March 20, 2025 • 32 mins
Let's be honest: cheese is inherently weird. As humanity advanced, civilizations leveraged positively alchemical science to arrive at the perfect cheeseburger melt. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the evolution of processed cheese -- the not-quite-cheese that changed the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. If you can hear me cheesing on the mic,
it's because I'm pleased as punch to be joined with
our brain trust of host of producers, starting with super
producer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh hello, I'm here, and you're starting with me.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Pleased as cheese.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yes, yes, so hard. That's mister Noel Brown. The condition Yeah, yep,
that's mister Noel Brown. This is gonna be uh, this
is gonna be an interesting episode for our pal Max
due to the condition. I am Ben Bolin. We are
joined vicariously with our research associate Wren and recently, off
(01:15):
air we had we had a brief conversation about about
foods that we're interested in. We did talk a little
bit about Haggis off air after our dairy and Gap episode.
But I feel like it's fair to say conditioned aside
in principle, we're all fans of cheese.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I think, so, Max, can you have vegan cheese?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yes, yes, vegan cheese is a go too, And I
can actually have soft cheese, so I can have like mazzarella.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's a harder cheese. I can't have a little chevra.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You have a little chevra?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, okay, okay, I mostly.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Played and just a little ricotta cheese. Where you at
with cottage cheese?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Oh, cottage cheese. I should be able to have cottage. Honestly,
I'm bad as gross when it comes to the condition
it is.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, I mean cheese as a concept to We were
talking about this on an episode of on a show
called Very Special Episodes about Big Parma. How cheese and
dairy became a huge part of the American diet. And
this is a natural, you know, palette complementer to that conversation. Uh,
(02:26):
where we at with cheese?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Whiz?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Where we at with velveta? Where we at with craft singles?
I'll tell you this, man. I know, processed cheese is
not the best thing for a human body, but I
love it. I am like I might be addicted to
velveta at some points in my life.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
It's a good mac and cheese option, that's for sure.
I think I prefer it to the craft powdered mac
and cheese. Yes, I think that's right. And you can
also buy it in like these bricks, these soft bricks
of Elvida, and then you can mix it with whatever
noodles you choose, you know, so that's a lot of fun.
I'm a big fan of the Craft singles. I gotta
(03:11):
say cheese product because of the way that it doesn't
split when you put it on a burger. It gets
you that perfect even melts. And if anyone's seen the
movie The Menu starring Ray Fines as a maniacal what
do you like michelin E type chef, even he sings
the praises of Kraft singles. And I think even when
you go to like fancy or burger type places or
(03:31):
smash burger joints that are really popular right now, you're gonna.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
See that cheese product because of its melting properties.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Mm hmm, yeah, that's true. We'll get to the melty
science behind this. There is a reason that people have,
at least in the West, held processed cheese in its
own rarefied air. It's a familiar ingredient in American cuisine.
If you travel to other countries and you are, you know,
(03:58):
eating a burger somewhere, the American burger is probably gonna
have processed cheese on it because it became synonymous with
the United States.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
One hundred percent. The question then becomes ben as you
have alluded to, what the heck is in this stuff?
This cheese product, processed has a real negative connotation in
general when we're talking about nutrition. Is this stuff as
plastic as the thin plastic coating that it comes in?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That is the question for the court today, mister Brown,
I believe we can begin with good dues. A lot
of us will be relieved, hopefully to learn that the
main ingredient in all processed cheese is still to this day,
actual cheese.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
They just can't call it cheese because it's the percentage
isn't enough for it to be considered pure cheese. It is,
in fact cheese product you'll see often listed on those packages.
According to Food the Alex Delaney in a twenty eighteen
article for a Bon Appetite, this is what they have
to say about it. Processed cheese isn't one hundred percent cheese.
(05:07):
Most of the time. It hovers around fifty percent cheese,
sometimes more and sometimes less. But at a base level,
processed cheese is real cheese cut with other non cheese ingredients. Okay,
we stepped on a little.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Bit, they stepped on the products. Yes, shout out to
the wire and all the hip hop that I love.
But there's good news still because these non cheese ingredients
are a mission critical factor in the meltiness that we
all adore. Right, the word process, as you mentioned, has
(05:42):
a negative connotation, kind of like saying scheme in US
English book callback callback. But really it's it's unfair to
immediately condemn something just because the word processed is used
to describe it. You know, butter is processed milk, grape
juice is wine too, I guess is just processed from grapes.
(06:07):
You have to have some sort of intervention to create
the end thing.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Well sure, I mean you could even go so far
as to say the process of fermentation could fall into
this category.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You know.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
So the buzziness and the negative connotation of the term processed,
you know, causes quite a bit of hullabaloo. And I
think maybe something ado about nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
M Yeah, yeah, I think that's a very fair point because,
you know, depending on the kind of processed cheese food
products that's one for the Americans. Depending on the type
of fig you're looking at it could be made entirely
of ingredients that the ordinary consumer would consider natural. If
(06:54):
we're talking processed cheese, it usually does begin with a
shredded our pal Lurin would say actual facts cheese, colby
or cheddar. Right.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
It's then melted and mixed with water, milk, and oil.
This is added to the hot cheese, hot cheese.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
I love that phrase hot chee good, just you should
use it in regular conversation to refer to something that's awesome.
At this stage, the ingredients start to separate from one
another because dairy and oil have different properties, sort of
the way olive oil sits on top of the rest
of the liquid inside salad dressing and you have to
shake it up, or like the way the blobbies and
lava lamps can exist inside the same container but never
(07:33):
actually combined. It's sort of a is it a suspension?
