Cheese ball (hors d'oeuvre)

The dish is representative of mid-20th century US cuisine.^[8] According to Splendid Table the first recipe appeared in a 1944 cookbook by Virginia Safford, a "wildly popular columnist" for the Minneapolis Star Journal.^[8][9]

The dish fell out of fashion for a period; by the late 1980s the term "cheeseball" was synonymous with "lacking style, taste, or originality".^[10] According to Amanda Hesser, writing for the New York Times in 2003, it "tend[s] to be associated with shag rugs and tinsel, symbols of the middle-class middlebrow".^[2] Kim Severson, writing for The New York Times in 2016, said it was "the culinary equivalent of a Rorschach test".^[7]

Amy Sedaris and her brother David wrote a play, The Book of Liz, that focuses on cheese balls as a metaphor for "the cliches we all live by", according to Ben Brantley.^[7][11] She included a recipe in her 2006 cookbook, Hosting a Party Under the Influence, and in 2007 made a version on the Martha Stewart Show, which according to Severson, "elevated cheese ball kitsch to an art form".^[12][7][13] According to Splendid Table's Jennifer Russell, writing in 2014, "Sedaris may be singlehandedly responsible for the cheese ball's revival."^[8] In 2014 Culture, an industry magazine, said "cheese balls are making their comeback".^[12] MplsStPaul Magazine called 2016 "the year of the cheese ball", calling the dish "the North’s answer to Southern pimento cheese".^[7][9]