take those scare quotes off American Cheese, playa. American cheese is delicious and is the only cheese that can handle the task of a making a proper grill cheese sandwich.
Like lurking said, perhaps you mean cheese product…but American cheese is fine as is.
…I may be way off here but American Cheese, as I know it, IS a “cheese product”. We are talking about the Kraft singles (and knockoffs) called American Cheese right?
Or, is there an actual cheese I don’t know about that you can buy in a loaf or wheel or whatever called American Cheese?
Buying loaves of it wouldn’t make it an actual cheese. The question is if there is an American cheese that is not made by combining other cheeses with milk and a binder.
I once heard someone call a particularly mild cheddar American Cheese. If that counts, then, yeah, you could age it.
I have no idea if you can age the cheese product, which I assume is your main question. I’d guess you could let the milk part sour, maybe.
Yeah… velveeta comes in a loaf after all and it sure as hell isn’t cheese. But, hopefully what I meant makes sense. I was just trying to say that I wasn’t aware of any cheese known as “American Cheese” that isn’t a cheese product.
But yeah… American Cheese is an abomination to the word cheese and food science in general… but FUCK ME if it isn’t the absolute perfect substance for making a Grilled Cheese Sammich…
American cheese starts out as a processed cheese. It’s a mild cheese, usually a fairly green barrel cheddar, mixed with milk to make a cheese that melts more consistently. You can buy this from the deli at US supermarkets; Land O Lakes is a popular brand. The individually wrapped slices are even more processed, and at the lower end of the price scale may not contain much dairy product at all.
</used to work in a supermarket deli>
I am not a cheesemaker but…
Could you take the finished product known as “American cheese”, and do something else to it to turn it into a different type of cheese (by introducing blue cheese bacteria for example)? I doubt it. the cheese is already processed, further aging will just dry it out and make it nasty/moldy.
Could you take the mild cheddar that they start with and make it into a sharper cheese or blue cheese or whatever, THEN add the milk and stabilizers and make processed individually wrapped sharp cheddar or blue cheese slices? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this at the grocery store already. I’ve not tasted it so I’m not sure how it turns out, but it is possible.
It’s actually really easy to get the taste of whatever cheese you want and the texture/melty-ness of American cheese, but not by aging. You just need some sodium citrate - an emulsifier that lets you melt cheese without separating the fats and the water, and carageenan - a thickener and stabilizer. Both are readily available fairly cheaply online.
You can use any type of cheese you like, but it does get slightly diluted because you melt it into some liquid of your choice (water, wine, beer, etc), so I tend to pick stronger-tasting cheese.
Other than that, here’s a web page that describes the process. I’ve done it dozens of times, and the only trick is that sometimes the cheese comes out thinner than others, depending on the cheese blend you use. If you experiment with the cheese you like, it’s easy enough to adjust the liquid and carageenan levels to get the exact texture you want.
I keep it in the freezer pretty much all the time, for mac & cheese or grilled cheese or whatever…
There is a difference between process cheese and cheese product. Process cheese is cheese. Cheese product is “product.” American cheese is always processed, but that doesn’t make it not cheese. No one would suggest that processed meat like bacon or sausage isn’t meat. Kraft Singles, on the other hand, are cheese product. They are made from cheese, but they are not cheese. Kraft Deli Deluxe is American cheese.
No, not really.
The original “American cheese” referred to about any cheddar style cheese made in america, and was considered inferior to the cheddars of england.
Later, in the early days of the 20th century “processed cheese” was invented in the US, and this sort of cheese became known exclusively as “american cheese”. It was often a blend of different cheeses, particularly cheddar and colby, with other ingredients added. This processing makes aging the cheese further rather futile, as it interrupts the ongoing chemical reactions which make things like older cheddars and swiss cheese so much more flavorful.
Processed cheese became popular because it resulted in a product with a longer shelf like, and which tended to cook up without separating.
The main answer to the question is no. Cheese as a product is alive, it has active yeast and bacteria that give it a unique flavour. It is also those microorganisms that allow a cheese to age. If on the other hand you DON’T want your cheese to age, so that it stays the same flavour for years, you pasteurize it, that is you kill all the organisms so that they can’t age the cheese.
