White vs: Yellow Americans…

I have always purchased yellow American cheese from the deli for things like burgers and cheese steaks. Last order the yellow was out of stock so ordered the white. I was under the impression the only differences between the two were color… but oh boy was that wrong!

In comparison, the white is almost tasteless… and based on my experience with American cheese (including Kraft singles) tastes nothing like it.

Still usable, but never again (I’ll order the Kraft junk if the deli is ever out of yellow again).

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Funny, I never knew there was a yellow American until I was an older kid. I knew at McDs I didn’t like their cheeseburgers. The white American was the only thing mom ever bought at the deli (Philadelphians). To this day I’ve never received anything but white when ordering cheesesteaks or other sandwiches in the area. And I still cannot stand “fast food yellow oil” cheese.

In my short stint in Ohio, yellow seemed the preferred option, but thankfully Kroger also carried the white variety.

Maybe a regional thing. My roommate in school was from Pittsburgh. She returned from a weekend home after attending a bridal shower. She told me one of the bridesmaids, while making herself a sandwich, asked if there was any white cheese. Roommate immediately asked if the woman was from Philadelphia (she was).

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Never even realize yellow American cheese had taste.

Always thought they were more for texture and looks than anything else.

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Absolutely, and unmistakable.

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Nevertheless, I find it hard to pass up a package of Kraft Singles when I’m at the store. When I do, it disappears from the fridge pretty quickly, and I’m not the only one eating it. I love all kinds of cheese. Kraft Singles are like a whole different kind of thing that isn’t really cheese. More like dessert, kind of.

I don’t eat a lot of American cheese either way, but I never noticed much of a taste or that yellow vs. white was much different. Could be the brands being used.

In my house growing up, if there was American cheese to be used it was white since my mom was going through what I like to call her “health nut phase” that lasted for most of my childhood (and included whole wheat pasta :face_vomiting:) and she rightly or wrong viewed white as “healthier” than yellow since it lacked some of the coloring agents added to yellow that some companies use. Yellow American can have a natural tint due to beta carotene in the cow’s milk but that color would not ever come close to Kraft Yellow (that should be a new Crayola color).

In any event, unless I’m having a cheeseburger or classic grilled cheese or a recipe specifically calls for a processed cheese, I’m probably not eating American.

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Huh, I never equated white with being healthier (mom wasn’t a health nut by any means). It’s just what they sold at the corner deli and mom disliked the orange slices wrapped in plastic (they were probably more expensive . . .mom was thrifty). I still use it for burgers, grilled cheese, etc and probably eschew the orange stuff just as habit. I certainly eat other orange cheeses and can honestly say that until this day mom hasn’t met a cheese she doesn’t like (beyond the orange American).

I remember as a kid my oldest sister went through a “Velveeta” phase. I recall for a time there was a big box of it in the fridge. Not sure if she grew out of it or just took it with her when she moved out.

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Kraft Singles are basically creamy salt. And that’s FINE. They’re perfect for melt-y sandwiches and burgers, work FANTASTICALLY as a base for mac & cheese. They have enough emulsifiers in them that you can skip going all ‘modernist cuisine’ with sodium citrate, and let you work in more ‘real’ cheese of your liking. Ditto for grilled cheese.

Also, a couple of slices on ritz crackers when I’m in the “I’m hungy but nothing sounds good.” mood strikes is a solid snack. I have a big ol’ Costco-sized box in the fridge and I have no shame about that whatsoever.

When I lived in NZ for a couple of years, I had to make due with their own version of highly processed cheese, which came in a variety of ‘flavors’ (Edam, Colby, and ‘Tasty’ (cheddar)) but all of which tasted more like one another than anything else. They compared pretty directly w/ Kraft Singles, and would be a totally acceptable substitute for most applications.

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There’s American cheese whether white or yellow but the
Kraft singles are an entirely different thing. Can’t even legally be called cheese. It’s a cheese product whatever that maybe.

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Like those cretans who believe CheezWiz belongs on a steak sandwich. They don’t even pretend it’s cheese.

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Kraft Deli Deluxe is American cheese. It is processed, but not cheese food nor cheese product. Just cheese.

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I haven’t read the link yet, but that’s what I was thinking. The last time “we” discussed American cheese I learned there were significant differences in quality.

Maybe this one.

Nope

But that thread referenced another thread that included this link

This was in that thread too.

