American Cheese: Does It Deserve Its Bad Reputation?

30 August 2019
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Lauren TurnerBBC News, Washington DC


Everything you believe you understand about American cheese is incorrect.


That's what the cheese makers and cheesemongers of the US wish to inform you. They're fed up with people believing their prized item is a joke.


When you do a Google search of "why is American cheese ...", among the leading recommendations for completing the sentence are "bad", "so gross" and "not cheese".


It doesn't help that "American cheese" is the name for the orange, plastic-wrapped pieces - as well as representing the entire country's cheese output.


So what does the world requirement to learn about US cheese, rather of believing all that's on deal is boring and mass-produced?


"Naturally they think that," says Patricia Michelson, founder of London's La Fromagerie. "Because that's what gets exported."


"Certainly in the UK there's a misunderstanding," agrees cheese reporter and senior World Cheese Awards judge Patrick McGuigan.


"If you ask most British individuals to call an American cheese, they 'd choose that orange plastic cheese, which is what the country is understood for globally. But perceptions are altering, particularly amongst people in the understand. American cheeses have actually succeeded at things like the World Cheese Awards."


It does not help that it's hugely costly to get US cheese throughout the pond. There are some huge tariffs on US cheese - presently set by the EU and the UK, depending upon the kind of cheese - to come into the UK.


"It depends on ₤ 60 ($73) a kilogramme," states Mr McGuigan. "If you're attempting to offer to a British client, you're stating, 'we have this cheese that's remarkable - it's ₤ 60.' You can see a lot of shoppers going, 'hmm I'm not sure.'"


"They are great cheeses. But there are some great cheeses [from somewhere else] which are half cost."


Cheddar, for instance, undergoes a 167.10 euro ($187.72) per 100kg tariff, with Colby at 151 euro ($166.92) per 100kg.


Trying to discover US cheeses in London, for individuals to taste test it for this article, proved impossible. It's typically only generated for unique events, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is when Ms Michelson buys it in for her world-renowned cheese stores.


She had actually also planned to import some for Independence Day this year, but documentation held up the consignment, which currently comes through Paris.


She states there is a "mountain of bureaucracy" to get unpasteurised cheese (which is made from raw milk, and has actually not been heated up to remove germs) offered in the US itself - and after that much more red tape to get them out of the nation and into the UK.


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In addition to logistical problems, she says there are other barriers.


Ms Michelson states she likes American cheese, writing a "huge chapter" on the topic for her 2nd book, Cheese.


"But trying to get other nations to release it was impossible," she laments. "Places like France, Italy and Germany stated there was too much on American cheese. It galled them - they're snobs."


"Farmhouse cheeses are even really hard to get in the US," Ms Michelson includes. "You'll only get them in a professional store, a farmers' market or a really high end grocery store.


"America itself is not promoting the farmers and their wonderful cheeses - so how on earth is it going to take a trip everywhere else?"


What does not assist either is that "it's pre-packed and processed within an inch of its life" so that "there's no odor at all" she says, lamenting that people are "afraid of the smell of cheese".


She adds that another factor the mass-produced product does well is that people "do not want to wait - they wish to make something, sufficed, pack it, sell it".


Cheese author and speaker Laura Werlin has a theory about the image issue.


"It's because American cheese matured as a produced product mainly," she states. "We took to factories relatively rapidly in our country's evolution and as a result, individuals got used to manufactured cheese."


Now the artisan cheese movement "has really taken hold", she states, "but one of the obstacles is that the price of American artisan cheeses [in the US] tend to be higher than numerous good, or really great, imports".


That, she discusses, is just since of the high expenses related to the company in the US.


"So as an outcome, even Americans tend to purchase the manufactured cheeses more than the craftsmen cheeses - unless they themselves are cheese fanatics."


Numerous those cheese fanatics are at the American Cheese Society conference, being held this year in Richmond, Virginia, where the cheese revolution is on complete display screen.


At the event they call "cheese camp" they take part in workshops and talks.


Local craft beers are matched with regional cheeses at bars around town, the self-proclaimed curd geeks sharing their large knowledge on the subject.


They even do cheese karaoke (one sings Curds and Whey, to the tune of Purple Rain, sample lyrics "I never ever said you were simply solids/ I never ever meant to send you down the drain/ There's just one method to get them both together/ Only once you cut the vat do you see curds and whey").


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Independent cheesemonger Julia Gross (whose tattoos consist of among a cheese mite) wishes to dispel the myth that cheese remains in any way elitist.


"Cheesemaking is essentially working class. It's a myth that cheese is simply for rich people. The employees are the primary part of the farm, the cows more than happy and it's entirely sustainable," she stated. "We require to connect that labour of love to the consumer.


"It's not just buying something delicious, it's becoming part of a life cycle."


British expert cheesemaker Mary Quicke, of Quicke's Cheese - the 14th generation of the Quicke household on the farm in the English county of Devon - has actually judged at the American Cheese Society competition for several years and is treated as something of a star.


"Being a big-headed English individual, the very first year I judged here I believed, 'Ah bless, the Americans are mastering it'," she laughs.


"Over the nine years I have actually been judging this competition there has actually been an absolutely remarkable increase in the quality of cheese."


"It's an enormous renaissance," she adds.


She states cheesemakers on both sides of the Atlantic can learn from each other and launched the Academy of Cheese professional certification in the UK, inspired by a similar scheme run by the American Cheese Society.


