American

What is American Cheese?

British colonists brought cheddar to North America and were making it there soon after they arrived. By 1790 American cheddars were being shipped back to England, where they went by American cheddar or Yankee cheddar; in America people said yellow cheese or store cheese. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the phrase "American cheese" to an 1804 newspaper in Frankfort, Kentucky.

James L. Kraft, founder of Kraft Foods Inc., patented a method for manufacturing processed cheese in 1916 and started marketing it late that decade. The name moved with it. American cheese came to mean the processed version rather than the traditional, more expensive cheddars still sold in the U.S.

Production begins with a ground mix that must be at least 51% cheese, such as cheddar or Colby. Emulsifying agents and other ingredients can make up the rest, as much as 49%, and the batch is mixed and heated until it forms one melted homogeneous mass. Sodium citrate does the critical work of keeping the fats from separating. Pasteurization runs at a minimum of 150 °F (66 °C) for at least 30 seconds.

The result is mild and creamy with a salty flavor, a medium-firm consistency, and a low melting point. Color runs yellow or white, and the yellow kind is seasoned and colored with annatto. It reaches shops as individually wrapped slices, as bare slices stacked together, or as an unsliced block.

Neutral flavor and soft texture make it a standard sandwich cheese in North America. It melts smoothly into grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, omelets, scrambled eggs, and breakfast sandwiches, and it is the usual cheese on an American cheeseburger. Fast food leans on it heavily, as do cheese dogs, cheesesteaks, chili-cheese fries, and nachos. The Philadelphia cheesesteak started out with provolone, but white American slices have replaced it at many stands; as of 2018 the Philadelphia and South Jersey market accounted for half of Kraft Foods' white American cheese sales.