Miss Cellania
A Tribute to the Grilled Cheese Sandwich
by Miss Cellania - September 1, 2011 - 9:34 AM
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A grilled cheese sandwich is a staple food for children because it’s simple, quick, and cheap to make. Kids like simple food, and an American cheese slice on white bread is as simple as it gets. Melt it by frying it in butter, and that adds a dose of love to the dish. When we get older, the pleasure that sandwich brings stays with us, even as we add adult touches like gourmet bread, a variety of cheeses, and extras like vegetables and spices. A grilled cheese is both vegetarian and kosher, but if that’s not a concern it is certainly acceptable to add meat as well. Your basic American chain restaurant knows this, which is why the patty melt, a grilled cheese with a hamburger patty and sauteed onions on rye bread, became so popular. Image by redditor thebeefytaco.

one a day #3

Grilled cheese goes naturally with another comfort food from your childhood, tomato soup, which made at least one author relate the sandwich to artist Andy Warhol. Add another side dish or two (raw veggie sticks or potato chips), and you have an inexpensive family meal. I invested in a large electric griddle (in part) so I can made a dozen sandwiches at a time for my family of six -it requires precise timing, but it can be done. That just makes us part of a world of grilled cheese lovers -and they are all over the internet. Image by Flickr user dave milsom.

grilled cheese

Folks have been melting cheese on bread ever since cheese and bread were invented. The earliest pizzas were mainly cheese baked onto a disc of bread dough. The grilled cheese sandwich we know has been common since the 1920s, when sliced bread and American cheese became available in groceries. It was a direct descendant of both the toasted cheese sandwich (which is not fried) and the Cheese Dream, an economical open faced hot sandwich in which the main ingredient was melted cheese. The earliest publication mentioning the Cheese Dream seems to be from 1918, but the recipe became popular during the Great Depression. Image by Flickr user hmmlargeart.

Today, this simple comfort food and all its grown-up variations are more popular than ever. So popular, in fact, that you can find restaurants that specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches. Just this week inventor Jonathan Kaplan, who developed the Flip camera, open a grilled cheese restaurant in San Francisco called The Melt, which he hopes will become a chain. It won’t be the first. The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen already serves San Francisco. Chedd’s Gourmet Grilled Cheese is open in Austin, Texas, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In Maryland, you’ll find Grilled Cheese and Co. There’s Cheesie’s Pub and Grub in Chicago. Melt Bar and Grilled is preparing to open their third location in Ohio. The Grilled Cheese Grill has two outlets serving Portland, Oregon. And the Melthouse Bistro is planned for Milwaukee.

If you can’t get to a restaurant for a grilled cheese, maybe one will come to you! The Grilled Cheese Truck is a sandwich truck specializing in, of course, grilled cheeses, and makes its rounds in the greater Los Angeles area. Image by Arnold Urtiaga Jr.

Of course, a grilled cheese sandwich is easy to make at home when you’re there. It’s just a matter of making a cheese sandwich, buttering the outside, and cooking it until the cheese melts. After that, there are so many variations and possibilities for added ingredients that there are entire websites devoted to grilled cheese recipes -and everything else to do with the humble but beloved grilled cheese. The Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Academy is “an institute dedicated to deliciousness,” where you can find recipes for all kinds of sandwiches and a guide to Wisconsin cheeses. Many blogs sooner or later posts lists of the best or most outrageous grilled cheese recipes (examples here, here, and here), but there are also entire blogs dedicated solely to the grilled cheese. Pictured above is the Spinach Pesto Grilled Cheese Sandwich from Closet Cooking.

Shane Kearns at Grilled Shane blogs about everything to do with the sandwich, from recipes to news to opinions to art and music -all about grilled cheeses. The sandwich pictured is a recipe Shane posted featuring Tillamook cheddar and baby bok choy. Another blog, The Quest for the Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich reviews grilled cheeses at restaurants all over.

