There’s a bit on The Simpsons, a long time ago before it needed to be put out to pasture, where Homer wanders downstairs to eat 64 individually wrapped slices of American cheese as a humorously unintentional way to stop his evil boss, Mr. Burns, and his craven sidekick, Smithers, from sneaking into the house to steal a teddy bear that Maggie found that once belonged to the megalomaniacal head of the power plant. The payoff to the scene saw Burns and Smithers, who snuck in using suction cups while traversing the ceiling, fall down onto the kitchen floor, but an exchange between Marge and Homer is more of what I’m looking for here:
MARGE: Have you been up all night eating cheese?
HOMER: I think I’m blind.
The joke works because individually wrapped American cheese is considered to be “peasant” food in the modern sense, not in the sense that Food Network chefs use it. Ooh, this stew is rustic. It’s peasant food! Yeah, Ina, and you wouldn’t have been caught dead eating it if you’d been part of the 16th century landed gentry. Classism runs rampant the most through culinary circles even if the person bandying it about doesn’t realize it. I’m not here to “cancel” The Simpsons over a joke, because it’s a funnily dissonant punchline to the act of a man getting up late at night to eat a massive amount of a single food. I’m just here to argue on behalf of American cheese, which gets a terrible rap despite being an absolutely objective good foodstuff, at least in the view of this big ol’ wannabe gourmand.
Let’s get down to brass tacks on what American cheese actually is before defending it. American cheese isn’t so much a cheese by itself but a blend. Wikipedia says the two common types used are cheddar and colby, which makes sense since most American cheeses have similar color and the faint hint of sharpness that most cheddars have with the meltability of colby. Some American cheese products cannot legally be called cheese because of how many other filler ingredients put in. No one ever said that any product was good quality up and down. There are shitty American cheeses, but I’m not here to focus on them.
American cheese comes in two varieties. Either it is the form I’ve talked about almost exclusively so far, or you can get it freshly sliced at the local deli. Generally, the former is usually yellow and the latter is usually white. Deli-sliced American retains some semblance of “class” over the other kind, whatever that means, but the truth is neither form garners much respect, and it baffles me why. American cheese, generally speaking, has the salt content that not only gives it starring role ability, but it adds so much flavor to other dishes to which it is added. The way it oozes gooily when it melts gives it textural superiority as well. Whenever you get it melted on a dish, it gives that warmly unctuous flavor and texture combination that feels like home.
Who didn’t grow up on grilled cheeses that stranded like warm taffy upon pulling apart from a diagonal cut? What is a better topping for a cheeseburger than the slice just inching its way down the Maillard-charred curvature of the beef, adding a salty and creamy contrast to the chewy patty? And as I’ve said before on this publication, there’s no better cheese for the, ahem, cheesesteak than American:
What reason could anyone have not to use American cheese in applications where it outright enhances the flavor, texture, and pull-together of a dish? I hinted at it above. There’s a classism that pervades food aisles and gastropubs. American cheese isn’t good enough, so you find cheddars or havartis on “higher end” burgers despite the fact that neither one of those cheeses melts as well. Brie on a burger is fantastic, but look at how much that costs? Things that poor people enjoy get derided in favor of more expensive alternatives, and it just keeps the churn going where it’s okay to make fun of someone because they got fucked by the system.
Top Ramen, jarred pasta sauces, instant sides, canned vegetables, there’s nothing wrong with any of these things, especially since most people who can afford only to use/cook them oftentimes aren’t just money poor but time poor. They have to feed families. Some of these things can be pretty vile on a personal or even objective level. The smell of instant noodles makes me ill anymore to the point where I have a complex about trying the real thing on a personal level. On an objective level? I guess nothing’s objective, but canned mushrooms even being a thing let alone something real pizza places use over fresh feels like an affront to God. Some things are not meant to be preserved. But I’m getting too far off the plot.
The point is, there’s nothing wrong with American cheese, and it’s time we as a nation stop stigmatizing it. Not liking it is fine, but on an objective scale, it hits so many points that it cannot nor should not be denied. Deli-sliced or prepackaged, sometimes you just want a burger with a melty slice of cheese oozing off. And in those times, you will have made the best choice possible, price point of the component be damned.