Secondly, cheese is a rather unstable structure of fat and protein held loosely together. Applying heat often breaks that structure and cause it all to fall apart into a disgusting mess. If you want a cheese that will melt smoothly, you add emulsifiers to hold it all together.
These two process together are what is considered processed cheese, and it’s been around for a long time, traditionally known as cold pack and I believe one other term. The terms processed cheese and processed cheese FOOD then refer to how much actual cheese went into it, but keep in mind they MUST contain cheese.
You can essentially do this to any cheese you want, in America it became standard to use that very mild cheddar. But because it’s been processed it isn’t going to age. You can, however, find all kinds of other aged cheese that were then processed to act like American cheese.
The one exception to this is that the fats in the cheese will pick up flavours from your fridge. So if you really wanted to, you could layer blue cheese in between stacks of American singles, wrap tightly with foil, and wait a few days. The flavour from the blue will get into the singles and give you a very strange flavour. Works better with butter…
Yes there REALLY IS an ACTUAL CHEESE called AMERICAN CHEESE. Look for things that say “American Cheese” (frequently followed by “pasteurized process cheese” which is a legitimate cheese). These are sold under names like Kraft DELUXE singles.
As a general rule, if each slice is individually wrapped it’s not cheese. They do that because [del]fake cheese[/del] cheese food and cheese product slices will melt into each other over time if they aren’t separated in such a manner. Real cheese slices will remain separate even after slicing (assuming they aren’t subjected to heat).
And yes, you most certainly can buy a “loaf” of American cheese. Usually you have to go to a deli and ask them NOT to slice it. Current price for one in my neighborhood is about $25-30 for a 5 pound block of the stuff.
Real American cheese gets a bad rap because of all the fake stuff passed off as “cheese”. Also, the government give-away cheese from awhile back was real American cheese but it was old, near the end of its shelf life, and not at its best (so no, I’d say American cheese isn’t something that ages well).
Yes. People assume that ‘American cheese’ is the fake, individually-wrapped stuff. People may find real American cheese to be too mild, and they may not even like it; but it’s miles ahead of ‘cheese food’. American cheese is essential for a proper grilled cheese sandwich. Many restaurants default to Cheddar on their cheeseburgers, but American cheese is better for that. Cheese gotta melt!
We had a neighbour who got the government cheese. Too much for her, so she gave it to dad and me. We quite liked it.
That said, it’s a good thing American cheese has a long shelf life (in our fridge, anyway). We don’t often have grilled cheese sandwiches or cheeseburgers, so it sits around a while. Cheddar, on the other hand, has to be bought in 5-pound blocks as it is used frequently.
American cheese is only “proper” for grilled cheese sandwiches if you like bland, characterless cheese. Many other cheeses melt well, domestic and imported. Tillamook cheddar makes an excellent grilled cheese sandwich.
To me American Cheese is a condiment. Something mild to add to a sandwich. Almost a substiture for mayo. It is essentially a form of margerine. I do like classic grilled cheese, but it’s more for the fried buttered bread than the cheese content. And grilled cheese with gruyere is much better.
But to get back to the OP, no, American Cheese does not improve by aging. It just gets drier.
American cheese is a very versatile cheese, being tolerable in almost anything that calls for cheese for any purpose, but there’s almost nothing for which it’s the best choice.
Almost nothing. It is, however, the best cheese to use to make a cheesesteak.
Oh, and it’s fine in a grilled cheese sandwich, but cheddar is better.
What if I love a Kraft Deli Deluxe for my grill cheese sandwich, but prefer other cheeses, with more ‘character’ for other dishes? Do I get my snooty card then? Or do I only get it if I take American cheese off the menu altogether?
Not true at all. A lot of American cheese, including Kraft Deli Deluxe, can be purchased individually wrapped.
I recently picked up some sliced, individually-wrapped American cheese (indeed, the brand name on it is “American”). While regular Kraft Singles look like they’re wrapped while still in a liquid form (thin edges where it’s been squeezed between the layers of plastic, and a surface texture the looks like it was molded by the wrapper), this stuff looks like actual slices that were wrapped after slicing.