One of those blogs, Grilled Cheese Social, has plenty of recipes, but the latest post is about making grilled cheese with an iron. You might recall seeing this done in the 1993 movie Benny & Joon, which led Roy (shown here) and Laura to recreate the scene just to see if it could be done. The verdict: yes.

There’s even a grilled cheese dessert recipe, although maybe not as sweet as, say, ice cream. The recipe for the sandwich pictured above uses brie and dark chocolate on sourdough bread. A post elsewhere proves you can talk about sex and make your audience hungry for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Even stranger is the grilled cheese martini, which is supposed to replicate the taste of the sandwich (and tomato soup). Australian bartender Shawn Soole at Clive’s in Victoria, BC, achieves this taste by infusing rum ahead of time with a real grilled cheese sandwich. Beecher’s Handmade Cheese in New York City developed their own recipe using vodka. Now it is also available in Seattle and probably other places. Image by Shawn Soole.

Competitors

With all this love for the grilled cheese, it only makes sense that Americans would have a competition about it. Behold The National Grilled Cheese Invitational, held in Los Angeles every year during National Grilled Cheese Month (April). A maximum of 300 competitors have 50 minutes to create sandwiches in up to four categories, separated into amateur and professional divisions. There are also non-cooking competitions at the event, such as the costume contest, poetry contest, and a “cheese-calling” contest. Image by Flickr user Alexi Kostibas.

Grilled Cheese Haiku

golden delicious
warm cheese melts me to my soul
i’ll have another

-by matt

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Comments (37)

  1. I made the most amazing grilled cheese the other week; I had my charcoal grill going, so I made actual GRILLED cheese sandwiches. There’s just something about grill marks that make everything taste better…

    posted by Trent on 9-1-2011 at 9:59 am

  2. There was a Cheese Sandwich Film Festival in Wilmington, NC in 2009. Grilled cheese sandwiches were served to go with the cheesy movies. :)

    posted by Aimee on 9-1-2011 at 10:01 am

  3. You must mention Welsh Rarebit, the precursor to any open-faced melted cheese sandwich in the English-speaking world (link on my name). At least three centuries old, still enjoyed today.

    posted by Edward on 9-1-2011 at 10:52 am

  4. My yummy sandwich.
    Feta, sun-dried tomatoes,
    With buttery bread.

    posted by Kris on 9-1-2011 at 10:52 am

  5. Am I weird for not particularly liking grilled cheese? I hate American cheese.

    posted by Drew on 9-1-2011 at 10:55 am

  6. Best post ever! A testament to your genius, Miss Cellania.

    posted by Nichole on 9-1-2011 at 11:11 am

  7. Don’t forget that one of the greatest episodes of Glee was when Finn thinks he sees the image of Jesus in his grilled cheese sandwich. The title of the episode? None other than “Grilled Cheesus.”

    Classic.

    posted by Lori on 9-1-2011 at 11:14 am

  8. Grilled cheese was all I could stomach during my morning sickness period, and has remained my #1 craving throughout my pregnancy. Just had one for lunch yesterday, but this article makes me want another.

    posted by Ellen on 9-1-2011 at 11:42 am

  9. Don’t forget the Cheesy Truck in Columbus, Ohio! (I recommend the Modfather) http://www.thecheesytruck.com/

    posted by Beth on 9-1-2011 at 12:00 pm

  10. First instance of using an iron for grilled cheese may have in fact been in the movie Mr. Mom (1983).

    posted by Will on 9-1-2011 at 12:02 pm

  11. Love a good grilled cheese. The trick to making a great grilled cheese at home is to done what the fry/short order cooks do: butter your two slices of bread and put them on the griddle separately each with a slice of cheese. Then bring them together after they’ve gotten all toasty and melty. Mmmmm

    posted by nihil on 9-1-2011 at 12:02 pm

  12. The cafeteria staff at Carroll college (Go Pios!) was absolutely astounded when on the first day grill cheese sandwiches were served I, as a newly enrolled freshman, casually asked “where’s the maple syrup?” That’s the way my family had always eaten them, and it had never occurred to me as odd. Now that I have kids of my own, the grilled cheese is served with the traditional tomato soup, but when the rest of the family is out of the house, I admit to the occasional treat of GC with maple syrup.

