Velveta is not exactly the way I remember the other cheese. But, in fairness, it’s been like 38-40 odd years since I’ve had one. I was thinking it tasted more like a hard cheddar but it was definitely softer. Maybe not quite as soft as Velveta though. I’ll meet you part way on that one. Lol, wow this whole video is bringing back memories. IBC root beer, rotary phones, being the youngest child thus you automatically become what today would be called a remote control, Saturday morning cartoons( the great ones, not some crap about a starfish and sponge), playing outside, having to check every piece of Halloween candy for razor blades (smh), whippings that you received and all the other ones you deserved but got away with. Good times back then.
Reagan administration was from 1980 to '88. Clinton wasn't giving any cheese away to Citizens. Only too someone in a 👗 You remember the scratch and sniff from when Monica blew prasinski in the oral office? Now that was an insult.
Oh wow, this video just unlocked a memory of getting government cheese once a month when I was a kid in the 80’s. It actually tasted pretty good, but now I’m wondering how old it actually was 😂
3:45. How the heck do you think bars had to stay in business after they outlawed alcohol in prohibition across the United States😂? Yes they had to turn into ice cream parlors specializing in that and Pop/Soda fountains. Thus the golden Era of the American Milkshakes was introduced, including whipped cream (more dairy) on top and a cherry. 🍒😊. Please remember Andre, when Americans are dealt a challenge to even their own businesses, such is what happened in Prohibition, ( ALL BARS and Alcohol ILLEGAL), we tend to Invent another means of sustainable Capitalism, which Our Fellow Citizens will enjoy. We are VERY good at that.
The ice cream floats stayed, they gave back the booze and took away the machine guns. So we started shooting each other 10X more. lol Always a crazy time here, even in the good times, that's for sure.
I remember when Reagan was giving the cheese away. The company I worked for was in the poor part of town and we were down the road from a "cheese" distribution point. There were huge lines of people waiting to receive their blocks of cheese. Also, for a while you would see people walking around carrying blocks of cheese.
I remember school field trips to the underground with my geology class back at Parkview, it truly is enormous. we were there for the rock formations so I never actually knew what was in there, finding out a bunch of it was cheese is hilarious.
I never researched it before, but I remember the "got milk" adds everywhere TV, billboards, magazines, etc. I also remember the Pork "the other white meat" commercials. Beef. "its whats for dinner" adds. But cant remember what company did those. Wonder if they too are government adds. "eat mo chicken" thats a company slogan.....or is it?
Ken Burns, a master documentarian, made a documentary on prohibition. It doesn't cover ice cream, but it tells you all you want to know about prohibition.
As a kid in the late 50's every farm here in the mid west had a small milking operation 10-20 cows. It gave the farmers a monthly check to keep a money flow. No politico was willing to cut off them dollars. Then in the 70's huge dairy farms were created 1-2 thousand milking cows. The NY investors wanted a cut of that .gov check. Anyway in the 80's a buyout program came out and paid farmers to quit milking....for good. Around here I would say 80% of the small farms went that route. Now they all just grow corn to make alcohol to add to gas that the worlds biggest oil producer (the US) does not need.
Those government cheese blocks back in the day were something else! Those who were eligible to get them as food assistance were secretly envied by those of us who did not qualify for them. That cheese made the BEST toasted cheese sandwiches and queso ever!
Don’t feel bad André, I had no idea cheese bunker existed, either. And no lie, immediately after your video ended a Sargento cheese commercial came one! 🤯🧀
Also, if you don't believe that we replaced alcohol with ice cream, I would strongly suggest that you watch a video from Tasting History titled "World War 2 Ice Cream of the US NAVY". He actually makes military ice cream and goes into the history of ice cream in WW2, as well as the ice cream ransoms that were paid to recover rescued sailors from other US ships. We also had a military ship practically dedicated to making ice cream for US sailors.
In the 1960s school cafeterias there was government cheese. Welfare people used to get government cheese. Back then we had huge surpluses of grain we'd sell to the Soviet Union too.
