[Blarg]

Honestly, American cheese is barely cheese at all. It's so bland that it's more like congealed oil with orange food coloring. It's a signature horrible American food, terrible and watered down into tastelessness the way American chocolate is terrible, but even worse. I doubt much of anyone outside America eats much of it or likes it much. When I was growing up, I didn't have much exposure to any other kind of cheese, so I liked it more then.

As to cheddar cheese, I think good cheddar is sharp, myself. That tends to overwhelm a sandwich, becoming the dominant note. Especially one with a delicate flavor like turkey. Good cheddar cheese could just bury the flavor of the turkey, changing the sandwich from an interesting symphony to the monotone of a tuba.

Another thing is that cheddar "breaks" very easily; it crumbles and is hard to slice thinly, and cracks and falls apart on a sandwich. It also has a kind of mealy texture, which again tends to assert itself too much in a sandwich.

I love good cheddar, and it's the most popular cheese there is, but just don't think it's ideal for sandwiches. If it's in a sandwich, it's not bad all by itself though, with mayonnaise. And it's not bad melted in a poor-boy sandwich, or melted on toast or garlic bread.

But if you like it however you like, it, cool. Enjoying your food is what it's all about, after all.

I'm not sure if you've really tried a lot of different cheeses or not, but if you haven't, it's fun to get beyond the basic American choices -- "American" cheese and cheddar -- and try a lot of the hundreds of great cheeses out there. Some are awful, some are great. Most are neither as overpoweringly one-note as cheddar nor as deadly dull as American.

A lot of cheeses and coldcuts have their flavor homogenized - made a little more dull, sweet, and salty for easy sale in the American mass market. Even something like bologna can be incredibly good if you look around and get it at the right place, though. Lots of deli's have the mass market crap, too, but it's always fun to experiment and see if you can find something with some character.