    posted by jimspice on 9-1-2011 at 12:18 pm

  13. I babysat this one little boy from the time he was a newborn til he was about 12 and he always told his mother that I made the best grilled cheese EVER! And its not that i did anything special, really, it was that i never let it get too dark on either side cause you know how kids are “it’s burned!” and they always had Pepperidge Farms thin sandwich bread which makes for an easy grilled cheese

    posted by Kate on 9-1-2011 at 12:19 pm

  14. I’ve always loved grilled cheese (some call them ‘toasted cheese’ sandwiches).

    I’m also fond of this quote attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson (‘Treasure Island,’ ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’):

    “Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese – toasted, mostly.”

    posted by Ego Nemo on 9-1-2011 at 12:34 pm

  15. The way I’ve always used the terms, a toasted cheese is baked in an oven (toaster oven for me) and a grilled cheese is fried with butter. I’ve read both terms used different ways, especially in other countries. Cheese toasty, anyone?

    posted by Miss Cellania on 9-1-2011 at 1:08 pm

  16. Did you meam “gourmet” and not “gournet” in the first paragraph?

    And now I think I’m going to go makr myself a grilled cheese, thanks for the idea!

    posted by indotexan on 9-1-2011 at 1:21 pm

  17. How have we gone this long without mentioning the perfect addition to the grilled cheese – bacon!

    posted by Bert on 9-1-2011 at 1:25 pm

  18. A grilled cheese sandwich is my number one comfort food. One of those after a bad day at the office makes the day a lot better.

    I’m going to have to try the brie & chocolate one.

    posted by M on 9-1-2011 at 1:31 pm

  19. I think that the way you cut your grilled cheese is a very personal thing. Some people are die-hard “straight across” while others are diagonal cutters.

    Personally, I’m a “cut a big X in it and eat four small triangles” girl myself. It just doesn’t feel right eating grilled cheese any other way…

    posted by Jenny on 9-1-2011 at 1:35 pm

  20. Suddenly the sandwich I brought for lunch no longer seems adequate.

    posted by Jenn on 9-1-2011 at 1:37 pm

  21. @Drew: May I suggest that if you don’t like grilled cheese it’s because you’ve only had them with American cheese? Try Swiss or Muenster. Actually, try them both at the same time.

    @Bert: No one mentioned bacon because it goes without saying. :-)

    posted by MJW of NWI on 9-1-2011 at 2:53 pm

  22. Did you mean “make” and not “makr” in your post?

    Did you mean “mean” and not “meam” is your post as well?

    posted by AnnyMous on 9-1-2011 at 3:27 pm

  23. Dude. I’m craving grilled cheese like crazy now. Thankfully, I live pretty close to Chedd’s, and I got a coupon book for it just today.

    Also, does anyone have a good dorm recipe for grilled cheese that doesn’t involve stealing my roommate’s iron? I have a microwave…

    posted by meanderling on 9-1-2011 at 3:28 pm

  24. My wife grills both the inside and outside of the bread slices for the sandwich to give it extra butter crisp goodness.

    posted by Jov on 9-1-2011 at 3:31 pm

  25. Miss C…you are evil. I”m reading this at 3:30 in the afternoon and all I can think of is grilled cheese and tomato soup. Craving doesn’t begin to describe it…

    posted by beth on 9-1-2011 at 3:36 pm

  26. Nice tribute! I’m very hungry now. Just wanted to add that I think the first ironed cheese sandwich actually took place in 1983, in the movie Mr. Mom. Michael Keaton was so resourceful and cool…

    posted by mali on 9-1-2011 at 4:18 pm

  27. Miss Cellania, you actually hit on the source of a minor irritation for me, similar to “PIN number” and “ATM machine”.

    You mentioned that you purchased a larger electric griddle in order to make several sandwiches at the same time. Do you see where this is going?

    It’s actually not a GRILLED cheese sandwich, but a GRIDDLED cheese sandwich!