Is that the terms it means.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
That they they are segregated. Basically, they're not mixing into
one homogeneous substance. And the reason that you have processed
cheese at all, Folks, is due to emulsifying agents. And
emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that
(08:01):
would ordinarily be in that lava lamp situation, and you
are able to include some intervening factor or substance that
brings them together. In the case of processed cheese, we're
thinking stuff like sodium citrate. That would be one of
the most famous examples that I can conjure up. Also,
(08:21):
bonus points, sodium is a preservative, so this makes processed
cheese lasts longer than the fresh cheese you would get
at the farmer's market.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah. Absolutely mean.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Think of the way naval rations are preserved, and like
salt barrels, you know, and salted meats and all of
that stuff, very much the same situation. The final consistency
of the cheese is ultimately determined by the amount of
emulsifier that's used, the temperature, the moisture content, and the
degree of blending that takes place throughout this process.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Okay, this is already sounding a little complicated for some
of us in the crowd, But also remember, folks, if
you introduced or described natural cheese to anyone who had
never encountered it before, it would sound pretty crazy, right.
You would say, you know, we got milk, right, we
get milk from these other animals and then we do
(09:19):
this weird process to it, right, as you said, Noel,
all cheese is processed milk, right and then and then
sometimes we just let certain bacteria go go hogwild on when.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
You're really unpack it like that, Ben, it is kind
of gross if it weren't so delicious and crack like
that is the thing. There have been studies that say
that cheese can be as addictive as crack cocaine.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Oh wow, well, good thing. I tried cheese first. I'll
be addicted to that one. I think we both will.
We also have to, as Ren points out, address something
called easy cheese. Easy cheese is different from cheese whiz,
which we're gonna spend some time on. Easy cheese does
(10:07):
come in an aerosol can, but apparently it's not a
true aerosol.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
And that's because a thin layer of plastic at the
bottom of the can prevents the propellant that is included
from mixing with the cheese, so it does have that
separate component. This separation allows the cheese to emerge from
the can in a nice ropey strand rather than a
fine mist like a traditional aerosol spray like.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
A rope strand I said what I said, you said.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
What you said, and I've got your back, I got
your thank you. So easy cheese is interesting because there
is natural cheese in it, but it is not the protagonist.
It's not the main character of the ingredient list. Instead,
you're going to see stuff like wave protein concentrate and
(11:03):
of course canola oil. It also gets its fluorescent orange
color from naturally derived sources. So we're already seeing that
processed cheese has its own panopoly of very distinct entities.
If we want to talk about the current state of cheese,
I guess we have to do a little ridiculous history
(11:27):
about cheese in general.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Yes, cheese, one oh one, So let us venture together
to the Swiss Alps.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah. The earliest mention of what we would call processed
cheese actually comes from Homer, comes from the Iliad, and
this is written in around like eight hundred BCE, and
it talks about how you could goat or sheep milk
with wide and flour, kind of a precedent for fondue.
(12:07):
And that's where we get to, as you were saying,
Switzerland the thirteen hundreds, this is where we see the
real versions of cheese exist everywhere, but this is where
you see the real fancy cheese, guys.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
And this was created in the Mental region of Switzerland
and the thirteen hundreds. And you may have heard of
mental cheese, which I believe is the well, there's raklets,
of course, but menthal cheese is another kind that is
used and melted down if I'm not mistaken for a
fondue situation. So Swiss cheese is considered an early example
of processed cheese because rennet is one of the main ingredients.
(12:44):
Is itself a preservative traditionally found in the stomach lining
of livestock. It is an enzyme that causes the protein
and milk to coagulate. So I'm sorry I may have
been off base and calling it a preservative. It is, however,
a chemical additive and the same way that preservatives are.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah. Yeah, And because of that rennet, because of those
enzymes added to the original product, Swiss cheese is considered processed. Now,
let's let's stick with fondue. I've got I've got some
I almost said I have some rennet. I've got some
mmental in the fridge right now. So we're interested in
learning more about this. If you go a little bit
(13:24):
forward in time to the eighteen hundreds, you'll see the
next iteration of fondue. It arrives to us from the
Swiss Alps, and at the time, just like we were
talking about off air with Hagis, at the time, this
was not considered a fancy special occasion thing like going
to the melting pot or another fondue restaurant. Instead, this
(13:47):
was what we would call a struggled meal like people
ate it because they had to work with what they possessed.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
One hundred percent. Winter in the Swiss Alps was rough, long, harsh,
and freezing, so the peasants had to use this aged
cheese and bread because fresh produce just wasn't on the
table literally and figuraly. By combining their cheese with flour, wine,
and some herbs like you mentioned earlier, ban over an
open flame, these peasants were able to create a very
(14:18):
tasty and long lasting food item that would take the
edge off winter's chill. According to the Dairy Farmers of
Wisconsin website at Wisconsin Cheese dot.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Com, m yeah, the method that people use to make
American cheese today largely was also created by a couple
of Swedes, Swedish guys named Walter Gerber and Franz Stettler.
In nineteen eleven, they said, all right, let's make something
that we can ship off to warmer areas of the world.
(14:54):
And our super move will be to ship this without
its spoiling. And they added sodium citrate to this melted
emmentol to this hot cheese. And they did you know,
their experiment was successful. They made a product that could
last longer on the shelf. But there was someone else
(15:16):
in the game, someone who was living across the pond,
as we say, who grew his own kind of hot
cheese science experiment hot cheese, resulting in a business empire
that is worth over thirty seven billion US dollars as
(15:36):
we record today, It's time to metium noll oh big Cheese.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
In nineteen sixteen, Canadian American immigrant James Lewis Kraft with
a K you know it, obtained his first patent four
processed cheese. Along with his little brother Norman, the Crafts
would transform the landscape of the supermarkets. In its very
first iteration, craft cheese was slightly different from the line of.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Products that we know today. How is it different?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know? First off, it's sold in jars or cans
because it doesn't have a mulsifying salts Noel. Before we continue,
I have a pitch for the Ridiculous History Cinematic Universe.