Yep, and the cheese wasn't all that bad. My aunt lived with my parents and since she was living on just Social Security, she was able to go to the food bank a few times during the1980's. I remember the 5 pound block of cheese in a cardboard box in the fridge.
A friend reared two children on her own in the West Virginia coal country. She and her children looked forward to the "welfare truck" once a month and the item they wanted most was cheese. Thirty years later she still calls this soft cheese "welfare cheese".
I was just thinking about that watching this! Oversimplified videos are so entertaining. I also recommend the prohibition series. There's also a video on Tasting history talking about the military importance of ice cream. I think it's the banana ice cream one. It touches on the importance for soldier morale.
12:38 And what exactly was one of those cheese ideas mentioned in the letter, you might ask? *Stuffed Crust Pizza.* That’s right, DMI and Pizza Hut are responsible for the idea of cramming a bunch of cheese into a pizza crust. Let that sink in.
"why are all the amreicans so convinced that consperacy theories are reay?" the cia: we stopped a rebellion in the Philippines by selling the idea that vampires are real
Funny thing... I remember these big cheese giveaways back in the 80s. We always had milk in the house for our kids. I don't recall ever having any BUT I am sure it ended up in a lot of casseroles.
Use to live in Springfield, MO and yes this is true. There are truck drivers that have videos of driving into these bunkers, they are huge. and ice cream and alcohol story is true...."That's aggressive"..yep
Yo during prohibition it was a different animal here in America we had gangs running illegal booze you can look it up even on Google about how prohibition changed America over night
If you can remember the 1980s you probably can remember older people getting those government cheese blocks. My great aunt would get it but reminded me too much of velveta which I really don't care for.
We called it Gubment aka government cheese. It’s a cross between American, cheddar, and Velveeta cheese. It made the best grill cheese sandwich’s and the best cheeseburgers. You can still buy it.
I used to get government cheese every month because my family was low income. It was actually the best tasting cheese I ever ate in my life. I really really really miss this cheese. I keep buying different cheeses to try to get a similar taste. It's awful to introduce you to a product you may never taste again. I remember the delicious grilled cheese sandwiches and eating huge chunks of cheese with a giant bowl of popcorn. That was a good time to be alive, truly
I absolutely loved that cheese when I was little. It was the best cheese. Every now and then I'll get a cheese that reminds me of that government cheese, but none of them are ever as good.
Lyme caves in Missouri is true. Before 9/11, you could drive in the GEO caves. There is a railroad that runs down there. It's where the movie companies sends their Film reels to keep them safe. Its TRUE 👍
The Ice Cream story is pretty good as well. Granted all his stories are great, but we did some crazy stuff back in the day. We did, in fact ban alcohol, because of teetotaler.
The Government Cheese was great for Mac and cheese 🧀 and grilled cheese sandwiches. We also used to get large cans of government Peanut butter at scout camp that was the best. I wish I could get some of each.
Roquefort, Muenster, Yellow Cheddar; Gouda, Brie, and smelly Feta; Each dairy variation tastes so yummy! Cottage, Cream and Mascarpone, Camembert and Provolone; Each tidbit did its bit to build my tummy. My friends call me Cheese Louise. Surname is "Jack" - my brothers are named Colby, Pepper, and Monterey.
It actually is known by a lot of people. I knew about the cheese thing when I was a kid. The thing I didn't know is that the Government Cheese was started because it was moldy. Makes me glad I can't stand cheese and never ate it. Reisdorf Bros a feed mill in the middle of my county started putting I ❤ Milk on the side lf their trucks during the Got Milk campaign and still does to this day. But then they sell feed to our 50 dairy farms and help feed 52,000 cows every day. So of course they love milk.
Lifelong 41 year old 'Murican here. I had no idea where that phrase, "government cheese" came from. Using context clues, I assumed, as a child, that it meant welfare. The system of giving public resources to the poor, to keep them somewhere above dying. For what it's worth, that was the class I belonged to until 12 years ago. Maybe the scope of my experience influenced how I learned the phrase.
