Where Did American Cheese Come From (And Is It Even Cheese)?

American Cheese plays an outsized role in the diet of its namesake country, but it's not for everyone. To those who love American cheese, its salty smoothness makes it a fit for grilled cheeses, burgers, or anything else you can order from a deli or diner. To snootier cheese connoisseurs, American cheese conjures images of Kraft singles, an artificial, gauche substance that shouldn't even be consider cheese.

No matter which side of the great American cheese debate you come from, there's a good chance you don't know its whole story. This dairy's definition is more, shall we say, "plastic" than you might think, changing with the times and benefitted from cheese science along its rise to prominence. Now, here's the story of American cheese.

"American cheese" used to mean something a bit more literal

Before the days of processing and mass production, American cheese referred to pretty much exactly what you'd think it should: cheese from the United States of America.

Since 1620's Plymouth, colonists had been in the habit of making their own cheddar (itself a type of cheese which gets its name from an English village). By the late 18th century, America was exporting this cheddar back to England. Over there, people got in the habit of calling this supposedly inferior cheese made on the opposite shores of the Atlantic "Yankee" or "American" cheese. This imported cheese tended to be a bit cheaper than even the cheddar produced locally (hard feelings stirred up the revolutionary war?), lending it a reputation as something more suited for the common man than British nobility.

But the American cheese we know is technically from Switzerland

Though American cheese would function more as a colloquialism than a proper noun from the late 18th and into the early 20th century, that would eventually change. The first step in transforming American cheese into the distinct entity it is today can be traced to in Switzerland in 1911, the time and place that Walter Gerber and Fritz Stettler developed the world's first processed cheese by shredding Emmentaler cheese and heating it with sodium citrate into a firm, unified substance upon its cooling.

That research into more shelf-stable cheeses opened the door for the Canadian-born James Lewis Kraft, a former grocery clerk turned aspiring cheese wholesaler who was doing his own experiments in a Chicago boardinghouse. According to the New York Times, Kraft's patented process involved melting together various cheddar pieces to 175 degrees for 15 minutes, whisking throughout. Somehow, that made cheese (a product derived from dairy, after all), into something that could not only last longer before spoiling, but be packaged into cans or jars.

In 1921, a bigger breakthrough took place, as Kraft patented a 2.27 kilogram "loaf" of processed cheese. Easier to sell in bulk to delis who could slice the cheese for customers, it further popularized this processed cheese, making it possible for delis to slice and use more or less as we do today. Over time, this processed take on cheddar gradually assumed the name "American cheese." That definition was further aided by the eventual arrival of Kraft Singles in 1965 (which James Kraft's brother Norman partially figured out by taking a frozen rolling pin to just-processed cheese some years earlier).

Technically American cheese isn't cheese

That's because blended cheeses must be labeled as "processed" cheese or "cheese product." According to no less of an authority than Cheese.com, the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations regards American cheese as a type of "pasteurized processed cheese." To the letter of the law, what we know as American cheese exists in the legal lexicon as "a stable concoction of natural cheese cheese bits mixed with emulsifying agents" used to make "a homogenous plastic mass." You can thank the natural cheese lobby, who wanted to differentiate themselves from Kraft et. al, for that particular definition. In truth, the "plastic" part sounds scarier than it is: It essentially functions as an adjective that describes something as easily shaped or molded, which, to be fair, could describe a lot of different types of cheese.

Believe it or not, "plastic" isn't the worst thing American cheese could have been called. Kraft's pasteurized cheese had so incensed those natural cheese makers that they took to calling American cheese "embalmed cheese" and pushed hard for government regulators to do the same. Why? Because sodium phosphate, an emulsifier used in processed cheese to prevent globs of fat from pooling on the processed cheese's surface, was also used to … embalm corpses. Luckily for Kraft and co., the government went with the comparatively favorable "plastic."

The three major types of American cheese

Because there are many, well, processes by which one can make processed cheese, there are a few different broad definitions.that cheese marketed as an American cheese can fall under.

In terms of your standard deli-sliced American, that's a "pasteurized process cheese." That means it's derived from melting at least one "real" cheese (cheddar or Colby are common building blocks). Usually, that means at least one additive in order to augment the taste, texture, or presentation. Those can include water, salter, spices, coloring, or cream. Emulsifying agents (like the aforementioned sodium phosphate, sodium, or potassium citrate), which aid in making sure everything's mixed together properly. There's a lot of room for variation within "pasteurized process cheese," but the stipulation is that moisture content must be below 43 percent, and fat content of at least 47 percent.

In terms of Kraft Singles, those are a "pasteurized process cheese food." There's a little more leeway in terms of allowable ingredients, but the rule is that there must be at least 23 percent fat content, and no more than 44 percent moisture. Importantly, at least 51 percent of "pasteurized process cheese food" must be, well, actual cheese.

Finally, there's "pasteurized process cheese spread," which are the Velveetas and Cheez Whizzes of the world— basically the stuff you may already think of as processed cheese. That (thankfully) is also at least 51 percent cheese, 20 percent milkfat, and moisture content between 44 and 60. Interestingly, it also must be spreadable at room temperature.

American cheese is what you make of it

So now that you know about the history of American cheese, its evolution, and the ways in which it is and isn't cheese, you can consider yourself a true connoisseur. At the very least, pretentiously sharing your knowledge of American cheese as if it's a rare fromage from a remote region of France will be a good way to get a rise out of the cheese snob in your friend group the next time you share a charcuterie board.

Related:

• What Are Syracuse Salt Potatoes?
• The Real Reason People Love to Put Salt on Watermelon
• How to Make Perfect Homemade Biscuits