Oh my gosh, please, okay, dude, what if we make
a film, a movie about James and Norman Kraft and
(16:26):
how they created this process cheese Empire, and we just
call it the Craft with a k light is a
feather stiff as a board? Throw in some occult reference.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Why not? You know we could make them like Vampire
Hunters too or something.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, that's the Craft, only.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
If it's a spiritual sequel to the episode we're going
to do about the Kellogg Brothers.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Oh have we not done the Kellogg Brothers episode yet? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
We've well, movie correction, we'll make were gonna make the
movie also?
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Oh okay, Yes, and they're also vampire Hunters, great rival
vampire Hunters.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yes, and the way they kill vampires, but.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
You can't write that. You can't say that, right.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I like the idea though, that they're both using dairy
to fight vampires. I will say this is a very
anti vampire stance we're taking. And there's reason because vampires
can't eat cheese.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, they can't eat change.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Okay, they're lactose intolerant then.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yes, yes, that's the that's the real problem with vampires.
You heard it here first, folks. In nineteen twenty one,
we know that the Craft Company did patent or patent
applications for multifying salts.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
In nineteen forty four, however, Craft secured another patent, this
time for the process that led to the delightful little
Craft singles that we know and some of us love today.
This was a major improvement to the former loaf situation.
These little slices account today for roughly seventy four percent
of all processed cheese sales in the entirety of the
(18:05):
United States.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Wild right, wild. This goes into some of our other
explorations about how the US government in particular got so
deep in bed with big Dairy, Big Parma Man.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Check out that episode, by the way, was it called
very special Episodes?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Big How cheese got in everything?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yep?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Featuring Ben Bolin and his buddy Alex French.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Thank you so much, man. It's it's a weird one,
for sure. It is a true story, and Craft does
occur within that story. We also learned something we mentioned
on previous episodes of Stuff they Don't want you to know, Noel,
which is that the US government, as we record, is
currently storing one point four billion pounds of processed cheese
(18:58):
in this underground cave syte them in Missouri.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
A bunker situation. Yes, b bro, I've got a pitch
for you.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
What if when Elon Musk blows the doors off of
Fort Knox, it's not full of gold bricks at all,
but just bricks of velveta.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I love it, oh, because they would look like gold
you've thought about. That's smart.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Liquid gold is what we call it.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Cheese.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
This is this is weird. We have to dive into this.
Why does Uncle Sam have over a billion pounds of
cheese hidden weigh in caves? That is true. You know
it sounds weird, but it is true. It's because in
the nineteen seventies, the US had a milk shortage, but
the demand for dairy did not decrease, and as a result,
(19:46):
dairy products, everything that falls under the category of dairy,
the prices for those spiked by thirty percent. It's kind
of similar to what we're seeing with eggs in the US. Today.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Is this the government cheese everyone's always talking to this
gets to it.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Yeah, okay, great, So as we're currently seeing with eggs.
Like you said, when inflation impacts the cost of an
important staple food, A, people get irritated because they can't
afford one of these common items that are relied upon
for sustenance, and B they buy less of that product
because they just don't have any other choice. But then
(20:23):
enter our hero in the situation. I guess our buddy,
President Richard not a crook, Nixon, who did have a
bit of a plan here, Old.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Tricky he says. He says, Look, we're going to pass
the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of nineteen seventy three.
This did have price controls, it did have subsidies. It
said milk should only be, you know, at this reasonable price,
and if you're a farmer and you're struggling, we're going
(20:53):
to give you a little cash on the side to
help you make it to the next year. We're also
getting rid of all these crazy import quotas we had
from the Great Depression. This band aidd the discrepancy between
supply and demand. But you know, Nixon probably had some
(21:14):
back room smoky deal.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I think that's kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I guess, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
It's something in the eyes.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I think you're right, very shifty tricky. But if you
know anything about tricky, Dick Nixon probably isn't cheese related
or dairy related. A bit more of that old that hotel. Yes, yeah,
I gate some water. So President Jimmy Carter, classic Georgia boyp.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Only just recently thought he was going to live forever.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, we had all hoped. He took office in nineteen
seventy seven, and it looked like the Nixon administration had
over corrected with dairy products and supply and demand. Because
now dairy products are so cheap that farmers are losing
money by running their businesses. You can't move the milk
(22:12):
fast enough. The economics no longer makes sense. So production
is still continuing at the same rate because they already
have all these cows, right, they already have all these
dairy cows, and they're going to keep making milk. Congress
and President Carter, they get incredibly concerned that if they
(22:34):
allow these farmers to go into other businesses, they're just
going to create another dairy shortage. So now we see
another big government act, the Food and Agriculture Act of
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Right, it supply more subsidies to dairy and with the
government buying all of that access product, farmers were able
to continue on as usual. But the government did now
find itself with a bit of a cheese glut.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Hot cheese, hot cheese. They got that hot cheese. They
had so much stuff. First off, I would point out
they had so much milk, and milk is cartoonishly perishable, right,
so they had to transform it into something that would
last a little longer, which means their next move are
going to be things like butter and cheese. And by
(23:21):
the time Ronald Reagan comes after President Carter in the
early nineteen eighties, the government has bought up five over
five hundred million pounds of processed cheese just to keep
the dairy industry going.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
That's wild.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
That does not seem like the best arrangement. What on
earth did they do with all of this cheese? According
to a USDA official in nineteen eighty one in an
article in the Washington Post, probably the cheapest and most
practical thing to do would be to dump it in
the ocean. But Reagan was a frugal man. He did
not believe he was a waste not, want not type fellow.
(23:58):
He wanted that hot cheese the trip down.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He wanted that hot cheese to trickle down in ropy string.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
Oh yeah, thank you man, thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So it's nineteen eighty one, then President Reagan is coming
to the public in December, and he says, at a
time when American families are under increasing financial pressure, their
government cannot sit by and watch millions of pounds of
food turned to waste. This is where his administration founds
(24:31):
the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program. This is the government cheese.