    In a restaurant, a griddle is a flat, solid cooking surface, used for everything from chopped veggies to pancakes. A grill is a grate with a heat source similar to a barbecue.

    The sandwich you describe is cooked on a griddle, and not a grill, and therefore should more properly be described as a “griddled cheese sandwich”.

    Somewhere along the line, this description was corrupted to “grilled” cheese sandwich, even though nobody ever cooks one on a grill.

    Curious, don’t you think?

    posted by PJMurphy on 9-1-2011 at 8:37 pm

  28. @meanderling – do you have access to a toaster? I used to toast bread and then microwave it with cheese. Not the same, but it worked! The bread will be soggy if you just microwave it with cheese.

    After I got a George Foreman grill we just used that.

    posted by anna on 9-1-2011 at 10:00 pm

  29. PJMurphy, yes, its curious, and I read a bit about that while researching this article. We should call this a FRIED cheese sandwich. A barbecue-type grill would cause all the butter to drip off. I believe the term comes from diners, where they call the griddle a grill, since that’s what they fried hamburgers on.

    posted by Miss Cellania on 9-1-2011 at 10:06 pm

  30. When I was growing up, in the summer my mom assigned me and my four brothers and sisters each a day. On your assigned day, you made lunch. I’m the oldest, so I could use the stove, so on my day we always had grilled cheese.

    I don’t like tomato soup, but grilled cheese with a fresh tomato just picked from the garden = HEAVEN!!!

    posted by janel on 9-2-2011 at 3:03 am

  31. Lame! What about melt bar and grilled? The melt is a total rip off, melt is waaaaaaay cooler and I’m just going out on a limb to say tastier too! Meltbarandgrilled.com :)

    posted by Ashley on 9-2-2011 at 11:25 am

  32. Best grilled cheese I ever had was a panini with tomatoes, cheddar, and pesto… the combo of sweet, tangy, salty, herby, nutty… mmmmmmm!

    posted by Mare on 9-2-2011 at 12:45 pm

  33. My son introduced us to using mayo instead of butter on the outside of the bread, and also putting a thin film between the two slices of cheese. It’s how they make them at 5 guys where he works. I’m wasn’t all that impressed with it, but the rest of the family LOVES it that way.

    posted by Lisa on 9-5-2011 at 11:22 am

  34. Ashley, Melt was mentioned, but the name was messed up. The author called it “The Melt Bar and Grill”, instead of “Melt Bar and Grilled”.
    To the author, perhaps correct this error please? It’s a little confusing for those of us who know and love the Cleveland restaurant, even though you properly linked to their site.

    posted by Liz on 9-6-2011 at 1:55 pm

  35. Great article! We write food reviews for Miller Park and wanted to share this year’s hottest concession stand, Hot Cheese, which serves a variety of grilled cheese sandwiches, with you! Yum! Thanks for posting! http://bitly.com/hotcheese

    posted by John and Cait on 9-8-2011 at 10:48 am

  36. To make a great grilled (fried) cheese at home:

    1. Choose the right cheese! American isn’t for everyone. I use roasted garlic, provolone and pepper jack cheeses.
    2. Heat the pan first.
    3. Melt butter in the pan
    4. place both slices of bread in pan and smear with the melted butter
    5. Get dog to stop barking at smoke detector
    6. Take down smoke detector
    7. Shoo cat away from counter
    8. take bread from pan and place on plate butter side up
    9. add cheese, and anything else you want such as bacon or ham to one slice of bread
    10. flip unused slice of bread on to top of sandwich so that the smeared with butter sides are now BOTH on the INSIDE of the sandwich
    11. add more butter to pan if necessary/desired
    12. grill (fry) both sides to desired golden brown goodness (or burn if you want)

    Add chips and a pickle for a full lunch!

    posted by Wayne Stevens on 9-8-2011 at 2:41 pm

  37. Not to be nitpicky, but it’s only vegetarian if the cheese isn’t made with rennet.

    posted by NYCGirl on 9-13-2011 at 3:01 am

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