Ok, we’re all familiar with the meme that American cheese is all that processed orange sliced stuff made from cheap plastic and the crushed dreams of the downtrodden, but I’m as to how well known any of the actual American cheeses are outside of the US, i.e.: Colby, Monterey Jack, or Monterey Jack’s many many offspring (Colby Jack, Pepper Jack, there’s a whole freaking Jack family of cheeses…), and any other cheeses I might be missing.
Also, is there an official accepted definition of what is cheese? Do the processed orange sandwich slices count? If not, what is the cutoff, as I presume that Monterey Jack and Colby do make the grade.
And finally, if you folks are familiar with these cheeses, what’s the general consensus? Good? An affront to the dairy arts?
Monterey Jack and some spicy cheese stuff is available in some UK supermarkets, but it’s pretty bland compared to other cheeses available. In the same ball park as Red Leicester.
Never heard of Colby.
Orange slices are sometimes labelled “Processed Cheese Food”. :barf:
(By the way, the best cheddar I have ever tasted was American, so I’m definitely not down on US cheeses - just the mass exports aren’t anything special.)
Yeah, I have been told that cheddar cheese from the US tends to be blander than the European stuff. Truth be told, I picked up a half pound of sharp cheddar once. Made a single sandwich with it, didn’t touch it again until it started to turn green some time later. Wonder why we ended up making our stuff with so much less punch to it?
Pepperjack I like to use for sandwiches, goes great with pepperoni on wheat, or on a cheeseburger. Cheddar (or whatever cheddar/other cheeses blend they sell in the pre-grated bags that catch my attention) I’ll use on burritos or tacos. Mozzarella (made in the US, if that makes a difference to the final cheese product itself) for snacking on directly.
By the way, “Philadelphia” is not a type of cheese. It’s a brand name. “Cream cheese” is the type of cheese Philadelphia ™ brand cream cheese is.
“Philly” is sometimes a slang term for cream cheese (as in the famous slogan “Butter your bread with Philly instead”). But never the whole word “Philadelphia” to refer to the actual substance and not the specific brand.
Monterey Jack’s the only real American cheese that’s known in the UK, to be honest. I’m sure somebody will come along with a list of American cheeses they can get at their local cheesemonger, but if you ask the average Briton to name a real American cheese, if they could name one at all, it would be Monterey Jack.
The only real American cheeses I know of have already been mentioned. However, cheesemakers here make nearly anything one can get overseas, local forage, caves, etc. notwithstanding, of course.
American cheese is technically not “cheese”, but “cheese food”. Which really just means that it’s cheese that’s been melted and re-solidified. It’s not as gross as it’s often made out to be. For those who haven’t had it before, it’s akin to cheddar, but much more mild. There are very few contexts where it’s the best cheese option, but it’s quite versatile: It’ll go reasonably well with white meats, red meats, macaroni, vegetables, or just by itself like on a grilled cheese sandwich.
Colby isn’t just akin to cheddar; it’s a variety of cheddar (again, a fairly mild one, but a bit sharper than American). It makes a great grilled cheese, and isn’t bad on a burger, but I don’t think I’d put it on, say, a turkey sandwich.
Monterey Jack is, so far as I can tell, not particularly related to American. It’s a white cheese, but has a bit of a tang to it-- Not the same thing as cheddar sharpness, but maybe slightly akin to Swiss? It’s definitely its own thing. It’s also often mixed with bits of capsicums, making pepper jack.
There are American cheeses that are cheese – it’s just cheddar that isn’t given any time to age. However, most of what you find in supermarkets are various cheese food products; some delis have the real thing.
Americans like their food bland (American cheese and mozzarella are the most popular cheeses in the US), but there are some superb American cheddars, usually from small manufacturers. The Vermont Cheese House has a superb “Truck Driver cheddar.” And Palatine Valley Cheese has some nice flavored cheddars. And Nancy’s Hudson Valley Camembert is excellent. There are certainly this type of cheesemaker all around the country, but you won’t find it in supermarkets.
Re: Cheese Food, there is also “Cheese Product” which is defined differently, and then other things like “Cheese Preparation” which aren’t defined at all by the FDA in regards to their cheese-osity or lack thereof. I get the impression that you get farther and farther from a block of cheese as you go from Cheese Food towards Cheese Preparation. Eventually you end up with Velveeta or Easy Cheese.
I may have misread (most of what I know about American cheeses I learned in a wiki walk about 20 minutes before posting this thread), but my understanding is that Colby and Monterey Jack both go without the cheddaring process… would that mean they’re not cheddar cheeses, though related?
And evidently Monterey Jack is a common base ingredient (along with Colby) for American Cheese, but how much of it gets used varies on what exactly you’re looking at.
IANACheesemeister, I learned most of this from Wikipedia, so take it for what it’s worth to you.
Jack and Colby are really the only two significant types of cheese that are American in origin, although American producers do produce many types of cheeses that originated elsewhere.
Locally made Colby is pretty common in Australian supermarkets. I had Monterey Jack on a plate of Cheese Fries at Lone Star (a chain restaurant). It was pretty ordinary but we are spoiled for cheese choices in Australia, making some of the best in the world.
Really? Which ones? I lived in London for over five years and never once saw Monterey Jack for sale at a supermarket. I’d like to know who carries it in case I ever move back.
The Amish, here in Ohio, make some great cheeses. They have this specialty called “Baby Swiss” that has some characteristics of Swiss cheese but is much milder/butterier and has smaller holes… One thing I’ve sort of wondered is what the German speaking countries and people in Switzerland call “Swiss Cheese”, surely the Swiss don’t call it Swiss cheese??
It would also seem to me that by the simple nature of cheese making that some permutation of so-called American cheeses like monterey or colby or variations had already been discovered or were possibly in use already in other Countries under different names and perhaps only differed in their age or local mold.
Well I thought I saw it in Waitrose but can’t find it on the website so maybe I was mistaken.
Though why you’d want it with all the amazing cheeses we have here I don’t know… The one thing I’ve noticed is that in the States, cheese labeled “sharp” is anything but. Our mildest cheddar in the UK is sharper in taste, IMO. But maybe not everyone’s looking for strong flavors.
Speaking of which, the cheddar I bought from Sugarbush Farm in Vermont was out of this world. Very sharp and mature, slightly crumbly but not overly so. An absolute delight: as I said earlier, the best cheddar I’ve ever tasted.
So, on a tangent, one of the more amusing things I learned when studying Chinese was what the Chinese call Chinese Fortune Cookies.
American Fortune Cookies. They’re originally from America, after all.
I don’t doubt that, given that the Native Americans don’t have a strong tradition of cheesemaking, it almost certainly came over with the Europeans, along with horses and beadwork. I get the impression that there is still a pretty wide range of what you can do when making cheese (they don’t even all start with cow’s milk, after all. I understand cheeses made from goat milk is pretty common).
For something similar, look at alcohol. So many different ways to make beer. When you think about it, is Bud Lite that much different from a good Irish Guinness Stout? (Well, yes, but you get my point)