They took all the cheese they had made in this
deal with the dairy industry, and they distributed three hundred
million pounds of it to populations that they saw as
in need. At the same time, by the way, they're
(24:52):
putting cheese in every kind of military like everything the
army eats is getting cheese.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
If you look images of this stuff, it looks like
a brick of plastique, you know, some sort of like
explosive putty. It says pasteurized process process not processed. By
the way, cheddar cheese keep under refrigeration. And then there's
a little sign off purchased and distributed by the United
(25:20):
States Department of Agriculture, Washington DC and.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Ian DC cheese.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
The idea of you know, maybe it's certainly antiquated now,
but I remember growing up it was sort of like
a joke kind of thing to talk about people being
on government cheese, sort of a crassway referring to maybe
people that were less fortunate than others.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, one hundred percent. There was some insensitivity in those
days and in the present day, because the government has
once again begun buying up a lot of cheese, and
it's entirely because they have to prop up and assist
the domestic dairy industry. Public demand for dairy products has declined.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Ben, where do you think the use of the word
cheese referring to money came from. Do you think it
has anything to do with this whole like we've got
way too much cheese situation.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I wonder that is a good question. Let's see, if
we're looking at cheese as money slang, maybe it does
go back to welfare and assistance. Maybe that's when people
started talking about having the cheddar, having the cheese.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yep, if you look at urban Dictionary.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
One of the entries refers to it as slang for money,
referring to a form of welfare where people would get
government cheese handed out to people in what we're referred
to as poverty lines. And I think that's a bit
of an antiquated term as well. But cheese comes from
the term government cheese, but in slang it's referring to money,
because that's where you get your welfare checks as well
(26:52):
as that government cheddar.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Makes sense, right, beautiful cheese as cash money you can
eat right now. Farmers have so much extra milk that
they're reportedly dumping it into fields into lagoons.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Not in the ocean at least, right.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
No, oh, and Ben, just doubling back to what you
mentioned about the excess milk being dumped into lagoons. These
are referred to as anaerobic lagoons and are a way
of I believe, storing and treating livestock manure because of
the anaerobic ability for it to be broken down by
(27:29):
that products.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, you absolutely nailed it. It's a way to sort
of mitigate the waste or the potential for other nasty
things to happen when you throw a bunch of animal
junk and milk into the environment. So right now the
US government has more cheese in its caves than it
(27:53):
did when Ronald Reagan was doing his best to give
it all away. Big Parma is realss Cheese is awesome.
We have to thank everybody who's listening to this in
the dairy industry. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Folks, oh Ben, Before we wrap up it being I
believe as this publishes National Cheese Steak Month.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
National cheese Steak data is March twenty four.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Okay, we Ben, You and I have traveled to Philadelphia
on numerous occasions and have enjoyed authentic Philly cheese steaks.
If you're in Philly, you just call it a steak.
But the traditional way of eating a Philly steak is
with cheese whiz, not with I mean, we love a
sharp provolone excellent edition as well, but the classic style
(28:43):
is with grilled onions and cheese whiz. Ben, you found
a great article that explains the origin of that.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Ah. Yes, the oral history of the Philly cheese steak
with Big Big thanks to our pal Victor fiel Real.
You can find this on phillymac dot com. It's a
fascinating story that might be an episode all its own.
We did something about Philly cheese steaks. Was it on
(29:13):
ridiculous history?
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I think it was. Maybe it just was part of another,
a larger broader topic.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
But I swear we talked about the history of Philly
cheese sticks at some point or another. Because I I
know way too much about it. We should look back
on that and maybe do an update.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, I've got to ask you, inquiring minds want to
know Noel Max again, condition aside, what's your take? What's
the right cheese for a Philly cheese steak.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
I don't think I've ever had it with Wiz. I
really like it with sharp Provolone. I just think it's
a superior cheese. I'm not a huge canned cheese kind
of guy, though I do like a craft single melted
gently over a delicious smash burger.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
How about you Max, with especially it's been.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You're gonna keep going with that? Huh.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
I'm gonna beat them both out now.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
So folks, folks, we would love to hear your opinions
on cheese steaks. I did mess up one time. Nol
and our pal Matt Frederick and I were doing a
live show in Philadelphia, and at the very end I
asked people to recommend which Philly cheese steak shop we
should go to, and they were very they were very
(30:27):
strident and contradicting opinions.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Right, there's the two kind of you know, classic ones.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
There's Pats and then the other one that's right across
the street from it. But those are almost like locals
think those are sort of like played out, and everyone's
gonna have some kind of off the beaten path steak
joint that they will recommend. I think Dallassandro's is a
popular one, if I'm not missing.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's the good ones are always some person's name. That's
the rule of thumbs.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
There, Dallasandro's Steaks and Hogies Philly Slvania.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I have heard really great things about that.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
But then if you go to Reddit, someone says, here,
Delasandra sucks, go to Angelo's or John's Rose.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Exactly what happened, dude? When I asked people in Philadelphia,
you know, I thought they wanted to talk to us
about the show, but they were just going, no, beat
me your Max, everyone, Na mank you nicks, Na Delesandra.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
We like we went to Knicks.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, so with that, folks, thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Thanks to our research associate Ren,
thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. Who else,
who else?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Oh geez, Alex Williams to compose our theme. Christophrasciotis needs
Jeff Coates here in spirit.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
The Rude Dudes at Ridiculous Crime. Tune in. If you
like our show, you'll love theirs. And thanks also, of
course to everybody with an opinion of a cheese steak.
