Background. Strange as it may seem to anyone aware of my pedantry, my authority on the grilled cheese does not come from any research into its history. Too often, the satisfaction of curiosity results in a commensurate loss of enchantment. So simple and perfect a creation as the grilled cheese could be ruined forever if its origins proved unsatisfying (this is also why, despite an intense and sometimes obsessive speculation, I refuse to look up the inner workings of my Lava Lamp). Rather, my authority in this case stems from years of practical experience. I endured burnt bread and too-runny cheese with quiet tears, learning from my mistakes by years to the point that I now feel wholly confident that each attempt will yield a golden perfection. I began as a wide-eyed innocent, and have become a grizzled veteran of the craft.
On preparation. The crucial selection of an appropriate bread and cheese combination ensures a healthy foundation for the enterprise. Undoubtedly spurred by our unfortunate American predilection for the biggest possible anything, most restaurants (even, alas, Cleveland’s city-set-upon-a-hill for grilled cheese lovers, Melt Bar and Grilled) lean toward Texas Toast. I find that choice lazy and deficient. The sheer width of two Texas Toast slices invariably overshadows the cheese. Moreover, Texas Toast tends to come off of the skillet too crisp. This combination of too-thick bread and too-crisp crust renders that overwhelmingly exciting first bite overwhelmingly cumbersome. Instead, I prefer thinly sliced bread that provides just enough cushion for the cheese. Any white bread will do (wheat breads, with their unpredictable, crunchy textures, have no place here), especially a loaf toward the end of its sell-by terminus. Fresh from the package, white bread can be too soft to butter easily and becomes too fluffy in the grilling. I prefer a sourdough loaf, which has the combined benefits of an already tough texture and a slight tang that compliments most cheeses.
Selecting a cheese provides endless opportunities for experimentation and combination. Almost any sliced cheese works well, and discovering exactly which one works best for you is another longue durée pleasure of the craft. Provolone? Sure! Pepper Jack? Why not? One slice of each? To hell with caution! Although purely a matter of personal preference, I do not find all cheeses equally suited to the task. American cheese, though something of a gold-standard, bores the experienced practitioner. Swiss, another mainstay, tends to lose taste when heated. Personally, I prefer sharp cheddar (especially when bookended by zesty sourdough slices), though Colby Jack and Muenster enjoy heavy rotation from time to time. One rule, however, remains inviolate: two slices of cheese, no more or less. Even the most thinly sliced bread suffocates a single slice of cheese. Three slices, as I learned in a particularly painful experience (really, my last failure before mastery), overwhelms even a bread as hardy as Texas Toast. Two slices of cheese and two slices of bread—the divine symmetry of a sanctified sandwich.
Creating a perfect grilled cheese is not, however, simply a matter of material choice—it is a deftly honed skill. One can combine the ingredients to perfection and end up tossing a charred, obsidian monstrosity into the garbage. Economy, patience, and self-control are the hallmarks of this process, and creating a grilled cheese is an excellent method by which to cultivate these virtues. Though the sandwich’s melted-gold hue and Pavlovian scent emerge from the butter, a thick spread places an unnecessary proscenium between bread and skillet that prevents proper crisping. Conversely, buttering less than the entire slice results in a disturbing lack of color around the perimeter. When preparing the bread for grilling, therefore, one must exercise economy in the amount of butter spread to ensure appropriate grilling. The grilling itself, the crucial pivot around which success and failure turn in this endeavor, requires an almost inhuman level of patience. One simply cannot hurry this process without diminishing the final product. True, one can turn up the gas with care and come away with a sandwich that looks right and smells right—but s/he will have traded speed of grilling for a commensurate lack of melting in the cheese. Most often, the hurried sandwich simply burns itself to ruin. Low, even heat, maintained and monitored over a period of several minutes is the only method by which perfection can be attained. This requires not only patience but self-control. The temptation to turn up the heat mounts as one checks the progress and finds it lacking. The will to stand, spatula at the ready, for those final minutes may be the most difficult part of the process to learn. Early in one’s career, the practitioner is at war with her/his own basic impulse for immediate gratification. As time passes, however, the diligent among us cultivate those virtues required. The others suffer in their ignorance.
Some final words on the grilled cheese’s general pleasures. Again, its simplicity is its perfection—two slices of cheese, two slices of buttered bread, grilled on the stove. Once internalized, this process acquires an almost meditative aspect. Selecting the perfect cheese encourages creativity and risk. The low, even heat required to avoid burning the bread offers the scattered mind an opportunity for willed patience and self-control. The final product’s delicious attributes engender an eager anticipation, one made that much more special because the object of desire is the work of one’s hands. A well-made grilled cheese, in other words, improves character. The grilled cheese’s utter, even rudimentary simplicity (one can prepare a perfect example on a hot-plate in Midnight Cowboy-level living conditions) belies the beguiling pleasures that emerge in its consumption. The butter lends the bread a scent that alerts the tongue to ready itself to one-pointed concentration. The texture of the bite, firm then yielding, encourages a slow, paced enjoyment. The cheese, suspended in some alchemic stasis between liquid and solid, rewards that patience in both texture and taste. In sum, a simple, well-made grilled cheese offers pleasures that I find unmatched by any other confection. Now, to the grilling!
