What makes cheddar cheese taste so good? | Hacker News Reader

What makes cheddar cheese taste so good?

smithsonianmag.com

20 pointsbookofjoe55 comments

Ah, but the important question is "WHICH cheddar cheese?"

A lot of cheese is manufactured, some of it even colored orange artificially (especially in the US), which is labelled 'Cheddar' but in reality is nothing at all like a true cheddar.

(And then of course, there are those tasteless pale, plastic rubbery sheets labelled 'Kraft Cheddar Slices'.)

Extra sharp of course

Sorry. Has to be 'Vintage' so that it's "Strong and Bitey".

If it isn't made by the cheddar process how can it be called cheddar? How lax can your labelling regulations be?

It is, in fact, made by the cheddar process. OP is incorrect.

I've never understood that. If someone were to hand you a glass of yellow milk, I'm guessing you wouldn't be too eager to drink it. I get that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, but I ain't ever seen a yellow cow.

As an american with enough laps around the sun to have some experience, I'm constantly aghast with what we've allowed to happen to food.

> I get that chocolate milk comes from brown cows

... what?

It is known...by all kids up to the age of 8. Right about the time the truth about Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are known.

Ice cream used to be made of polar cows milk until the 50s. The world of food is truly bizarre.

They’ve been bred that way for over 100 years in the US.

There are naturally yellow cheeses. Probably all of them yellow as they age and dry

interestingly chocolate milk is often made from the yellow milk.

Cheddar isn't American, it's English. America hasn't "allowed" anything here, because they've been coloring it in England since the 17th century.

And you're wrong about "yellow cows", in a way. Cheddar was first made in the village of Cheddar in Somerset, England, and the milk did have high levels of beta-carotene because of the local breeds eating the local grass. The original cheddar was yellow without anybody adding coloring at all.

All orange cheese is artificially colored (even in the UK) and has been for centuries. It's mostly annatto now. Historically it was things like beet or carrot juice.

Natural cheese at most has a yellowish color (like butter, though a lot of that is also colored -- and again has been for a very long time).

"Cheddaring" is a process (most famously used in the Cheddar region of England, but not exclusive to there), referring to kneading salt into the raw cheese curds.

It's not a protected designation, nor is there any real difference between the way cheddar cheese is made in England and the way it's made in other countries.

This is the requirement to be labeled as "cheddar cheese" in the US:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...

One or more of the clotting enzymes specified in paragraph (b)(2) of this section is added to set the dairy ingredients to a semisolid mass. The mass is so cut, stirred, and heated with continued stirring, as to promote and regulate the separation of whey and curd. The whey is drained off, and the curd is matted into a cohesive mass. The mass is cut into slabs, which are so piled and handled as to promote the drainage of whey and the development of acidity. The slabs are then cut into pieces, which may be rinsed by sprinkling or pouring water over them, with free and continuous drainage; but the duration of such rinsing is so limited that only the whey on the surface of such pieces is removed. The curd is salted, stirred, further drained, and pressed into forms.

So... the cheddar process, with much commonality with the way that any cheese anywhere is made?

And?

And what?

I've had cheddar cheese in the UK. I've had cheddar cheese in the US that was imported from Cheddar England. I've had cheddar cheese in the US that was made in the US. I have absolutely no idea what all the hand-wringing is about. What's wrong with American cheddar? Is there some sub-par brand out there that is sold in the majority of grocery stores in coastal America but not in the grocery stores in middle America? Are we just up in arms because some brands add some coloring to it?

AFAICT non-Americans are confused by "cheese products" like Kraft Singles and think that that is what we think cheese is, rather than being well known as not cheese (and most people think is _less_ like cheese than it actually is). If you're not used to seeing "cheddar flavored cheese product" and don't look too closely you can confuse it for "cheddar cheese" and quite reasonably be pretty horrified.