This episode has made me so hungry. I think we're
trending toward lunchtime.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Big time. It is proper lunchtime.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
As we wrap this episode up, Ben, thanks for cheasing it.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Up with me, man and also with you.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. If you can hear me cheesing on the mic,
it's because I'm pleased as punch to be joined with
our brain trust of host of producers, starting with super
producer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh hello, I'm here, and you're starting with me.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Pleased as cheese.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yes, yes, so hard. That's mister Noel Brown. The condition Yeah, yep,
that's mister Noel Brown. This is gonna be uh, this
is gonna be an interesting episode for our pal Max
due to the condition. I am Ben Bolin. We are
joined vicariously with our research associate Wren and recently, off
(01:15):
air we had we had a brief conversation about about
foods that we're interested in. We did talk a little
bit about Haggis off air after our dairy and Gap episode.
But I feel like it's fair to say conditioned aside
in principle, we're all fans of cheese.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I think, so, Max, can you have vegan cheese?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yes, yes, vegan cheese is a go too, And I
can actually have soft cheese, so I can have like mazzarella.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's a harder cheese. I can't have a little chevra.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You have a little chevra?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, okay, okay, I mostly.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Played and just a little ricotta cheese. Where you at
with cottage cheese?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Oh, cottage cheese. I should be able to have cottage. Honestly,
I'm bad as gross when it comes to the condition
it is.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, I mean cheese as a concept to We were
talking about this on an episode of on a show
called Very Special Episodes about Big Parma. How cheese and
dairy became a huge part of the American diet. And
this is a natural, you know, palette complementer to that conversation. Uh,
(02:26):
where we at with cheese?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Whiz?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Where we at with velveta? Where we at with craft singles?
I'll tell you this, man. I know, processed cheese is
not the best thing for a human body, but I
love it. I am like I might be addicted to
velveta at some points in my life.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
It's a good mac and cheese option, that's for sure.
I think I prefer it to the craft powdered mac
and cheese. Yes, I think that's right. And you can
also buy it in like these bricks, these soft bricks
of Elvida, and then you can mix it with whatever
noodles you choose, you know, so that's a lot of fun.
I'm a big fan of the Craft singles. I gotta
(03:11):
say cheese product because of the way that it doesn't
split when you put it on a burger. It gets
you that perfect even melts. And if anyone's seen the
movie The Menu starring Ray Fines as a maniacal what
do you like michelin E type chef, even he sings
the praises of Kraft singles. And I think even when
you go to like fancy or burger type places or
(03:31):
smash burger joints that are really popular right now, you're gonna.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
See that cheese product because of its melting properties.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Mm hmm, yeah, that's true. We'll get to the melty
science behind this. There is a reason that people have,
at least in the West, held processed cheese in its
own rarefied air. It's a familiar ingredient in American cuisine.
If you travel to other countries and you are, you know,
(03:58):
eating a burger somewhere, the American burger is probably gonna
have processed cheese on it because it became synonymous with
the United States.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
One hundred percent. The question then becomes ben as you
have alluded to, what the heck is in this stuff?
This cheese product, processed has a real negative connotation in
general when we're talking about nutrition. Is this stuff as
plastic as the thin plastic coating that it comes in?
Speaker 1 (04:28):
That is the question for the court today, mister Brown,
I believe we can begin with good dues. A lot
of us will be relieved, hopefully to learn that the
main ingredient in all processed cheese is still to this day,
actual cheese.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
They just can't call it cheese because it's the percentage
isn't enough for it to be considered pure cheese. It is,
in fact cheese product you'll see often listed on those packages.
According to Food the Alex Delaney in a twenty eighteen
article for a Bon Appetite, this is what they have
to say about it. Processed cheese isn't one hundred percent cheese.
(05:07):
Most of the time. It hovers around fifty percent cheese,
sometimes more and sometimes less. But at a base level,
processed cheese is real cheese cut with other non cheese ingredients. Okay,
we stepped on a little.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Bit, they stepped on the products. Yes, shout out to
the wire and all the hip hop that I love.
But there's good news still because these non cheese ingredients
are a mission critical factor in the meltiness that we
all adore. Right, the word process, as you mentioned, has
(05:42):
a negative connotation, kind of like saying scheme in US
English book callback callback. But really it's it's unfair to
immediately condemn something just because the word processed is used
to describe it. You know, butter is processed milk, grape
juice is wine too, I guess is just processed from grapes.
(06:07):
You have to have some sort of intervention to create
the end thing.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
Well sure, I mean you could even go so far
as to say the process of fermentation could fall into
this category.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
You know.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
So the buzziness and the negative connotation of the term processed,
you know, causes quite a bit of hullabaloo. And I
think maybe something ado about nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
M Yeah, yeah, I think that's a very fair point because,
you know, depending on the kind of processed cheese food
products that's one for the Americans. Depending on the type
of fig you're looking at it could be made entirely
of ingredients that the ordinary consumer would consider natural. If
(06:54):
we're talking processed cheese, it usually does begin with a
shredded our pal Lurin would say actual facts cheese, colby
or cheddar. Right.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
It's then melted and mixed with water, milk, and oil.
This is added to the hot cheese, hot cheese.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
I love that phrase hot chee good, just you should
use it in regular conversation to refer to something that's awesome.
At this stage, the ingredients start to separate from one
another because dairy and oil have different properties, sort of
the way olive oil sits on top of the rest
of the liquid inside salad dressing and you have to
shake it up, or like the way the blobbies and
lava lamps can exist inside the same container but never
(07:33):
actually combined. It's sort of a is it a suspension?
