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The sheer number of snide remarks about cheese in a can in response to this post is striking. It seems many feel compelled to mention it simply to reassure themselves of the inherent superiority of their European cheeses. Which no doubt I'm sure is true to some extent, but it's severely missing the point. Yes it's somewhat gross and terrifying that cheese can come out of a can the same way whipped cream can. But while it is about cheese in a can, it's not really about cheese in a can. It's about the sheer, glorious American instinct to look at something ordinary and ask: What if? What if we could keep cheese in that perfect, gooey, liquidy consistency - shelf-stable, ready at a moment's notice - and then invent an aerosol can to dispense it? It needs no refrigeration. You may thumb your nose down at the product but it's actually the same spirit that said, “what if we could fly to the Moon?” The invention of sprayable processed cheese is about a mindset of irreverence, optimism, and a culture that is unafraid of looking silly if it means pushing boundaries. Aerosolizing the cheese isn't easy. Any culture that can do that will start asking bigger questions without fear. What if we cure diseases with mRNA in months instead of decades? What if reusable rockets land themselves like something out of sci-fi? What if ordinary people can access computing power that once required government labs? The pretentious twats who roll their eyes at Easy Cheese simply don't get it. It’s not about sophistication; it's about agency. A people who refuse to accept “that’s just how it’s always been.” A culture that iterates, experiments, commercializes, and yes, sometimes sprays a neon orange dairy product from a can because...... why the hell not? That’s the moonshot mentality in its essence. Playful on the surface, revolutionary underneath. And it's why the European mind struggles so hard to grasp it. As long as Americans keep this fire, whether it's cheese or the cosmos, they will keep surprising the world.
MsMelChen ↗