So what: "white cheddar"

[Fat Guy]

My understanding is that cheddar cheese is white unless you add coloring to it, in which case it turns yellow/orange. The cheese is exactly the same.

So why is "white cheddar" so often offered as a flavor claim on packaging? What does it all mean?

[Dante]

So why is "white cheddar" so often offered as a flavor claim on packaging? What does it all mean?

The easy answer would be for the purposes of marketing to people who don't know any better...

(for one thing, added adjectives draw the eye more)

A more kind answer would be to point out that said chedder lacks colouring additives.

Dante

(eGullet newbie)

[TJHarris]

Let me be the first to say "Welcome! Dante".

I believe that "white" cheddar on packaging tends to be a marketing tool only. The general American population is acustomed to cheddar being orange/yellow. The many of the earlier, higher quality cheddars to show up on the market were natural colored. Now, I believe, many consumers equate white cheddar with higher quality cheddar.

Edited July 14, 2007 by TJHarris (log)

[Reignking]

I was having this discussion last night, but with regards to Red Velvet Cake. How is "red" a flavor? Could I make Green Velvet Cake and have the same cake?

[Dante]

Let me be the first to say "Welcome! Dante".

Why, thank you. nice to be here. I've thought for a while that i'd like to find a good foodie site- forums, resources, etc. , something that covered the widest range possible, and stumbled across eGullet during a Google -search for...something else, can't recall now.

I believe that "white" cheddar on packaging tends to be a marketing tool only.

<snip>

That's pretty much what I'd surmised as well. I've studied a bit about marketing, plus I got a crash-course of sorts in food labeling a few months ago while doing pre-publication reviewing of a book by the dietitian who works for the local food co-op, so these things kind of hit me automatically now.

Dante

[Dante]

I was having this discussion last night, but with regards to Red Velvet Cake. How is "red" a flavor? Could I make Green Velvet Cake and have the same cake?

I t-h-i-n-k the red just comes from colouring, but I'll gladly accept any info to the contrary anyone out there may have. My only direct experience with Red Velvet Cake comes from Red Velvet Cake Ice Cream. Never had it in its pure form.

But it may surprise you how much effect colour can have on perceived flavour- just the implications that the brain picks up and transmits to the taste buds. I've got this thing where I sort of "taste" colours- I sometimes describe things as tasting "red", "green", etc.- could be some weird anomaly of my brain or possibly early imprinting- associating tastes with the colouring of certain foods I enjoyed early in my life before that differentiation- thing kicked in in my cognitive development.

Dante

[Anna N]

To anyone who doesn't think colour matters:

I lived in Quebec in the early 60s where margarine was white and came with a colouring pack that you broke and kneaded into the white stuff to turn it yellow! This was to prevent marg being sold as butter (at least that's how I understand it!). The white stuff looked totally unpalatable but the yellow stuff seemed at that time to be edible. (I have grown a a lot since then.)

[JasonTrue]

Based on my experience with "white cheddar" flavored products, most manufacturers seem to choose a slightly sharper flavor profile than equivalent "cheddar" flavored products, attempting to mimic some of the longer-aged white cheddars.

Not that you couldn't do that using annato seed-colored cheddar, but I think in the American culinary vocabulary, ordinary yellow cheddar is a mild to medium sharp cheese, and white cheddar tends to have a range of medium to quite sharp.

Since most packaged cheddar-flavored products are really using a blend of dehydrated blue cheese and dehydrated cheddar (when any natural ingredients are involved at all), among other ingredients, the distinction is still mostly a matter of marketing and coloring.

Except for perhaps Mimolette, most of the annato-colored cheddar cheese in supermarkets is fairly uninteresting and predictable, since the big manufacturers have sort of chosen a fairly homogenized flavor profile to call "cheddar". The only reason why white cheddar is particularly interesting is because there's a fair amount of variety and an increasing number of small producers with their own variations, in age and style.

As a packaged product "flavor", "white cheddar" is mostly marketing, but I think that most companies making such products make some distinction between the target flavor profile of yellow and white cheddar. It's not JUST Retsin.

[stringcheese]

What an interesting discussion...I agree that the white/orange cheddar distinction is mostly marketing at this point. Although I have to say that my brain processes the color difference exactly the opposite from what is being said here. I freely admit that this is my quirk, and not a truism on the part of the cheeses!

See...I hate mild, flavorless cheddars and cheeses (see my username? It's ironic! Oh, the humor...). And while I do see that, in my supermarket, the mild cheddars = orange and the sharp cheddars = white, I just have had a hard time buying white cheddars. I think this is because growing up, when my parents would buy white cheeses, they would be the mildest, unaged swisses and bricks they could find. So in my head, white = mild.

All is not lost, however--we can find lovely 4, 5, and even 10 year aged orange (!) cheddars at our local farmer's market every Saturday. And, I just made cheese straws using the white cheddar, so perhaps I'm finally growing up?

[Fat Guy]

Based on my experience with "white cheddar" flavored products, most manufacturers seem to choose a slightly sharper flavor profile than equivalent "cheddar" flavored products, attempting to mimic some of the longer-aged white cheddars.

←

I just went to test this theory by comparing the taste of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies to Annie's White Cheddar Bunnies. You are certainly correct that the flavor distinction is between milder and sharper, at least it is with respect to the yellow/orange and white versions of this product.

However, when it comes to real cheese, I see sharp yellow cheddars and mild white cheddars all the time, both from mass-market and high-end brands. Even with the traditional farmhouse Cheddar-related cheeses (Gloucester, Leicester, Cheshire, etc.) from England, you see a lot of yellow/orange ones and some that are nearly red.