Is that the terms it means.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
That they they are segregated. Basically, they're not mixing into
one homogeneous substance. And the reason that you have processed
cheese at all, Folks, is due to emulsifying agents. And
emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that
(08:01):
would ordinarily be in that lava lamp situation, and you
are able to include some intervening factor or substance that
brings them together. In the case of processed cheese, we're
thinking stuff like sodium citrate. That would be one of
the most famous examples that I can conjure up. Also,
(08:21):
bonus points, sodium is a preservative, so this makes processed
cheese lasts longer than the fresh cheese you would get
at the farmer's market.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah. Absolutely mean.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Think of the way naval rations are preserved, and like
salt barrels, you know, and salted meats and all of
that stuff, very much the same situation. The final consistency
of the cheese is ultimately determined by the amount of
emulsifier that's used, the temperature, the moisture content, and the
degree of blending that takes place throughout this process.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Okay, this is already sounding a little complicated for some
of us in the crowd, But also remember, folks, if
you introduced or described natural cheese to anyone who had
never encountered it before, it would sound pretty crazy, right.
You would say, you know, we got milk, right, we
get milk from these other animals and then we do
(09:19):
this weird process to it, right, as you said, Noel,
all cheese is processed milk, right and then and then
sometimes we just let certain bacteria go go hogwild on when.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
You're really unpack it like that, Ben, it is kind
of gross if it weren't so delicious and crack like
that is the thing. There have been studies that say
that cheese can be as addictive as crack cocaine.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Oh wow, well, good thing. I tried cheese first. I'll
be addicted to that one. I think we both will.
We also have to, as Ren points out, address something
called easy cheese. Easy cheese is different from cheese whiz,
which we're gonna spend some time on. Easy cheese does
(10:07):
come in an aerosol can, but apparently it's not a
true aerosol.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
And that's because a thin layer of plastic at the
bottom of the can prevents the propellant that is included
from mixing with the cheese, so it does have that
separate component. This separation allows the cheese to emerge from
the can in a nice ropey strand rather than a
fine mist like a traditional aerosol spray like.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
A rope strand I said what I said, you said.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
What you said, and I've got your back, I got
your thank you. So easy cheese is interesting because there
is natural cheese in it, but it is not the protagonist.
It's not the main character of the ingredient list. Instead,
you're going to see stuff like wave protein concentrate and
(11:03):
of course canola oil. It also gets its fluorescent orange
color from naturally derived sources. So we're already seeing that
processed cheese has its own panopoly of very distinct entities.
If we want to talk about the current state of cheese,
I guess we have to do a little ridiculous history
(11:27):
about cheese in general.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Yes, cheese, one oh one, So let us venture together
to the Swiss Alps.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah. The earliest mention of what we would call processed
cheese actually comes from Homer, comes from the Iliad, and
this is written in around like eight hundred BCE, and
it talks about how you could goat or sheep milk
with wide and flour, kind of a precedent for fondue.
(12:07):
And that's where we get to, as you were saying,
Switzerland the thirteen hundreds, this is where we see the
real versions of cheese exist everywhere, but this is where
you see the real fancy cheese, guys.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
And this was created in the Mental region of Switzerland
and the thirteen hundreds. And you may have heard of
mental cheese, which I believe is the well, there's raklets,
of course, but menthal cheese is another kind that is
used and melted down if I'm not mistaken for a
fondue situation. So Swiss cheese is considered an early example
of processed cheese because rennet is one of the main ingredients.
(12:44):
Is itself a preservative traditionally found in the stomach lining
of livestock. It is an enzyme that causes the protein
and milk to coagulate. So I'm sorry I may have
been off base and calling it a preservative. It is, however,
a chemical additive and the same way that preservatives are.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah. Yeah, And because of that rennet, because of those
enzymes added to the original product, Swiss cheese is considered processed. Now,
let's let's stick with fondue. I've got I've got some
I almost said I have some rennet. I've got some
mmental in the fridge right now. So we're interested in
learning more about this. If you go a little bit
(13:24):
forward in time to the eighteen hundreds, you'll see the
next iteration of fondue. It arrives to us from the
Swiss Alps, and at the time, just like we were
talking about off air with Hagis, at the time, this
was not considered a fancy special occasion thing like going
to the melting pot or another fondue restaurant. Instead, this
(13:47):
was what we would call a struggled meal like people
ate it because they had to work with what they possessed.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
One hundred percent. Winter in the Swiss Alps was rough, long, harsh,
and freezing, so the peasants had to use this aged
cheese and bread because fresh produce just wasn't on the
table literally and figuraly. By combining their cheese with flour, wine,
and some herbs like you mentioned earlier, ban over an
open flame, these peasants were able to create a very
(14:18):
tasty and long lasting food item that would take the
edge off winter's chill. According to the Dairy Farmers of
Wisconsin website at Wisconsin Cheese dot.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Com, m yeah, the method that people use to make
American cheese today largely was also created by a couple
of Swedes, Swedish guys named Walter Gerber and Franz Stettler.
In nineteen eleven, they said, all right, let's make something
that we can ship off to warmer areas of the world.
(14:54):
And our super move will be to ship this without
its spoiling. And they added sodium citrate to this melted
emmentol to this hot cheese. And they did you know,
their experiment was successful. They made a product that could
last longer on the shelf. But there was someone else
(15:16):
in the game, someone who was living across the pond,
as we say, who grew his own kind of hot
cheese science experiment hot cheese, resulting in a business empire
that is worth over thirty seven billion US dollars as
(15:36):
we record today, It's time to metium noll oh big Cheese.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
In nineteen sixteen, Canadian American immigrant James Lewis Kraft with
a K you know it, obtained his first patent four
processed cheese. Along with his little brother Norman, the Crafts
would transform the landscape of the supermarkets. In its very
first iteration, craft cheese was slightly different from the line of.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Products that we know today. How is it different?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know? First off, it's sold in jars or cans
because it doesn't have a mulsifying salts Noel. Before we continue,
I have a pitch for the Ridiculous History Cinematic Universe.
