When white cheddar began showing up in popcorn, crackers and tortilla chips back in the 1980s, it wasn’t just a Gen Y rebuttal to the glow-in-the-dark orange electric cheese foods of its youth. It was a response to a palate awakened by a new wave of domestic chefs showing a perpetually cheese-hungry America what treasures they’d discovered in the fromageries of Europe.
The idea that cheese came in anything but orange Cheddar, rubbery Swiss and even rubbier “mozzarella” excited not only consumers and the folks who fed them but artisans as well. Suddenly, regional makers of chèvre and fresh mozzarella saw demand expand rapidly from the narrow neighborhood radius they were used to.