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Yes, I’ve bought versions that I thought tasted very plasticky, the cheaper stuff, like Borden or Tropical. The ones that seem furthest removed from milk are called cheese food product or something similar, and they don’t melt so much as dissolve into an oily sludge. But Kraft Deli Deluxe is closer to mild cheddar that melts very nicely (that’s the processing at work). And you can also buy - as I did, once - organic American cheese from Trader Joe’s. Which was TOO close to cheddar and didn’t meet my American cheese needs. It’s supposed to taste a little bit fake. But not too much.

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The Kenji Lopez-Alt article does a pretty good job of explaining it.

The purpose of process cheese is to make cheese that melts but doesn’t break (separate into oils and solids). It was invented in Switzerland by the way, not the US. It is popular in the US because we have so many dishes involving cheese sauce or other melted cheese that we love probably because our mothers fed us with them when we were kids so for us they are comfort food. Mac n cheese, toasted cheese sandwiches, broccoli with cheese sauce, the list goes on – most of all cheeseburgers. Europeans (snooty) don’t have so much of this, and think of cheese exclusively as table cheese. When they use melted cheese (as in fondue) they add ingredients that have the same impact (emulsifiers), so it is also “process cheese” just made on the spot.

The key point is that process cheese varies in quality, and you can tell by how it’s labeled, because the words that are there are controlled by federal regulations. The best quality is labeled, by federal regulation, “pasteurized process American cheese”. PPAC is very close to “natural” cheese: all dairy ingredients plus emulsifiers that hold it together so it doesn’t break when it is melted. Kraft Deluxe is PPAC. You don’t have to pay those prices however; most stores also offer a private label PPAC which is essentially the same thing. These days, they typically add “deluxe” somewhere on the package to signal to buyers what it is. Most complaints about “crappy American cheese” are probably based on buying the cheap crappy stuff, like cheese product or slices or even Velveeta, which contain non-dairy ingredients, by people who don’t understand the differences. Anyway, PPAC isn’t meant to be a table cheese in the first place – it’s for making sauce in one form or another or as a sandwich ingredient, especially cheeseburgers.

It used to be that buying it in the deli pretty much guaranteed you got the good stuff. However, Land O Lakes has recently gone over to the dark side and their deli loaf (last time I checked) is no longer PPAC, but some type of “cheese product.” So take care.

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I emphatically disagree with this statement. Just shows a lack of familiarity with European cuisine. Plenty of dishes that use cheese. Start with the classic French soufflé. A mac and cheese without the mac. Croque Monsieur which is a French version of a grilled cheese. Aligot which is simply amazing. Tartiflette which is basically a bowl of melted cheese with some stuff in it. Mostly pork and potatoes. Great stuff on a cold winter day. How about a dish of raclette? The classic German dish of spaetzle mit kaese? Since Europeans have been experimenting with cheese for millennia before America was founded I would guess that there are far more European comfort dishes made with cheese than there are American.

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I think you misunderstood johnb. He didn’t say that Europeans don’t use cheese in food, but they will take a table cheese and use that. He gave the European example of fondue.

In all the examples you use, they are doing exactly what johnb says.

He is correct that there is a predilection in the US for covering everything in cheese that does not exist in Europe. It wasn’t always that way, but it is very common now.

Tartiflette is potatoes, onion and cheese. Sometimes bacon is added. It is from the Savoie. The pasta version is called croziflette. In either case, they use reblochon cheese, a cheese you would use as a table cheese that might otherwise be on a cheese plate to be eaten straight.

I have never heard of people eating PPAC straight unless they are very low on provisions.

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Annatto extract does have a bit of flavor to it. But given you noted an extreme difference, I wonder if they were of two different brands? Generally when I’ve bought white/yellow of the same brand, I don’t really notice a difference.

Yeah but on a proper cheesesteak, the white cheese is provolone, no?

I lived in Europe for many years and ate widely, so am hardly unfamiliar with “European cuisine.”

OK maybe “exclusive” overstates the case. I was in part reacting to numerous posters on various websites, particularly Brits, that are forever deriding Americans for our “plastic cheese”, and who are extremely snooty about it, and to an extent similar comments come in from other Europeans as well. And I daresay the vast preponderance of cheese consumption in Europe is of table cheese, at the end of a meal, not melted as in the US where I suspect the vast preponderance is melted applications. And as I pointed out, most if not all the dishes you mention have ingredients or techniques that have an emulsifying effect, which prevents separation, which is the point of process cheese.

Well, now you have, and the box of Kraft singles in my fridge is testament to that.

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Could y’all stop referring to Europe as one monolithic cultural and national entity?

Hungary ≠ France ≠ Spain ≠ Poland ≠ Germany.

Danke, gracias, merci.

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