page_title: American cheese
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: American cheese / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A cheeseburger.
context_page_description: Modern American cheese is a type of processed cheese made from cheddar, colby, or similar cheeses. It is mild with a creamy and salty flavor, has a medium-firm consistency, and has a low melting point. It can be yellow or white in color; yellow American cheese is seasoned and colored with annatto. It originated in the 1910s and is a common staple in many American dishes.
context_section_description: British colonists made cheddar cheese soon after their arrival in North America. By 1790, American-made cheddars were being exported back to England. According to Robert Carlton Brown, author of The Complete Book of Cheese, "The English called our imitation Yankee, or American, Cheddar, while here at home it was popularly known as yellow or store cheese".
  The Oxford English Dictionary lists the first known usage of "American cheese" as occurring in the Frankfort, Kentucky, newspaper The Guardian of Freedom in 1804. The next usage given is in 1860 by Charles Dickens in his series The Uncommercial Traveller.
  After patenting a new method for manufacturing processed cheese in 1916, James L. Kraft began marketing it in the late 1910s, and the term "American cheese" rapidly began to refer to the processed variety instead of the traditional but more expensive cheddars also made and sold in the U.S.
caption: The cheeseburger is a popular food in North America (shown topped with American cheese).
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