American cheese is loved for its role in delicious macaroni and cheese, cheeseburgers, and grilled cheese sandwiches, but it's also been dragged through the mud for not being cheese. So what is it, then? It's a food product that contains cheese and other ingredients. While there are regulations on how it can be labeled, calling it "not cheese" is like saying sparkling water is not water because it has carbon bubbles added to it. You can argue amongst yourselves about the quality of American pasteurized process cheese, which is a matter of opinion. You can't argue with the fact that it melts into sauce very nicely before it burns.
The video gives us the science of how cheese melts or doesn't, and explains how to make your own melty cheese out of a variety of cheeses by using sodium citrate. I recently came across a recipe that does this using Alka-Seltzer, which is made of sodium bicarbonate and anhydrous citric acid plus aspirin, so you have to find the kind that doesn't contain aspirin. It may be easier to just order some sodium citrate. Or buy some Velveeta.
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