Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Nov 24 20:06:19 UTC 2004


At 11:45 AM -0800 11/24/04, Marsha Alley wrote:
>In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles
>for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between,
>coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled
>cheese sandwich."
>
>A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the
>broiler until it melted was "cheese toast."  The under side of the
>bread was never toasted first.
>
>A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts
>two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a
>"toasted cheese sandwich."  He's never heard of cheese toast.
>
>Marsha
>/wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-)

This was my standard nighttime snack, untoasted Italian or Portuguese
bread with cheddar (but with jalapeños or other hot peppers on it, or
with pepper jack cheese instead) run under the top-brown setting in
the toaster oven, before I had to cut back on carbs.  (sniff...)   I
never really had a term for it (I suppose I'd have called it "bread
with toasted cheese" or the like), but when my then teenage son began
partaking, coming to the tradition off tortilla chips with spicy
cheese, he called it "nacho bread".  So in our family it's offically
"nacho bread" rather than "toasted cheese" or "cheese toast" that I
don't get to eat.

Larry



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