Is Velveeta real cheese?

And we should care because?

I think you'd probably like Stephen Fry.

.

I might, certainly, but i can assure you that his opinions on cheese would be of no interest to me. We get this kind of criticism all the time from Canadians. If you go into supermarkets in Ontario, they have large sections with cheese, and offer far more varieties than one commonly finds in American supermarkets. However, in recent decades, the selection of cheeses in American supermarkets has expanded, and there have always been places--delicatessens come to mind immediately--where one could get a wide variety of cheeses. American supermarkets, like many chain restaurants in the United States, offer a selection of bland and inoffensive products in an effort to appeal to the largest possible market while keeping selection as simple as possible. Increasingly, though, more "exotic" foods have found their way onto supermarket shelves as executives realize that there is a market for what were once called "ethnic" foods. Where i lived in Ohio, there was one of the largest Somali communities in North America, and specifically, in the town in which i resided, there was a growing Hispanic population, and a growing "south Asian" population (read, Indians of the Hindu flavor). One could see that reflected in the supermarket selection.

re Stephen Fry and cheese:
As Charles de Gaulle said, "How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty six different kinds of cheese?"

Over here I've noticed an expansion in the amount of Polish food on offer in the supermarkets.

Once upon a time school cafeterias were assisted by government
school lunch programs, and we'd get the occasional texmex lineup
featuring something like this. As far as I could tell, Velveeta was cheese.


Good old velveeta made the day:




Velveeta Pepper Jack Enchiladas


Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time:35 min
Makes: 6 servings, two enchiladas each

What You Need

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 cup chopped onions (about 1 medium)
2 cups enchilada sauce, divided
6 oz. VELVEETA Pepper Jack Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product, cut into thin slices
12 corn tortillas (6 inch), softened

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Cook and stir meat and onions in large skillet on medium heat until meat is browned and onions are tender; drain. Return meat mixture to skillet. Add 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce; mix well.

SPREAD 1/2 cup of the remaining enchilada sauce onto bottom of 13x9-inch baking dish. Spoon 1/4 cup of the meat mixture down center of each tortilla; roll up. Place, seam-sides down, in baking dish; top with the remaining 1 cup enchilada sauce and the VELVEETA.

BAKE 20 min. or until enchiladas are heated through and VELVEETA is melted.

Teasing you. Even California, where there are a few really fantastic cheesemakers, is underdeveloped on the good cheese making. Or so I read in an article about that about a month ago. Just googling, it looks like there are a lot of individual artisan cheesemakers. I don't know about cheese making in Wisconsin at all - I thought it went into football headgear..
I suspect there are artisan cheese makers in the eastern u.s. too..

The most famous to californians -
http://www.cypressgrovechevre.com/cheeses/ripened-cheeses/humboldt-fog.html
We slightly knew the woman who started Cypress Grove and maintained it well until she sold it recently with a lot of stipulations that the buyers would run it the same way.

http://www.cowgirlcreamery.com/

You're talkin' to a woman who went to Parma for the cheese and culatello di zibello (oh, and the piazzas and art).
http://www.dolceterra.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=SE01002&gclid=CM3ToZrVza4CFQ1vhwoduzIsCQ

I'd probably die (happy) of cheese eating if I ever got to France.