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The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

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Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#21

Post by eitally »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #11

This author is wrong. You may not add onions, avocado, or any of those other things to a grilled cheese sandwich, at least not if you are trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Once you start adding veggies or meat, it becomes a melt. There's nothing wrong with a melt! But words mean things , and you can't just call any sandwich you like a grilled cheese just because the bread is toasted and it has melted cheese i…

I disagree, or rather I don't care if I'm wrong but there are likely millions on my side. I'm 49 years old, grew up eating grilled cheese (American cheese on Pepperidge Farms white bread), often with sliced onion or tomato, and mustard. I had never even heard of a melt until I was probably 35, and even so, I still call a doctored up grilled cheese sandwich a grilled cheese sandwich. It ceases to be grilled cheese only if meat is added.

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#22

Post by mjevans »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #12
Aboutplants wrote: post #6

Instead of butter I prefer to use Mayonnaise as the fat spread on the bread to cook in the pan. It does a fantastic job.

I haven't tried actual mayo, but I did once try Miracle Whip (which is my preferred condiment in place of mayo). I would strongly advise avoiding that - the grilled cheese made with Miracle Whip was truly nasty. Proper mayo must be different in a way that makes it more effective in this task.

Real mayo is an emulsion of eggs and oil.

Miracle Whip? What's the sugar content on that label and the other ingredients. Is this even sold as food like thing or is it more of a candy condiment like 'chocolate sauce'?

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

enobrev wrote: post #18
ecshafer wrote: post #17

The most important lesson about Grilled Cheese that I have learned is that you can buy a mix of expensive cheese, get a nice fresh loaf of sourdough bread, high quality grass fed butter. You can really make an exquisite, amazing, grilled cheese that would cost $25 at a mediocre restaurant with a side of fries. However, a 4 year old will prefer one made out of kraft singles on white.

As a near-fifty year old who has been making sourdough for 6 years, makes homemade mayo with a grated garlic clove and freshly squeezed lemons every couple weeks, and keeps a stash of fine cheeses readily available for all occasions - I'm with the 4 year old. White bread, 2 slices of american, butter - it's hard to beat the sheer comfort, texture, flavor, gooeyness, and simplicity of the classic.

[deleted]

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#25

Post by fsckboy »

ion_trapper wrote: post #15
satvikpendem wrote: post #5

Reminds me of the exact opposite opinion (a meltdown one might even say, as mentioned in the top comment) someone on r/grilledcheese: > You people make me sick. > A grilled cheese consists of only these following items. Cheese. Bread with spread (usually butter). This entire subreddit consist of "melts". Almost every "grilled cheese" sandwich i see on here has other items added to it. The fact that this subreddit is…

Always a trip reflecting on this hyperbolic and profanity-laden style of comment from the old internet. Cringy by today’s standards.

no, today's hollowed out husk of internet is what is cringy and self conscious, as well as namby-pamby. the attitudes of those who created the internet cannot be called cringy.

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#26

Post by satvikpendem »

ion_trapper wrote: post #15
satvikpendem wrote: post #5

Reminds me of the exact opposite opinion (a meltdown one might even say, as mentioned in the top comment) someone on r/grilledcheese: > You people make me sick. > A grilled cheese consists of only these following items. Cheese. Bread with spread (usually butter). This entire subreddit consist of "melts". Almost every "grilled cheese" sandwich i see on here has other items added to it. The fact that this subreddit is…

Always a trip reflecting on this hyperbolic and profanity-laden style of comment from the old internet. Cringy by today’s standards.

Funny that a post from 2015 is considered old Internet.

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#27

Post by mrexroad »

mjevans wrote: post #19
trashcan2137 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the appeal of grilled cheese and thought it's mostly because every time I see it it's made with toast bread (???) or brioche (hard to get a decent brioche here in Poland) but I can see a variation made with what I would call bread. Will give it a go.

Take a bread that makes a good toast (to you). Take a cheese that is soft, mellow (unless you really love pungent) and melts well under heat. Combine such that the bread ends up perfectly toasted and the cheese in the middle melted at the same time. I sometimes wonder if a sufficiently buttered initial toast side would make for a good inner face for the cheese to go against such that the sandwich might hold up for th…

I always cut diagonal and lean the halves against each other, balanced on edge, with the diagonal facing up. No soggy side, center cools faster, and contents don’t leak as much before picking up.

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#28

Post by strken »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #11

This author is wrong. You may not add onions, avocado, or any of those other things to a grilled cheese sandwich, at least not if you are trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Once you start adding veggies or meat, it becomes a melt. There's nothing wrong with a melt! But words mean things , and you can't just call any sandwich you like a grilled cheese just because the bread is toasted and it has melted cheese i…

We call the entire genre of toasted sandwich a toastie. A grilled cheese would thus be a cheese toastie, the addition of tomato would make it a cheese and tomato toastie, and so on.

As a non-grilled-cheese speaker, I don't intuitively understand why you can't have a grilled cheese and tomato. Words do mean things, but why is "cheese and tomato toastie" an allowable variation while "grilled cheese and tomato" is banned? The difference seems arbitrary and capricious!

Re: The American Grilled Cheese Sandwich Essay (2024)

#30

Post by ssl-3 »

trashcan2137 wrote: post #4
js2 wrote: post #3

> This is not a column where I will carp and complain—about air-fryer grilled cheeses, or fancy gourmet grilled cheeses, or Kraft-single grilled cheeses, or the proper application of butter, or the appropriate pan, or the degree and nature of the condiments. To me, each grilled cheese is enough, and more than enough. In this world so full of slaughter and fire, where doubt and monstrosity abound, this much is clear t…

I never understood the appeal of grilled cheese and thought it's mostly because every time I see it it's made with toast bread (???) or brioche (hard to get a decent brioche here in Poland) but I can see a variation made with what I would call bread. Will give it a go.

I don't do Polish at all, but: The pictures I see of chleb tostowy pszenny do look right. (We just call that "bread" in the US. It's inexpensive, and we tend to have some in every kitchen. Ours is probably much sweeter but that doesn't matter.)

With that bread: Make a plain cheese sandwich with whatever melty cheese you enjoy. Then put butter on the outside (on both sides of the sandwich) using whatever butter you like.

Put that buttered cheese sandwich in a frying pan (patelnia uniwersalna) at ~medium heat.

Do not walk away from it. Flip it over every now and then to cook it evenly and see how it is doing.

When the cheese gets all melted and goopy at about the same time that the bread changes color and becomes toasted, then you did it right. Cut it in half and eat it.

If you didn't do it right, then that's fine too. Cut it in half and eat it anyway.

(Repeat regularly until perfection is reached. You'll know it when you find it.)

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