Grilled cheese sandwiches are comforting and nostalgic. Biting down on crisped bread, hearing the crunch before the toast starts to dissolve on our tongue and pulling a bite away to have strings of melted cheese stretch toward our lips make this a favorite comfort food for many.
April is National Grilled Cheese Month: an entire four weeks devoted to the American classic that, according to FoodTimeline.org, most likely emerged in the 1920s when sliced bread and American cheese became affordable and available in grocery stores. Grilled cheese also proves filling, and during World War II this tasty treat appeared in Navy ship kitchens. Of course, other countries have their tasty versions, but in America the sandwich worthy of a month-long party belongs to our own melty, chewy, gooey cheese trapped between two slices of sticky white bread drenched in warm butter and melted to perfection.
To commemorate this national holiday you could have a grilled cheese eating contest, eat a different kind of grilled cheese sandwich every day of the month, or make a gourmet grilled cheese and pair it with an American beer.
The following sandwich recipe is from cheese expert and author Laura Werlin’s book, Great Grilled Cheese. I love to wash down this runny, warm sandwich with a cold Ellie’s Brown Ale from Avery Brewing Company in Colorado. The beer’s caramel, coffee and molasses notes work perfectly with the salty fried egg while the chocolate undertones enhance the funky cheese. The recipe appears as it does in the book, courtesy of Werlin, with slightly modified directions and my addition of applewood smoked bacon. Laura also wrote the recently released Grilled Cheese Please. I highly encourage adding both to your cookbook collection.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.