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Sometimes you need a break from the craziness of this modern age, which is why we're celebrating nostalgic foods this week at BonAppetit.com.
I have a crisper drawer dedicated to cheese and have spent a large chunk of my savings at Murray's Cheese in NYC, but my all-time favorite cheese isn't fancy—it's American. I'm not talking about Kraft Singles, though (no disrespect to the OG), but rather a lesser-known melty American cheese: Cooper.
I stumbled upon Cooper by accident in high school. I was perusing the deli counter at Wegmans—shout-out to the best grocery store in the world—and the odd rectangular packaging caught my eye. It had a swoosh of a logo that looked like WordArt circa 1999. My family was a loyal Land O'Lakes white American cheese household, but this didn't look too different. It was in a massive block of cheese, ready to be sliced by the deli guy, and I ordered a ¼ lb. to be safe. The flavor was completely different from any American cheese I'd had before. It had the sharpness of a cheddar and a hint of salty Parmesan. Not to mention it was impossibly creamy. It seemed to melt on my tongue, and I craved it again the moment I was done eating it.
According to Kiah Simon, Cooper's associate brand manager, cheddar is the main component to develop this "sharp American" cheese, and it's "hand-selected and aged for between 100 to 180 days." There are extra ingredients to give Cooper its signature sharpness, but Simon says that special formula is a secret recipe they've been using for decades. Cooper was started by I.C. Cooper, a banker who decided to go into cheesemaking in Theresa, NY, in 1890. These days the parent company, Schreiber Foods, operates out of Green Bay, WI. Fun fact from the Cooper website: "Process deli cheese is formed by filling hot cheese into the package and then cooling it." Would watch soothing videos of that before I go to sleep, TBH.
Cooper was a staple in my lunchbox turkey sandwiches as a kid, but it is best used in grilled cheese. It melts better than any cheese I've cooked with, but doesn't have that odd aftertaste of plastic that can come with wrapped slices. I like to get it a little thicker-cut—a 3 or 4 on a deli slicer—since thinner slices tend to tear. To prevent them all sticking together, use parchment paper to separate slices if your deli gives you everything in one big stack. The Wegmans deli very neatly laid three slices across a thin plastic sheet and separated each layer of slices with another sheet.
For my ideal grilled cheese, I butter ½-inch slices of Pullman bread, layer on three or four slices (depending on how decadent I feel) of thickish slices of Cooper, and put it in a nonstick pan on low heat. When we shot the photos for this story, I used a cast-iron and they came out spectacularly crisp. But you need to keep a close eye because cast iron heats so fast that you might accidentally burn it without realizing. You can press the sandwiches down with a spatula or a heavy lid, but Cooper melts well without any coaxing. When you cut the sandwich, the cheese is so molten that it spills out of every crack. Heaven.
My eating habits have changed a lot since I was a kid, but when I'm seeking comfort, I mix some Cooper into my stovetop mac and cheese, melt some in my morning eggs, top burgers with a few slices, or make a grilled cheese. I've also managed to convert some hoity-toity New York friends and a few test kitchen editors to the Church of Cooper Cheese. Luckily the Cooper site has a product locator so you can find how close you are to one of the best American cheeses in the world. I have a mile-and-a-half trek ahead of me, but sometimes love makes you do crazy things.