> non-Americans are confused by "cheese products" like Kraft Singles and think that that is what we think cheese is, rather than being well known as not cheese

Just to be clear to non-Americans, we don't think that "cheese products" are real cheese. There are a number of welfare programs that help low-income Americans buy food; for example WIC [1]. If you take your WIC card to a grocery store and scan it in, the grocery store computer system will refuse to sell you "cheese products". You are not allowed to use government money to buy fake cheese! The computer will beep at you, the store clerk will say "sorry, you can't buy this, it's not real cheese", you will be embarrassed, and you will never, ever, ever make that mistake again!

There are enough people who buy that stuff (or else nobody would manufacture it). But it isn't because they are confused and think it is cheese.

[1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/about-wic

Cheddar isn’t orange. You might be thinking of Red Leicester in the UK.

Having lived in the US, the cheddar there isn’t the same. I’d offer that I never had good cheese in the US outside of imported stuff.

I stumbled onto Red Leicester recently and was gobsmacked by how good it is.

Me too! It was at it's "best before" date, with 50% off the price, so, why not? Wow!

Sounds like you didn't get out much. Sometimes I wonder if it's a joke that I haven't been let in on, or just willful ignorance. I hear it not just with cheese, but also bread, beer, chocolate, etc. High quality versions of every single one of those can be found with _minimal_ effort. You have to deliberately choose not to notice all the breweries, bakeries, dairies, and chocolatiers.

"You can't get good ____ in the US!"

Which might be true if you only ever shop at a supermarket or your only exposure to food in the US is a meme, Hollywood production, or the crappy nonsensical 'American' aisles you have in your respective countries.

I lived in Delray Beach in Florida. The only choices at the time (2001) were Publix, which was poor, and Crown Liquor, which was where I bought bread. Wholefoods wasn’t good.

As a beer drinker, Heineken was the only beer I’d buy (note I lived in NL) though there was a microbrewery by the Boca mall that was ok.

I also lived in BE so I’ve experience with chocolate. I am English though. At the time, Godiva was considered good in the US.

Red Leicester is also artificially colored.

> Having lived in the US, the cheddar there isn’t the same.

Which "cheddar"? The budget Kraft stuff? Higher-end stuff like Tillamook? Artisanal cheddars, of which there are many?

That someone is even pointing this out should give most people in the US a cause for concern. Sadly most people in the US have no idea what real cheese or chocolate actually tastes like.

> Sadly most people in the US have no idea what real cheese...

Oh? Interesting.

> An Italian academic has caused more than a stir after saying the recipe for carbonara is American and the only place in the world to find bona fide parmesan cheese nowadays is Wisconsin.

> Alberto Grandi, a professor of food history at the University of Parma, made the remarks in an interview with the Financial Times.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/27/italian-academ...

Babcock Hall at UW is also like the world leading expert institution on dairy and cheese, too. (Try their ice cream, it's literal perfection from the ingredients to exact temperatures required to get the precise consistency)

What Grandi actually wrote was that Parmesan Cheese, which was imported into the US by Italians, continued to evolve in Italy but not in the US. I have no way of verifying whether this is true but it wouldn't be terribly surprising if it was, and in any way, this doesn't imply any value judgement whatsoever.

Of course, the media are more interested in controversy, so they turn that into "bona fide parmesan cheese only exists in Wisconsin".

I dunno. Did you take a poll or something? There are tons of small local creameries and chocolatiers around.

If there are so many great local creameries around why then do you have Kraft and Mars products dominating most of the US stores? Oh I can answer that, it's because the US is a corporatocracy that only cares about profits.

The exact wording on American Cheese packages matters quite a bit [1]. Some of the Kraft American cheese sub-categories, including this one, are actual cheese.

[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/whats-really-in-american-cheese

Although I agree that Kraft cheese slices deserve quotation marks around “cheese”, I would argue that they are still the best option for one sandwich and one sandwich only, namely, a fried egg on a lightly toasted English muffin. An Egg McMuffin, in other words. No other cheese delivers that particular delicious flavour.

> some of it even colored orange artificially (especially in the US)

Which is really weird to me in the UK - Cheddar here (including stuff from the town of Cheddar!) is almost universally yellow.

