Peter here. The first joke is exaggerating how much cheese Americans eat. The reply is a French guy joking that processed American cheese doesn’t qualify as real cheese to him. Peter out.
The French don't generalize to all American cheese. He said that the cheese in this picture doesn't qualify as cheese. This is because it looks way too industrial. Pourquoi y a pas de croute, bordel!
It's less that Europeans generalize that ALL CHEESE IN THE US IS BAD, it's more that the Americans are going "well the Wisconsin specialty cheese is actually better than French cheese" as a retort to an image that shows mass produced, highly processed non-cheese.
That's as simple as it is. America DOES have real cheese. But the pictured above isn't. Just like American bread or chocolate oftentimes don't actually qualify to be named such.
Which is why people point out that America has a problem taking things and modifying them so heavily, then still wanting to call them the same thing, after making them worse and less healthy.
That doesn't mean ALL food in the US is bad, in case you wanna repeat that. But it means a LOT of the food in the US is worse than it should be. Then you factor in food deserts, how much cheaper the bad food is, how obesity is running rampant and substances/supplements are constantly advertised and glorified...
This is a multi-layered issue and the US is simply parading it. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist elsewhere, I mean, shit, I think the unhealthiest city in the world is in Northern England somewhere, but the US seems PROUD of that shit. Because they're raised to be proud of anything American.
Which is what you can see in this comment section, where they have to try and pretend Kraft singles are not only real cheese, they're also better and the EU is stinky-poopoo and we're the best. USA USA!
Just because it doesn't fit the metric for European countries doesn't mean that it doesn't in America. You're allowed to not think it's those things in Europe. But to act like Europe is the absolute authority on what things are just because of how they do things in the varying nations is laughable. America has cheese, chocolate, and bread. Just because of Mr. France's PREFERENCES of what he believes is those items, doesn't mean it's not those items. America may have an ego with their national pride, but let's not pretend like the other nations that make up Europe doesn't as well, as this is a pride response come from bruised egos.
No one is saying American Cheese is better. But that it’s still real cheese and used for melting because the emulsifier keeps the fat and solids, well, emulsified. And people saying that America has a wide range of cheeses that are made here locally and so forth, which is all true.
Europe didn’t have chocolate until they finally reached America anyway. There’s also tons of American chocolate styles and companies. Most Europeans complain about Hershey Chocolate which has a bitter or sour flavor to it. But that doesn’t make it “worse” anymore than an IPA is “worse” than a Lager. They’re simply different flavor profiles and it’s not one you’ve acquired.
Similarly, European food today exists because of America. Tomatoes, Chocolate, Potatoes, Peppers, Corn. None of those have European origins
Food desert issues are less and issue with “food” and much more an issue that intersects race, poverty, class, and the destruction of public transit in the U.S.
American cheese isn't a generalization, its a specific type of processed cheese, although the specific cheese blend can vary, as does the quality. Honestly tho the picture just looks like plain old cheddar to me
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u/OfficialBroccoliRob 16h ago
Peter here. The first joke is exaggerating how much cheese Americans eat. The reply is a French guy joking that processed American cheese doesn’t qualify as real cheese to him. Peter out.