ENGL 6310/7310
Popular Culture
Studies
Fall 2011
PH 300
M 240-540
Dr. David Lavery
No Whey . . . Yes Way: The
Persistence of Velveeta
Exaggeration  Novelty 
Strangeness  Plastic
It is only a short step from exaggerating what we can find
in the world to exaggerating our power to remake the
world. Expecting more novelty than there is, more
greatness than there is, and more strangeness than there
is, we imagine ourselves masters of a plastic universe.
But a world we can shape to our will—or to our
extravagant expectations—is a shapeless world.
--Daniel J. Boorstin,
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America
Target of Self-Appointed Food Czars
Velveeta, once an American foodstuff celebrity, is
surely a targeted “food product” trapped in its
twentieth century ideals of the highly processed.
Mystical Origins? Magical Matter
Phase Transformation?
Phenett + NuKraft=VELVEETA (1928)
• Chemist Elmer E. Eldredge from Phenix Cheese
Company—Lowville, New York 1915
• J.L. Kraft Brothers, early 1900s
KRAFT MILITARY
• “The sale of 6 million pounds of cheese to the U.S.
Army during WW I ensured the fortunes of the
company” and would later supply troops in World
War II with its processed cheese” (Carlin).
• “Shop Your Commissary—Kraft—Enjoy the Savings
You’ve Earned”
Tune in for Velveeta
• RADIO
– The Kraft Music Hall (1933-1949)
• TELEVISION
– Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall (1946-1966)
• Milton Berle, Harpo & Groucho Marx (1959)
– The Kraft Music Hall (1967-1970)
• Simon and Garfunkel (1968)
• Richard Pryor (1968)
• Johnny Cash (1969)
Tune in for Velveeta
– Kraft Television Theatre (1947-1958)
– Kraft Suspense Theater (1963-1965)
• “Once Upon a Savage Night”
American Velveeta
From its origin, Velveeta offered durability (through
longevity in shelf life), affordability, convenience,
ease, and comfort—the material qualities Americans
desire most in goods and commodities.
Plays Well with Others
• Collaborates well with other foods
• Diversity and Acceptance
– Best face of 21st Century America
– VELVEETA, the BRAND
Velveeta Binary Opposites
• It is the unsophisticated Brie.
• It is the NOT cheddar.
It may not really be food.
Better Than . . . .
Yet Velveeta has persisted. Kraft’s
aggressive marketing campaign has
championed the fact that Velveeta’s best
quality is that it is NOT cheese.
• Velveeta vs. Cheddar
• “There’s no single cheese like Velveeta.”
• Favorite Brand Velveeta Recipes for People
Who Eat Food
Not food?
Once known as Processed Cheese Spread and
Processed Cheese Food, Velveeta is now
categorized as Processed Cheese Product.
In its 2003 warning letter, the FDA charges Kraft
with misbranding Velveeta because it does “not
conform to definition and standard [because the
product declares] milk protein concentrate [not
milk] in [its] ingredients list, ” and continues,
“Milk protein concentrate (MPC) is not listed as
an optional dairy ingredient in any of the
standardized cheese products governed by a
standard of identity, and therefore standardized
cheese products are not permitted to contain
MPC as an ingredient” (Connelly).
Genres
20th Century & Food Disconnect
In “Popular Culture in North America: Food and
Foodways,” twentieth century American food
consumers’ disconnect and compromise about
defining food is explained: “The attractive
appearance and packaging of mainstream food
supplies disguised the unseen additives within.
From as early as the 1920s Americans had
applauded while food chemists created marvelous
substances that tasted like real food, forecasting a
revolution in which the creations of science would
replace nature’s bounty” (Taylor and Reiss).
“Food” for a “Shapeless World”
Velveeta is a prime example of how twentieth
century food chemists were “shaping their will” to
what was and has now become Boorstin’s
“shapeless world” in which even food had become a
pseudo-event and where consumers, “[e]xpecting
more novelty than there is, more greatness than
there is, and more strangeness than there is,” (118)
could no longer distinguish between actual food and
not-food, or, more likely, they did not really seem to
mind and may have even preferred the novelty and
strangeness.
Rage Against Velveeta
Kristi Ceccarossi in her June 2010 editorial
“Community Gardens Don’t Excuse What Kraft Did
to American Food” argues, “I don’t need the
mammoth corporation that manufactures Velveeta to
help me clear a bit of earth and prepare it for
cultivation. None of us do.”
