Why is @frauenfelder libeling Timer? He clearly says “cheese;” nowhere in the Wagon Wheel recipe does he even hint at Processed American Flavor Cheese Food Substance. You can even see the holes in the cheese he does use.
Stray observations: Who the fuck is he shooting at in the beginning? He seems strangely unconcerned with the return fire, to the point of interrupting a gunfight to lecture children about healthy snack habits. Why does he shrink to a fraction of his original size upon entering the kitchen? What is he supposed to be? Is his hat magical or actually a self-regenerating part of his body?
I’m not sure how “finicky” my recipe was, considering the fact I made it starting from a very young age.
I tell you, truly, it did not taste of flour, nor was it merely creamy rather than cheesy. I put a LOT of cheese in, much more than the recipe called for. That was the one thing I did differently. Never had a problem with clumping or separation.
I think the components that made it work were: heating the milk, then adding only a little to the roux at first while continuing to whisk, then taking it off the burner to add the rest of the hot milk and stir. It wasn’t about creating a thick sauce by cooking it. And the cheese wasn’t cooked at all: it was grated in advance, so that once the milk was added to the roux the cheese could be stirred in and immediately poured over the macaroni, and then put in the oven for something like 30-40 minutes.
Thank you! I was going to ask if American Cheese is an actual thing, given that I think I’ve only seen the term on presliced plastic crap. And what the HELL is with “cheese” in a squirt can like whipped cream?? I’d only heard of it for years as a sitcom joke before actually seeing it in a US grocery store. (Canadian here).
I’m not saying your pie aint tits, but if I’m a tourist in manhattan for a day I’m having a stereotypical slice and boiled garbage-water hot dog. Because I have badass locally curated artisinal stuff right here, I’m not visiting the city to have it. I want to do tacky tourist shit.
That’s why I have such a craving for the “shitty” stuff. Can’t get it here.
There are like four accurate and detailed articles in the thread on the subject.
There are multiple classifications for food, and the one Mark posted is “Imitation Processed Cheese Food.” The difference between this and “processed cheese” is a country mile, not to mention that all cheeses are heavily processed dairy products.
Saying American cheese is not cheese is like saying the the burger it is melted onto isn’t meat (I think someone used the analogy of meatloaf earlier). A real American cheese is colby and mild cheddar mixed together with an emulsifier. It’s been a common practice in cooking cheesy food forever, and most MG places use sodium phosphate in making mac and cheese.
I’ve tried that stuff. My dad was a BSA leader, and apparently they got some that gub’ment cheese for use at the yearly scout camp. My dad, never one to let anything go to waste, brought it home, along with a bunch of rolls of scratchy-ass (literally) Pom toilet paper. Both were awful.
Side note - was also drank Sundrop soft drink, which was a citrus-y 7-Up knockoff. Why? They prizes under the cork in the bottle cap, and my dad figured out that the caps with prizes had a slight difference on the cap label. So he would pick those out, and put together a 6 pack with only winners. Prizes ranged from a single bottle to a whole case. Personally, I preferred RC Cola, since they gave away actual money under the cap.
Wiz wit. Or Wiz without. Onions that is. An attempt to model the local accent. There’s a big sign outside one of the more famous cheese steak spots that says that.The oldest most traditional, most authentic cheese is white American. Though Wiz is more popular and provelone is assumed by south Philly Italians to be the “right” cheese. I go white American on a good cheese steak. Wiz on an I’m drunk cheese steak.
Government cheese varied. Most of it was resolutely cheese rather than product with provisos. The most famous sort was basically very good 'murican or mild cheddar. The worst was knock off velvita. That’s story’s odd because ability to melt is what has Michelin starred chefs seeking knock offs to this day. They don’t make it anymore far as I know.
And now it tastes like flour and milk rather than cheese great if I want a mornay. Not if I want cheese sauce or mac and cheese. Sodium citrate is a great trick. But it’s one of those things derived from process cheese. That’s your primary stabiliser for “slices”. You can make a damn good cheese sauce from just cheese, insert liquid, and sodium citrate. So once you go that route all the flour is doing is getting in the way.
Tried all that. Gluey grainy sauce. Once you try something that really gets smooth like pure melted cheese you start to see the flaws in that approach. Even the best professional made roux based mac and cheese I’ve had can’t hold a candle to the custard based or more modern techniques. It’s really just not the best way to do it. Personally I just kind of hate the results. Maybe it’s a personal taste thing
Just because you want to eat garbage doesn’t mean any of that is actually garbage. Even a proper dirty water dog is a crazy high quality sausage from one of the country’s best meat packers treated in a very specific way. I’d personally prefer it if you stopped describing my city’s major food traditions as trash food for garbage people. Please and thank you.
Agreed re: derogatory “garbage water.” Cart dogs don’t have the snap of papaya joint dogs, but they’re their own thing, just like 3AM $1 slices. You don’t miss them until you move someplace you can’t get them. Also big soft pretzels and roasted chestnuts in winter.
(BTW, don’t try to eat the horse chestnuts that fall off trees all over Central Park. They are not the same thing as people chestnuts.)
In the same vein, maybe don’t trash other people’s excellent homemade cheese sauces?
As for hotdogs in NYC, in the Jewish community the joke is that a half ton of kosher meat is brought in to the city each day, and a whole ton is sold. All street vendors are not created equal; nor is their food.
Sounds like you and I have been eating the same mac and cheese recipe for a few decades. Always a crowd pleaser, and sometimes just because I’ll take decent quality hotdogs (Hebrew national or similar) score them and bake on top. Little extra salty fat renders in.
Strictly out of perversion I don’t think I’ll be able to resist replacing the triple cream with Velveeta next cheese board. Thanks a lot for putting that thought in my head