[Ted Fairhead]

To anyone who doesn't think colour matters:

I lived in Quebec in the early 60s where margarine was white and came with a colouring pack that you broke and kneaded into the white stuff to turn it yellow! 

←

My wife, (American) tells me that it was her job as a little girl during WWII, to work the yellow coloring into the white stuff her Grandmother bought. Our rationing in England was very much more severe but I don't believe we ever did such a thing.

[baroness]

To anyone who doesn't think colour matters:

I lived in Quebec in the early 60s where margarine was white and came with a colouring pack that you broke and kneaded into the white stuff to turn it yellow!  This was to prevent marg being sold as butter (at least that's how I understand it!).  The white stuff looked totally unpalatable but the yellow stuff seemed at that time to be edible.  (I have grown a a lot since then.)

←

When I was very young (also early 1960's), all the margarine in Minnesota was sold in bags with a blob of coloring to knead in before the bag was opened. I was told that it was that way by state LAW, as Minnesota was a dairy state and this would encourage sales of butter! It was exciting - and easier on my Mom - when we could get "contraband" pre-colored margarine sticks from Wisconsin to accomodate my Dad's low-cholesterol diet.

[RobertCollins]

I too had to mix the coloring into the mass. That was the 50's for me. Dad said that the goo tasted like lard if you didn't mix the yellow in. I could never tell the difference.

If Dad told me that now I'd have to ask "so?".

[ermintrude]

Cheddar seems to be an abomination amongst cheeses as so much rubbish cheese is labelled cheddar and it has no relation to the real thing.

Good cheddar is wonderful and may be anything from very pale to yellow (but not that 'yellow' colour) and range from mild to very strong.

It's one cheese I wish there were EU rules about.

As for the USA my cheese buying experiences there were horrible. Parmesan - vile till I discovered that in the USA any muck could be labeled as Parmesan and I had to find the shops that sold the real deal. I wish the USA had rules like the EU over what you can call food and drink. Another pet USA hate of mine is when I've asked for a glass of Champagne and ended up with a vile glass of fizzy wine (not saying they have to go to the EU level but a quality standard should be in place)

[saucée]

Things like water ice have colors associated with rather specific "flavors" such as purple (usually called grape), red (usually called cherry), blue (blueberry?). Often these "flavors" are designated by color at some water ice stands. Similar flavors can be found in sodas, I think. Associating color with flavor might be a good way to add a consistent visual dimension to marketing things that taste like blue and look like blue but have seemingly no relation to anything natural--blue ice and white cheddar (neither of which, to my buds, taste much like any real fruit or dairy product) probably need something extra for a customer to hang their sense perceptions on and recall next time they are marketed.

[srhcb]

I just went to test this theory by comparing the taste of Annie's Cheddar Bunnies to Annie's White Cheddar Bunnies. You are certainly correct that the flavor distinction is between milder and sharper, at least it is with respect to the yellow/orange and white versions of this product.

The same is true of my favorite snack cracker, Cheez-Its.

[srhcb]

When I was very young (also early 1960's), all the margarine in Minnesota was sold in bags with a blob of coloring to knead in before the bag was opened. I was told that it was that way by state LAW, as Minnesota was a dairy state and this would encourage sales of butter! It was exciting - and easier on my Mom - when we could get "contraband" pre-colored margarine sticks from Wisconsin to accomodate my Dad's low-cholesterol diet.

←

My Father insisted we have real butter at home, but I remember other kids whose Dad's were notorious "Oleo-Runners".

SB (liquor was always cheaper in Wisconsin too )

[Reignking]

Don't forget the odd-colored french fries and ketchups, oriented for kids...

Yes, the red in red velvet is strictly from food coloring.

[mizducky]

The older gentleman I now cook for is convinced that white cheddar is better than the yellow stuff, because the white stuff is free of added color. He looked very dubious when I gently explained to him that the yellow color was due to anatto seed and not an artificial color. He's idiosyncratically picky about many other foods as well--for instance he prefers Miracle Whip to real mayonnaise, and only likes Roman Meal bread. I respect his likes and dislikes--he's a sweetie and deserves to have his idiosyncracies respected ... but at the same time I can't help smiling and shaking my head.

A lot of people really do need and want their food to be familiar, what they grew up with, even if that familiar image has been created by marketing. On a certain level I don't get it--but hey, I'm a damfool foodie freak so what do I know?

[kpzachary]

To me, it is odd that the "white cheddar" flavored products are usually sharper or more sour tasting. If you look at the differences in say a Double Gloucester (yellow in color due to the addition of annatto;they use to add saffron or carrot juice in the past), and a Single Gloucester (white in color), the taste difference is the opposite. The Double Gloucester has its curds cut twice, hince the name, which makes it more sour or sharp. The Single has a more mellow, creamier profile. I'm sorry but this just adds to the confusion.

I believe that in America there were very few white cheddars in the past, so they were something special to be had. Marketers took advantage of this fact and using the name "white cheddar", made their products in turn, special as well.

Edited July 15, 2007 by kpzachary (log)

[PopsicleToze]

Sometimes it's for aesthetic reasons. For instance, when I make crabmeat au gratin, I always use white cheddar because I like the way it looks better than orange cheddar in the finished dish.

Edited to add:

Crabmeat au gratin is an all white dish and little bits of browned orange cheese, IMHO, takes away from its appearance.

Edited July 15, 2007 by PopsicleToze (log)

[larrylee]

This is not not on-topic but I believe the color from red velvet cake used to originate from the type of cocoa powder used. It's referenced in this slashfood article and I think it was mentioned once in a Good Eats episode, but I'm having trouble locating it.