Grilled Cheese: Lunch Item or Edible Security Blanket?
This weekend I went to lunch with a friend of mine. Despite being late April, the weather was cold and a bit gloomy. It was the perfect day for a grilled cheese sandwich.
I perused the menu, my eyes hoping to spot the words Grilled Cheese written in a bold, proud script. I found them, but the description was not what I had in mind. Their version of the grilled cheese included cheddar (yum), mozzarella (yum-er), bacon (awesome), tomato (not a fan), and lettuce (on a grilled cheese?!).
While I normally would be on board with a bacony grilled cheese, I was craving something more traditional. I quietly asked if it was possible to get a simple grilled cheese sandwich with no bells or whistles. What can I say? I like tradition.
This got me to thinking about the magic of the grilled cheese. First of all, in my house we don’t eat grilled cheese sandwiches. They don’t exist. We have girl cheese and boy cheese. (Get your sexist minds out of the gutter, if you please.)
Apparently, though I was a bright and talkative child, my enunciation was not exactly top notch. “Grilled cheese” was often pronounced “girl cheese” until I didn’t know there was a distinction. A girl cheese sandwich is typically just bread and cheese, but any vegetarian option may be included. Now, that may mean any number of combinations. Three cheeses on sourdough bread counts as girl cheese. Fresh mozzarella, Roma tomatoes, and basil on grilled ciabatta still counts as a girl cheese, albeit a pretty darn fancy one.
Boy cheese in a girl cheese sandwich with any meat addition. Bacon, ham, and turkey are your primary choices, but don’t let yourself be limited by these obvious options. With my definition, a Reuben, that mack daddy of all deli sandwiches, is a boy cheese.
So you have the two kinds. Then you have to start contemplating your breads, your cheeses, your additions, your butter choices, and your diners.
Growing up I became the girl cheese maker of the family. Not to say that the other folks didn’t excel at the sandwich, but I seemed to have a knack for getting the bread a really lovely shade of golden brown just as the cheese was getting nice and gooey. It’s a skill I’m quite proud of.
Everyone in the family had their own girl cheese preference. I became quite the short order cook for a while.
Momma likes a lot of Velveeta cheese (enough to cover every inch of the bread), but it has to be melted all the way through and hopefully it will squish out a little after the first bite. The bread has to be brown all the way to the crusts.
My two youngest sisters liked theirs with two slices of American cheese, positioned at angles so that the cheese made a star on the bread at first and then melted into all four corners. Their sandwiches could not be toasted darkly. In fact, the bread had to have only the slightest hint of brown.
Another younger sister was insistent on white American cheese whenever possible. No more than one piece was ever allowed. She liked her sandwiches toasted a little darker so that she had a crunch to the first bite. The cheese could not ooze forth from the bread.
Given these tough criteria, it’s no wonder I take my sandwiches so seriously. The one I was served was…ok. The cheese had cooled a bit too much between grilling and serving. The bread wasn’t great to begin with so did not excel once toasted. Still, there is something about this particular sandwich that I find very reassuring. It may dress itself up and try to be fancy or it may simply be Wonder Bread and Government-furnished “American” cheese-food. (Those of you who’ve eaten those sandwiches understand the cheese-food reference. Shudder.)
It doesn’t matter how you dress it up. Grilled cheese rocks. It makes me happy, and I felt the need to talk about it.
[...] ThoughtsOfMyOwn created an interesting post today on Grilled Cheese: Lunch Item or Edible Security Blanket?Here’s a short outlineThis weekend I went to lunch with a friend of mine. Despite being late April, the weather was cold and a bit gloomy. It was the perfect day for a grilled cheese sandwich. I perused the menu, my eyes hoping to spot the words Grilled Cheese written in a bold, proud script. I found them, but the description was not what I had in mind. Their version of the grilled cheese included cheddar (yum), mozzarella (yum-er), bacon (awesome), tomato (not a fan), and lettuce (on a grilled cheese?!). W [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 2:13 pm[...] Grilled Cheese: Lunch Item or Edible Security Blanket … [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 9:19 pmI had a grilled cheesed sandwich with tomato soup yesterday and thought of you ^_^
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 pmI will concur, my daughter makes the BEST girl cheese sandwich in the world. I like to think of it as a natural talent…when she was younger she was somewhat of a girl cheese sandwich protogee
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:38 pm