16 Comments
Apr 5, 2022Liked by illyanna Maisonet

Fascinating.

Now I want a grilled cheese.

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Apr 5, 2022Liked by illyanna Maisonet

This makes me feel a little less guilty about this "guilty pleasure."

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Laughed out loud at the paragraph about Saturday cartoons and aggro marketing :-)

My Grandma got that government cheese, too. And shared with us. Growing up in "America's Dairyland", we ate 3 kinds of cheese: the cheese that we fetched from the little picturesque cheese maker in the countryside, "Bon Bree", that was a "brick" cheese - smelly and delicious. Number two, Longhorn Colby, store brand grocery store yellow cheese. Number three, Velveeta, which was the only thing Mom used for grilled cheese sandwiches, which she called "toastwiches" :-) We loved them so much. Don't even get me started on margarine - it's all we ate back then.

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founding

I feel like the texture of Kraft singles is about halfway in between Cheez Whiz and American-- sliceable from the deli counter-- cheese? A little bit softer. And, as omnivore, I would happily gobble all of the things; from the Limburger and the crumbliest 20 yr cheddar when I can, to a deli slice of american or kraft single. Everything has it's place, for sure!

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I loved the govt cheese. I don’t recall it being anything like velveeta though. I want real cheese on my burgers. Love a grilled cheese with three cheeses on it. Yumm.

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My ig @ theseyet

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I loved the govt cheese. I don’t recall it being anything like velveeta though. I avoid American when I can. I want real cheese on my burgers. Love a grilled cheese with three cheeses on it. Yumm.

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founding

Call me low brow - I am an equal opportunity cheese lover and I don’t care who knows it.

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My MIL shared this cheese with us. Reminder: Asians don’t tolerate lactose, she was happy to share. @808soos

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So informative! More information than I could possibly imagine about something I assume is just part of the American food landscape!

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i love american cheese, but where i live american cheese, kraft singles, and velveeta are not interchangable. american cheese means one thing and that is the stuff you get sliced for you at the deli. you can get land o'lakes or store brand, white or yellow [sometimes called orange]. we always had the white in the fridge at home, but my parents never let me have stuff with sugar or colorants for the most part so i loved when my grampa would always have the orange cheese in the fridge for me at his house. even when i was older, he insisted he had to have the cheese there for me. of course i had no problem eating a few slices straight from the bag. or you could stack up a few slices and fold them a few times, so they broke into little squares or rectangles along the seams and then it was perfect for crackers, no knife necessary.

i'll pass on a kraft single, but i love american cheese (absolute best melting cheese - sorry but cheddar on a burger tastes like literally nothing and the texture is bad) and occasionally get a craving for velveeta even though it has that very particular velveeta taste, the kind that makes it taste like you're eating macaroni and cheese off of an old set of keys. and yet...

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(and i should clarify, i didn't mean to insinuate you were saying those things *were* all the same, when in fact you gave a very concise and interesting history of the evolution of all things american cheese. just that whenever i see people say "ew, american cheese" - usually in the wretched place known as Recipe Comments - they think they're all the same and I SAY they're missing out, man.)

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Neat to think back how innovative people become when things get tough.

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Pretty sure you already have my IG handle but it's @seantimberlake JIC

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Hi! I am putting my IG handle: @kuumalama. I want to be part of the cool kids story group!

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Also I totally remember standing in line for those big blocks of cheese in Hawaii. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches for DAYS.

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