When it's truly natural, it's an artifact of the grass the cows are eating. But additives are often used [1]

[1] https://www.bonappetit.com/story/why-is-cheddar-cheese-orang...

Anyone have recommendations for some cheddar to try? I haven't eaten it in years since I discovered dubliner, which basically just seems like cheddar but more delicious to me, but I'm sure I'm just uninformed.

Hook's (out of Mineral Point, WI) 5-years aged cheddar is a good place to start. These are the folks that due to a warehouse/cheese-cave clerical error discovered they had a few cases of 20-years aged cheddar. Seriously, it was very good and in no way disgusting.

https://hookscheese.com/

I've talked to the Hooks folks, and they have disaster recovery storage plan for their cheese spread throughout the country to survive various natural disasters.

edit: 15yr Hooks is heavenly too

Get yourself some Cougar Gold, it's amazing. Yeah, I know, "it's in a can" but it doesn't matter. In fact, get a couple of cans and shove some into the back of your fridge to age for a year or three and it becomes even more amazing!

https://creamery.wsu.edu/cougar-cheese/flavors/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar_Gold_cheese

I'm sold on the can, that's great. Thanks!

Yeah absolutely recommend all the WSU cheeses.

If you shop at Costco, try their aged Balderson cheddar - 2 years or older. Incredible! (Though that may be canada-only, I'm sure the US Costco carries something similarly great)

I get my dubliner at costco, I'll keep a lookout for this, thank you!

Montgomery's Cheddar, considered by many among the world's best; see, for example:

>The Big Cheese (Tour)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/travel/cheese-tour-uk.htm...

https://archive.ph/7DXlp

.......................................

http://www.montgomeryscheese.co.uk/

https://www.cheese.com/montgomerys-cheddar/

https://www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk/products/montgomerys-chedda...

https://www.murrayscheese.com/dp/neal-s-yard-dairy-montgomer...

https://www.thecheeseshopofsalem.com/cheese/montgomerys-ched...

https://dibruno.com/montgomerys-farmhouse-cheddar/

https://www.formaggiokitchen.com/montgomery-s-cheddar

https://fairfieldcheese.com/products/montgomery-s-cheddar

https://stjamescheese.com/products/montgomerys-cheddar

https://www.zingermans.com/Product/montgomerys-english-farmh...

https://www.gourmetfoodworld.com/neals-yard-dairy-montgomery...

There are better cheddars out there, but Kerrygold is widely available in the US. Get the product with the most aging, at least a year.

1) Kingdom Cheddar, found at Costco.

2) Barber’s Sweet Red Cheddar, found at Whole Foods.

Two of my favorite cheeses of all time.

Title should be: "What gives cheddar cheese its flavor?" I doubt most people would agree that it tastes 'so good' and nothing is said about why a fan would find that flavor good.

> I doubt most people would agree that it tastes 'so good'

It's either the first or second largest selling cheese in the world (the 20th Century pizza boom has jumped mozzarella way up the rankings), so clearly it's quite popular.

I didn't say it wasn't popular. I said I doubted half the people on the planet would say that it tastes 'so good.' But doing some research, I was definitely underestimating how popular it is in India and even China.

Where does it say that "half the people on the planet" say that?

Cheddar cheese is insanely popular. We like things because they react well with our tastebuds; they're looking into which chemical reactions give cheddar its specific flavor.

> insanely popular

in certain areas of the world.

Wrong. I'm talking about total amount eaten. It's one of the top 3 globally.

Not a contradiction, certain areas skew the statistics, but Cheddar isn't really all that popular in, say, Italy, France, Switzerland or Spain which are all known for their own local cheese production.

CHEESE/CHEDDAR Origin: US. Meaning: Slang term for money. Derived from the fact Americans on welfare used to receive cheese as part of their benefits. Explanation: This well-known American phrase was born at the end of WWII. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheddar https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cheddar I think it's interesting that there is this alternate meaning.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com