Velveeta, the Proletariat
In “A Tale of Two Cheeses” published in American
Demographics, Michael J. Weiss examines the
consumer demographics of Washington, D.C. in 1998
and finds unsurprisingly that Brie eaters tend to be
executives, “college-educated professionals with sixfigure incomes” and “living in upscale neighborhoods of
Northwest, D.C. and the western suburbs of Montgomery
County, Maryland and Fairfax, Virginia” while Velveeta
eaters “live in a different world. They are concentrated in
the middle-class, family-filled suburbs of Prince George’s
County and predominantly black District neighborhoods
like Le Droit park . . . .” Today Americans are living in a
Velveeta economy.
Is Kraft the dominant hegemonic?
Are Velveeta-eaters merely poor,
uneducated food dupes?
If Kraft is winking at its customers as it
offers up another slice of Velveeta, the
customers are winking back.
“a glass of gin, a box of Velveeta”
Mad Men (4.2)
“Christmas Comes but Once a Year”
Secretary: “Uhm, the girls went to
Joan, and I don’t want to undermined
her, but are we allowed to bring a
friend to the Christmas party?’
Don: “Lane scaled it back to a glass
of gin and a box of Velveeta, we’re
taking our belts.”
Previous Cameos on Mad Men
“Shut the Door. Have a
Seat.”
(3.13)
“Love Among the Ruins”
(3.2)
Social Media & Customer
Engagement
Velveeta Kitchenistas
Velveeta on Facebook
Velveeta will likely endure to celebrate its centennial
birthday in 2028. Prepare the queso dip.
Works Cited
Advertisement. Velveeta It! Kitchenistas. Kraft Foods Inc., 2009. Web. 29 July 2010. <http://brands.kraftfoods.com/Velveeta/kitchenista/vk-archivemon.html>.
Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Psuedo Events in America. 25th Anniversary Edition ed. 1961. New York: Vintage Books, 1987. Print.
Carlin, Joseph M. “Kraft Foods.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink. Ed. Gordon Campbell. Oxford UP, 2003. Web. 23 July 2010.
Ceccarossi, Kristi. “Community Gardens Don’t Excuse What Kraft Did to American Food.” Editorial. Common Dreams.org. Common Dreams, 1 June
2010. Web. 25 July 2010. <http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/01-3>.
Connelly, Virginia R. “Kraft Foods North America, Inc. 18-Dec-02 Warning Letter.” Letter to Betsy D. Holden/ Kraft Foods North America, Inc. 18 Dec. 2
002. Department of Health and Human Serivces. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Inspections, Complience, Enforcement, and Criminal I
nvestigations. www.hhs.gov. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2002/ucm145363.htm>.
Griffith, Benjamin. “Kraft Television Theatre.” St. James Encyclopedia of Poular Culture. Gale Group, 29 Jan. 2002. Web. 26 July 2010. <http:////
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419100683/ >.
“Kraft Foods Inc.” Funding Universe. The Gale Group, 2006. Web. 28 July 2010. <http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Kraft-Foods-IncCompany-History.html>.
Kraft Military. Kraft Foods Inc., 2010. Web. 25 July 2010. <http://brands.kraftfoods.com/kraftmilitary/>.
“The Kraft Music Hall.” IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com inc., 2010. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065308/>.
“Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall.” IMDB: The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com Inc., 2010. Web. 25 July 2010.
Rath, Sara. “Velveeta.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed. Gordon Campbell. Oxford U Pa, 2003. Web. 23 July 2010.
Taylor, Beverly, and Edmund Reiss. “Popular Culture in North America: Food and Foodways.” The Greenworld Enyclopedia of World Popular Culture:
North America. Greenwood Publishing, 2010. Web. 29 July 2010.
Velveeta . Facebook, 25 July 2010. Web. 29 July 2010. <http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/Velveeta?
v=wall&story_fbid=134490556591147>.
“Velveeta.” Advertisement. Kraft Foods. Kraft Foods Inc., 2010. Web. 27 July 2010. <http://brands.kraftfoods.com/velveeta/Home>.
Velveeta Slices. Advertisement. 20 Sept. 2009. YouTube. Web. 28 July 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0C2om_e19c&feature=related>.
Veveeta vs. Cheddar. Advertisement. 8 Oct. 2007. YouTube. Web. 27 July 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkkD21cdG0Q&NR=1>.
Weiss, Michael J. “A Tale of Two Cheeses.” American Demographics 20.2 (1998): 16-18. General OneFile. Web. 26 July 2010.