Original photo by Liudmyla Chuhunova/ Shutterstock
Few food products are more quintessentially American than yellow processed cheese. But despite the name “American cheese,” the method for making this shelf-stable dairy treat actually has its roots in Switzerland. In 1911, food scientists Walter Gerber and Fritz Stettler pioneered a new process to keep cheese from rapidly spoiling so it could be more easily sold in warmer environments. They shredded and melted down a Swiss cheese called Emmentaler, added sodium citrate as a preservative, and left the mixture to cool, resulting in the first processed cheese and a much longer shelf life.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factWhen Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, she was given a 1,250-pound wheel of cheddar produced by cheesemakers from two local villages. After the wedding, the wheel was sent on a nationwide tour, though upon its return, Victoria refused to accept it back.
Around the same time in the U.S., Canadian American businessman James L. Kraft — founder of Kraft Foods — was working to solve that same food spoilage problem. Kraft created his own similar method, though it’s unclear how much he knew about the work of his Swiss contemporaries. In place of Emmentaler, he used cheddar cheese, which he heated at 175 degrees while whisking continuously for 15 minutes, before adding emulsifying compounds and leaving the cheese to cool.
In 1916, Kraft successfully obtained the first U.S. patent for making processed cheese. But it was 34 years until American cheese singles appeared in supermarkets. This was thanks to Kraft’s brother Norman, who headed the company’s research department and hoped to repurpose these large hunks of cheese as conveniently packaged slices. Testing began in 1935, and in 1950, Kraft De Luxe Slices debuted. They were an immediate hit, with Progressive Grocer reporting an increase in cheese sales up to 150%.
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Andrew Jackson displayed an enormous block of cheese in the White House for more than a year.
In 1835, President Andrew Jackson was given a 1,400-pound wheel of cheese measuring 4 feet in diameter and 2 feet tall as a gift from supporter and dairy farmer Thomas Meacham, who also gifted a 750-pound wheel to Vice President Martin Van Buren. In the months that followed, small portions of the cheese were consumed or given to friends, though Jackson was still left with an enormous hunk of cheddar.
So on February 22, 1837, toward the end of his presidency, Jackson held an open event at the White House, inviting people to enjoy the block of cheese, which had sat in the Entrance Hall of the White House for more than a year to age. Around 10,000 people attended and consumed the remnants in just two hours, though the odor in the White House still persisted for months. In 1838, Senator John Davis’ wife Eliza Davis wrote that Jackson’s successor Martin Van Buren “had a hard task to get rid of the smell of cheese … he had to air the carpet for many days; to take away the curtains and to paint and white-wash before he could get the victory over it.”
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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