Oh my gosh, please, okay, dude, what if we make
a film, a movie about James and Norman Kraft and
(16:26):
how they created this process cheese Empire, and we just
call it the Craft with a k light is a
feather stiff as a board? Throw in some occult reference.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Why not? You know we could make them like Vampire
Hunters too or something.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, that's the Craft, only.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
If it's a spiritual sequel to the episode we're going
to do about the Kellogg Brothers.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Oh have we not done the Kellogg Brothers episode yet? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
We've well, movie correction, we'll make were gonna make the
movie also?
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Oh okay, Yes, and they're also vampire Hunters, great rival
vampire Hunters.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yes, and the way they kill vampires, but.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
You can't write that. You can't say that, right.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I like the idea though, that they're both using dairy
to fight vampires. I will say this is a very
anti vampire stance we're taking. And there's reason because vampires
can't eat cheese.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, they can't eat change.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Okay, they're lactose intolerant then.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yes, yes, that's the that's the real problem with vampires.
You heard it here first, folks. In nineteen twenty one,
we know that the Craft Company did patent or patent
applications for multifying salts.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
In nineteen forty four, however, Craft secured another patent, this
time for the process that led to the delightful little
Craft singles that we know and some of us love today.
This was a major improvement to the former loaf situation.
These little slices account today for roughly seventy four percent
of all processed cheese sales in the entirety of the
(18:05):
United States.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Wild right, wild. This goes into some of our other
explorations about how the US government in particular got so
deep in bed with big Dairy, Big Parma Man.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Check out that episode, by the way, was it called
very special Episodes?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Big How cheese got in everything?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yep?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Featuring Ben Bolin and his buddy Alex French.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Thank you so much, man. It's it's a weird one,
for sure. It is a true story, and Craft does
occur within that story. We also learned something we mentioned
on previous episodes of Stuff they Don't want you to know, Noel,
which is that the US government, as we record, is
currently storing one point four billion pounds of processed cheese
(18:58):
in this underground cave syte them in Missouri.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
A bunker situation. Yes, b bro, I've got a pitch
for you.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
What if when Elon Musk blows the doors off of
Fort Knox, it's not full of gold bricks at all,
but just bricks of velveta.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I love it, oh, because they would look like gold
you've thought about. That's smart.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Liquid gold is what we call it.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Cheese.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
This is this is weird. We have to dive into this.
Why does Uncle Sam have over a billion pounds of
cheese hidden weigh in caves? That is true. You know
it sounds weird, but it is true. It's because in
the nineteen seventies, the US had a milk shortage, but
the demand for dairy did not decrease, and as a result,
(19:46):
dairy products, everything that falls under the category of dairy,
the prices for those spiked by thirty percent. It's kind
of similar to what we're seeing with eggs in the US. Today.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Is this the government cheese everyone's always talking to this
gets to it.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Yeah, okay, great, So as we're currently seeing with eggs.
Like you said, when inflation impacts the cost of an
important staple food, A, people get irritated because they can't
afford one of these common items that are relied upon
for sustenance, and B they buy less of that product
because they just don't have any other choice. But then
(20:23):
enter our hero in the situation. I guess our buddy,
President Richard not a crook, Nixon, who did have a
bit of a plan here, Old.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Tricky he says. He says, Look, we're going to pass
the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of nineteen seventy three.
This did have price controls, it did have subsidies. It
said milk should only be, you know, at this reasonable price,
and if you're a farmer and you're struggling, we're going
(20:53):
to give you a little cash on the side to
help you make it to the next year. We're also
getting rid of all these crazy import quotas we had
from the Great Depression. This band aidd the discrepancy between
supply and demand. But you know, Nixon probably had some
(21:14):
back room smoky deal.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I think that's kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I guess, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
It's something in the eyes.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
I think you're right, very shifty tricky. But if you
know anything about tricky, Dick Nixon probably isn't cheese related
or dairy related. A bit more of that old that hotel. Yes, yeah,
I gate some water. So President Jimmy Carter, classic Georgia boyp.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Only just recently thought he was going to live forever.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, we had all hoped. He took office in nineteen
seventy seven, and it looked like the Nixon administration had
over corrected with dairy products and supply and demand. Because
now dairy products are so cheap that farmers are losing
money by running their businesses. You can't move the milk
(22:12):
fast enough. The economics no longer makes sense. So production
is still continuing at the same rate because they already
have all these cows, right, they already have all these
dairy cows, and they're going to keep making milk. Congress
and President Carter, they get incredibly concerned that if they
(22:34):
allow these farmers to go into other businesses, they're just
going to create another dairy shortage. So now we see
another big government act, the Food and Agriculture Act of
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
Right, it supply more subsidies to dairy and with the
government buying all of that access product, farmers were able
to continue on as usual. But the government did now
find itself with a bit of a cheese glut.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Hot cheese, hot cheese. They got that hot cheese. They
had so much stuff. First off, I would point out
they had so much milk, and milk is cartoonishly perishable, right,
so they had to transform it into something that would
last a little longer, which means their next move are
going to be things like butter and cheese. And by
(23:21):
the time Ronald Reagan comes after President Carter in the
early nineteen eighties, the government has bought up five over
five hundred million pounds of processed cheese just to keep
the dairy industry going.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
That's wild.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
That does not seem like the best arrangement. What on
earth did they do with all of this cheese? According
to a USDA official in nineteen eighty one in an
article in the Washington Post, probably the cheapest and most
practical thing to do would be to dump it in
the ocean. But Reagan was a frugal man. He did
not believe he was a waste not, want not type fellow.
(23:58):
He wanted that hot cheese the trip down.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
He wanted that hot cheese to trickle down in ropy string.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
Oh yeah, thank you man, thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So it's nineteen eighty one, then President Reagan is coming
to the public in December, and he says, at a
time when American families are under increasing financial pressure, their
government cannot sit by and watch millions of pounds of
food turned to waste. This is where his administration founds
(24:31):
the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program. This is the government cheese.
