Fromage

Excerpts from conversation (approximate):

"American cheese barely qualifies as cheese. Some American cheeses barely qualify as a diary product. It's mostly vegetable oil with some food coloring and a little skim milk. I'm not even sure it's cultured."

"Not to mention the lack of culture. It's bland, unmemorable, decidedly plasticky in texture..."

"It's essentially a condiment. Unlike real cheeses, like brie, cheddar, cambozola, manchego... there's really not much point in eating American cheese on its own. The closest I can come up with for a bona fide American cheese dish is macaroni and cheese."

"But cuisine is still the richer for the existence of American cheese. American cheese melts well, and while it isn't an ingredient in what you might call high-culture food, think about the everyday pleasures, the comfort foods - cheeseburgers, the aforementioned mac & cheese, on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed."

"Life wouldn't be complete without the humble, the simple, the unpretentious. A childhood without mac & cheese might be a little healthier, but for what? One less denizen of the comfort food roster, one less inhabitant of the domain of soul foods. A rich-tasting, inexpensive slice of popular culture, as ubiquitous and relatable as any other treat in the shared memory of the collective consciousness, nestled snugly within fond and common memories of legos and otter pops, trading cards and pillow fights. As we grow older, some of us enter the ranks of the cultured, or leave behind the simple pleasures of the past for the trappings of the elite. But highborn or lowborn, rich or poor, no one is denied the universally accessible pleasure of movie theater nachos, tender bits of elbow macaroni bathed in the glistening yellow of school buses and infant playthings, or a slice of the unassuming, mass-produced processed cheese food draped over a well-done burger, a finishing touch so perfect that it always commands its own modest premium."

"Oft maligned, but even more loved. Life wouldn't be the same without it."