Being a judge at a macaroni and cheese *** in San Francisco taught me a lot about American food. The petite crowd, mostly chefs, sold out online in minutes, reveling in the chance to attend a "Top Chef" type event, but with a more urban and cool feel. The judges included a food writer, an award-winning grilled cheese maker, and me, a cheesemonger.

We give this award to a chef who makes mac and cheese using Vermont aged cheddar. However, the audience chose another contestant. When he arrived at the winner's circle, he made a startling announcement: his main ingredient was Velveeta.

Surprising! Shock! betray! The audience clutched their ironic cans of beer but didn't know how to react. Is it a scam? Working class shenanigans against elitism in food? Was this game rigged by Kraft? In the end, it was nothing more than a financial decision on the part of the chef: In the great American tradition, he bought the cheapest protein possible.

To understand the evolution of macaroni and cheese is to recognize that the pursuit of "the cheapest protein possible" is a longstanding pursuit of the American food system. Sometimes, the cheese itself follows a similar trajectory. Cheesemaking began 10,000 years ago, originally for the survival of a farming family or community: taking a very perishable protein (milk) and converting it into something non-perishable (cheese) so that there would be something to eat later. Today, many of us think of cheese in the context of tradition, flavor, or family farm savings, but whether a producer is producing farm-made cheddar or concocting cheese-free dairy products, a fundamental goal of Velveeta has always been to start from a gallon Get as much edible food as possible from the milk. Cheesemongers are not always successful in this regard. Cheese is prone to mold, rot, and maggots, not to mention pitfalls like excess salt. Generations of cheesemakers have thrown away countless bad batches, which means feeding their livestock instead of livestock a lot of precious protein.

The first cheese factory in the United States was built in 1851, making cheddar one of the first foods affected by the Industrial Revolution. Prior to this time, all cheese made in the United States was made on a farm, usually by farm wives or wealthy farm wives—cheese maids or enslaved women. As foods industrialized, they often shifted from being made by women to being made by men, and the same goes for cheese: women were mostly absent from the manufacturing rooms of these new cheese factories, until the artisanal cheese revolution of the past few decades.

Processed cheese is just back to cheesemaking, it was invented 107 years ago and is basically cheese that has been emulsified and cooked to make it less perishable (but also no longer a "living food" , because unlike natural cheese, the taste of processed cheese will no longer change with age). The advent of processed cheese has led to many innovations over the years, such as Kraft Singles, Easy Cheese, powdered "sauce" for boxed mac and cheese, Velveeta, a processed cheese invented in 1918 and now a dairy-based Based on processed food with 22 ingredients, this is no longer a cheese.

Processed cheese was a great way to make food for soldiers in war, turning cheese that was safe but not as good as standard cheese into something edible in a market that was oversupplied and had too much cheese to eat. Save producers in case of sales. It's also a great way to get nutrients for people who don't have refrigeration. Ironically, perhaps this was the culmination of the ancient cheesemaker's goal: to produce as much edible food as possible from that initial protein. A 1950s advertisement for Wheatsheaf brand canned "macaroni cheese."

(Image courtesy of Flickr)

Although processed cheese was invented in Switzerland, as part of the scale of our factories, large American cheese producers are either going big or getting out of the food production mindset , buying processed cheese in such large quantities that the definition of "American cheese" must be processed cheese.

Unfortunately, a cheese couple we had been looking forward to visiting had begun to break up by the time we arrived. When we pulled up, half the couple had moved out temporarily, and the other half and the kids were packing up for the permanent move. We stayed in that house to show support, surrounded by all the emotions that come with a breakup, especially out of the blue: anger, blame, despair, doubt of self-worth, fear of the unknown...all of it.

I can't remember whose idea it was to make a fancy dinner, but it gave us some time to do something and we thought we'd talk about cheese and the frolicking farm animals. What can one do to relieve despair? Especially when one stays at a farm dairy and eats some of the best cheese in the Northeast? Mac and cheese, of course.

Someone was sent to raid the farm shop. I brought out the cheese we collected from the farms we visited. If we were actually retail, our meals would probably be the most expensive per serving of mac and cheese in history.

But that’s not why it’s so great.

Our mac and cheese lifts our mood because it brings everyone together to complete Monday tasks. There's cheese grilling, meatloaf making, onions chopping, vegetables prepping, side dishes making. Soon, although the despair did not completely disappear, it was not as strong either. *** Enjoy cooking pranks that inevitably come. Here comes the anticipation of something that is not painful. When the meal was ready, we all sat down to eat and drink, building new community where the fabric of the past had been destroyed.

That's what Ford Foods does