They took all the cheese they had made in this
deal with the dairy industry, and they distributed three hundred
million pounds of it to populations that they saw as
in need. At the same time, by the way, they're
(24:52):
putting cheese in every kind of military like everything the
army eats is getting cheese.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
If you look images of this stuff, it looks like
a brick of plastique, you know, some sort of like
explosive putty. It says pasteurized process process not processed. By
the way, cheddar cheese keep under refrigeration. And then there's
a little sign off purchased and distributed by the United
(25:20):
States Department of Agriculture, Washington DC and.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Ian DC cheese.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
The idea of you know, maybe it's certainly antiquated now,
but I remember growing up it was sort of like
a joke kind of thing to talk about people being
on government cheese, sort of a crassway referring to maybe
people that were less fortunate than others.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, one hundred percent. There was some insensitivity in those
days and in the present day, because the government has
once again begun buying up a lot of cheese, and
it's entirely because they have to prop up and assist
the domestic dairy industry. Public demand for dairy products has declined.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Ben, where do you think the use of the word
cheese referring to money came from. Do you think it
has anything to do with this whole like we've got
way too much cheese situation.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I wonder that is a good question. Let's see, if
we're looking at cheese as money slang, maybe it does
go back to welfare and assistance. Maybe that's when people
started talking about having the cheddar, having the cheese.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yep, if you look at urban Dictionary.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
One of the entries refers to it as slang for money,
referring to a form of welfare where people would get
government cheese handed out to people in what we're referred
to as poverty lines. And I think that's a bit
of an antiquated term as well. But cheese comes from
the term government cheese, but in slang it's referring to money,
because that's where you get your welfare checks as well
(26:52):
as that government cheddar.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Makes sense, right, beautiful cheese as cash money you can
eat right now. Farmers have so much extra milk that
they're reportedly dumping it into fields into lagoons.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Not in the ocean at least, right.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
No, oh, and Ben, just doubling back to what you
mentioned about the excess milk being dumped into lagoons. These
are referred to as anaerobic lagoons and are a way
of I believe, storing and treating livestock manure because of
the anaerobic ability for it to be broken down by
(27:29):
that products.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, you absolutely nailed it. It's a way to sort
of mitigate the waste or the potential for other nasty
things to happen when you throw a bunch of animal
junk and milk into the environment. So right now the
US government has more cheese in its caves than it
(27:53):
did when Ronald Reagan was doing his best to give
it all away. Big Parma is realss Cheese is awesome.
We have to thank everybody who's listening to this in
the dairy industry. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
Folks, oh Ben, Before we wrap up it being I
believe as this publishes National Cheese Steak Month.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
National cheese Steak data is March twenty four.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Okay, we Ben, You and I have traveled to Philadelphia
on numerous occasions and have enjoyed authentic Philly cheese steaks.
If you're in Philly, you just call it a steak.
But the traditional way of eating a Philly steak is
with cheese whiz, not with I mean, we love a
sharp provolone excellent edition as well, but the classic style
(28:43):
is with grilled onions and cheese whiz. Ben, you found
a great article that explains the origin of that.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Ah. Yes, the oral history of the Philly cheese steak
with Big Big thanks to our pal Victor fiel Real.
You can find this on phillymac dot com. It's a
fascinating story that might be an episode all its own.
We did something about Philly cheese steaks. Was it on
(29:13):
ridiculous history?
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I think it was. Maybe it just was part of another,
a larger broader topic.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
But I swear we talked about the history of Philly
cheese sticks at some point or another. Because I I
know way too much about it. We should look back
on that and maybe do an update.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, I've got to ask you, inquiring minds want to
know Noel Max again, condition aside, what's your take? What's
the right cheese for a Philly cheese steak.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
I don't think I've ever had it with Wiz. I
really like it with sharp Provolone. I just think it's
a superior cheese. I'm not a huge canned cheese kind
of guy, though I do like a craft single melted
gently over a delicious smash burger.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
How about you Max, with especially it's been.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You're gonna keep going with that? Huh.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
I'm gonna beat them both out now.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
So folks, folks, we would love to hear your opinions
on cheese steaks. I did mess up one time. Nol
and our pal Matt Frederick and I were doing a
live show in Philadelphia, and at the very end I
asked people to recommend which Philly cheese steak shop we
should go to, and they were very they were very
(30:27):
strident and contradicting opinions.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Right, there's the two kind of you know, classic ones.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
There's Pats and then the other one that's right across
the street from it. But those are almost like locals
think those are sort of like played out, and everyone's
gonna have some kind of off the beaten path steak
joint that they will recommend. I think Dallassandro's is a
popular one, if I'm not missing.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's the good ones are always some person's name. That's
the rule of thumbs.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
There, Dallasandro's Steaks and Hogies Philly Slvania.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I have heard really great things about that.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
But then if you go to Reddit, someone says, here,
Delasandra sucks, go to Angelo's or John's Rose.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Exactly what happened, dude? When I asked people in Philadelphia,
you know, I thought they wanted to talk to us
about the show, but they were just going, no, beat
me your Max, everyone, Na mank you nicks, Na Delesandra.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
We like we went to Knicks.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, so with that, folks, thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Thanks to our research associate Ren,
thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. Who else,
who else?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Oh geez, Alex Williams to compose our theme. Christophrasciotis needs
Jeff Coates here in spirit.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
The Rude Dudes at Ridiculous Crime. Tune in. If you
like our show, you'll love theirs. And thanks also, of
course to everybody with an opinion of a cheese steak.
This episode has made me so hungry. I think we're
trending toward lunchtime.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Big time. It is proper lunchtime.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
As we wrap this episode up, Ben, thanks for cheasing it.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Up with me, man and also with you.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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