Meet the big cheeses


A total of 1,742 cheeses were gotten in into competition at the American Cheese Society conference this year (for contrast, in the very first year in 1985 there were 89 entries).


Here are the top 3 cheeses this year:


Stockinghall, best in show - the cheese was made as a cooperation between Murray's Cheese, New york city, and Old Creamery, New York, which provided the cow's milk and the cheesemaker, 33-year-old Brian Schlatter. The cheddar is referred to as having meaty bacon and sour cream flavours with a pineapple aroma. Only 30 truckles are made a month


Professor's Brie, second place - Brian Schlatter was likewise the cheesemaker for this square-shaped triple cream cheese made with sheep milk, cow's milk and cow's cream, again from Old Chatham Creamery, which is aged in Wegman's Good Markets' caverns


Aries, 3rd location - this sheep's milk cheese from Shooting Star Creamery, California, was made by 15-year-old Avery Jones with the assistance of her father Reggie Jones' Central Coast Creamery. It's aged for 8 months and is just available at Sigona's Farmers' Market in California


Michael Koch of Maryland's Firefly Farms, joint organiser of this year's conference, states: "The level of quality has dramatically increased. We're returning to a more localised food system that Europe never left."


He says that the US has a lot to provide the world - partially due to the fact that of its lack of cheese-making tradition.


"In the States, we aren't confined by tradition. So there are cheeses in Europe that have actually been made in the same way for a long time.


"Here, we're totally free to do things like trying to model this type of cheese - however then I'm going to twist it and be whimsical. We have the flexibility to colour beyond the lines. We are bold with cheese."


Cheesemaker Britton Welsh certainly agrees. Among the bestselling items made by Utah-based company Beehive Cheese, of which he is president, is the unusual Barely Buzzed - a cheese rubbed with coffee premises and lavender.


When it's been offered in the UK nevertheless, it was for the equivalent of $70 per lb - and in the US, it retails for $24. While an exporter looked after procedure, Mr Welsh says there were big transportation and tariff expenses imposed on the cheese, and as a result it wound up "being exorbitantly expensive and inaccessible to a lot of UK customers".


"Hopefully someday it will change and customers in the UK will be able to enjoy our distinct cheeses," he adds.


The young farming family


Trisha Boyce, a third-generation dairy farmer, and her partner Jarred took control of Chapel's Country Creamery in Maryland two years back. Their toddler son Trace is in his element on the dairy farm, running around, stating hi to the cows (he even has his own) and tasting blue cheese, one of his favourites.


"The cost of milk is too low to make a living off anymore," says Trisha, explaining why they purchased the farm - currently an established creamery - and selected to specialise in cheese rather than milk. "The great thing is we get to stay here as a family throughout the day and market our own products."


She says that if there were more small craftsmen cheesemakers, then the understanding of American cheese would alter.


But she said that producing things on a small scale is costly, and "a lot of Americans want elegant foods at a routine price". It doesn't assist also that European cheeses have a higher credibility than home-grown items as they're better known for their cheese.


"I would motivate people to take more time to look at where their food is coming from, how it's produced, and the care that's put in behind the scenes. I would like more restaurants to do the farm to table thing and support their regional farmers.


"You go to local shops here and it's complete of Irish cheese, French cheese, Spanish cheese. People say 'it's imported, so it must be good'. We're really trying to work with some local grocery stores now and get linked with them. It just requires time and it's a great deal of tough work."


He adds: "A great deal of people have actually fascinating conceptions of what 'American cheeses' are. But we're getting in cheese competitions in Europe and winning ribbons versus people who have been doing it for hundreds of years.


"Instead of being governed by custom, what we have is a willingness to try brand-new things and go where no cheese has gone in the past. So we're attempting brand-new things and having enjoyable."


Many of the leading cheeses contending at the American Cheese Society conference are already competition winners at global events, where they associate the creme de la creme of the dairy world.


"US cheese can absolutely compete" says Ross Christieson of the US Dairy Export Council. "Not just contend, but lead the world.


"The US is the biggest exporter of cheese in the world that no one knows about. What we export winds up on a pizza, a hamburger or in a cheesecake. But it's the specialized cheeses that are actually going to give us a track record. We're not going to get a reputation from remaining in something, or on something."


He is at the conference with his associate Angelique Hollister - part of their mission is to advise individuals to make an application for the World Cheese Awards.


The Frenchwoman confesses she didn't understand what a wealth of US cheese was on offer when she moved to the US - and now wishes to work to "alter the understanding and image of US cheese around the world".


"What is made here in the US definitely compares to what you can discover in France, in Europe," she says. "But one of the problems we've identified is the supply chain. The US is a big country and it's challenging to get products from one location to the other."


The small-scale production does not help matters either.


"This is something that does not offer in a complete container load - it's a pallet at a time and even a carton at a time," she adds. "We require to assist get that to the consumer, at a price that makes sense."


Nora Weiser, executive director of the American Cheese Society, which runs the annual event, sees a parallel with that other butt of the joke - British food.


"People around the globe will state, 'oh, British food is horrible, they boil everything and they've got mushy peas'. But there are incredible things happening."


Author Ms Werlin argues that cheese manufacturers in the US have not quite worked out "how to make actually excellent tasting cheese at scale" - so "really few artisan cheeses are exported" as an outcome.


"I don't know if misinterpreted is the right word - I think it's just unidentified. I do not understand if it is simply going to remain our little secret over here in the US.


"The word is going to get out when people taste it - that's how it spreads. I think it will take a long period of time for it to just roll of the tongue with the attraction that French cheese does."