It's true that bars were all instantly illegal around the time ice cream, due to refrigeratoration availability and popularity, boomed. Ice cream was important to soldier moral at one point. I saw a video about that on the tasting history channel. There was just a lot of illegal businesses too with places to get alcohol illegally. It wasn't completely enforceable. But lots of alcohol establishments probably did switch to owning a legal ice cream parlor, not everyone had freezers at home and would have to get ice cream socially. At the time of prohibition, many people had ice boxes yet.
@@garycamara9955 yes, it wasn't that long ago to me. I'm only gen x, but my grandparents had iceboxes. They were in the thick of the depression. We found money from that era stashed all over their house. It was crazy. Bills rolled up and stashed in the metal tubing of their wood lathe machine. They had an ice box. Would have only gotten ice cream by going to an ice cream parlor. To be honest, they could have made it homemade, but couldn't freeze it and keep it. They would be able to make it but had to eat it right away because they had no way to easily keep it cold enough to keep it very solid. Winters were cold, so maybe outside it was sometimes possible, but I can see with the rise of popularity, it was just easier to go out somewhere to get ice cream. It's not that easy to make by hand.
The "got milk?" campaign was run not by Dairy Management, Inc., but rather by the California Milk Processors Board, started in 1993. The board was a consortium of dairy processors and the California Department of Agriculture. This is information readily available on reliable internet sites. It isn't completely without government involvement, but the government involved was the California state government, not the US government. You need to be careful because when people say "it may sound like a conspiracy therapy", that's because it usually is.
In 1920, the US banned alcohol and this lasted until 1933. This was called Prohibition and it failed. All banning alcohol did was create the mafia and cause an increase in crime. There is an animated show called Lackadaisy that is actually set in the Prohibition Era. It's very funny
It's for me. I eat so much cheese that the government keeps these cheese bunkers solely to feed me. We have quite a mutually beneficial arrangement; they feed me, and I don't go full Godzilla mode.
@european-reacts he was making a joke with 'utter confusion' cus 'udders' are where milk comes from the cow lol....I'm lactose intolerant but I take pills when I eat something with dairy....I'm eating Kit Kat ice cream while watching this lol
Giving cheese away didn't start with Reagan. In 1972 my mother was widowed with five kids under 11 years old. No food stamps or EBT cards back then. You got an actual hand out of food. The only two I remember was the government cheese and the cans of lard. Lard because that was before fat suddenly became bad for you and everything was fried in lard. A lot of baked breads and cookies used lard as an ingredient. But the cheese! Best toasted cheese sandwiches anywhere. And my mother's baked macaroni and cheese with toasted bread crumb topping was to die for. I would kill to have some of that now. 🤣
1. Go check out the video about trading ice cream instead of alcohol during Prohibition. 2. I read many decades ago that humans are the only animal that regularly drinks milk after adulthood. Certainly all mammal infants need the mother's milk to get a good start in life, but only humans go out of their way to consume it. Very strange. I do enjoy cheese and ice cream and other dairy products, but I don't often drink straight milk.
The "American Cheese" single slices. We were cleaning the breakroom at my work and moved the fridge and found a partially unwrapped single slice of cheese that had to have been there for years due to the dust on and around it that built up under the fridge over time. It was in perfect condition. I also saw a single slice of cheese on the ground and it stayed there for three days on the cement. No bird, rat or raccoon touched it for three days and it never melted nor moved....(not even ants touched it) The rest of the sandwich was gone. Only a single slice of American cheese remained until the landscape people finally picked it up and tossed it. Picked it up like it hadn't been sitting in full sun on the cement for three days. lol Thats the government right there.
A very famous Surgeon General of the US, C Everett Koop, said, way, way back in the late '70's or early '80's that he advised the Education Department to get rid of milk in school lunches, because of it's long-term adverse health effects, which were known even then. In an interview, he went so far as to say that the evidence supported replacing milk with diluted red wine as being not only better, but potentially having positive effects to curb alcoholism and addictive behavior in general. But instead he was run out of office shortly afterwards.
