And, if you’re going to specify heirloom tomatoes properly grown and ripened, yes, I’ll go for that sandwich. But, in season, I also put them on my grilled cheese.
And yes, if I’m buying the thing at a random diner, they’re far less likely to screw up the grilled cheese. Even Velveeta on Wonder Bread is edible, if minimally (YMMV). Limp all-fat-and-salt bacon with a grocery store slice of something red and one of soggy iceberg on that same Wonder Bread would be far worse.
Plus which – I like good bacon, and eat it occasionally. But I don’t think of it as an essential food group. Cheese, on the other hand –
I think mayo etc. choice has a lot to do with what you grew up with. I grew up with, and like, Hellmann’s; though I’ve had some homemade that was amazing.
If I see it somewhere, maybe I’ll try it; but I don’t think I ever have.
Grilled cheese with bacon on whole wheat is a better sandwich than any BLT. When accompanied by a bowl of tomato soup, it ascends to godhood among sandwiches. It is known.
Grilled cheese with a slice of home-grown tomato is food of the gods. I even ordered a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant known for its steak. Without mayo, of course.
Anything with mayo, any mayo, is inherently inferior.
My kind of people. I never put tomato on grilled cheese until my mother-in-law made one for me. It’s the only cooking tip (not really a recipe) than I have learned from her.
Back to bagels, my last boss in New Jersey would get bagels from Paterson and put both butter and cream cheese on his.
I don’t, by the way, put mayo on my grilled cheese. Mustard, and a bit of butter in the pan. (I don’t actually do mine on a grill, I do them on the stovetop in a covered cast iron pan, or occasionally open faced under a broiler. I’ll happily eat them grilled, though; although preferably with minimal if any burn marks.)
A trick I learned from NPR’s The Splendid Table a few years ago – spread mayo on the outside of a grilled cheese sandwich, instead of butter, before grilling. Since mayo is actually mostly oil, and more spreadable than butter, it gives you that nice golden crispy texture on the outside of the bread better than butter.
I don’t spread the butter on the bread; I just put a little in the pan.
Seems to me that mayo would give a different flavor. Do restaurants usually do that? Or do they just grill with a bit of oil brushed on? I have eaten restaurant grilled cheese, and it’s generally been worth eating, though I like mine better (probably because you can’t always get good sharp cheddar on them at a restaurant, though.)
I got that, but I know a lot of other people spread the butter on the bread.
I don’t notice any difference in flavor when I use it. If there is it’s very subtle. I don’t know if most restaurants do it, although the tip did come from a chef who was a guest on the show, IIRC.
And there may be other advantages to using mayo instead of butter that I am forgetting. It may be that the oils in mayo have a higher smoke point and are less likely to burn than butter.
I didn’t recognize Vernee Watson’s name, but when I did a Google image search on her (prior to @Elendil_s_Heir 's follow-up poll), I said, “oh, yeah, she’s been playing that same kind of supporting role for decades!”
“the person posting the poll should make it clear that others will be able to see which option(s) you selected”
But i think discourse does that adequately, and i certainly didn’t mean to imply the person posting the poll needs to take some extra step to tell you.
I did vote in the last two, but they’re both seriously missing options.
@Velocity’s leaving out everybody who doesn’t identify, and/or doesn’t want to identify, clearly as either male or female.
@Susan’s leaving out ‘celebrate a strange mix of several of the above that isn’t really like any of them’, which is what I would have selected instead of ‘two or more of the above’. I did vote ‘two or more of the above’, but I’m not celebrating any of them in anything resembling a standard fashion; but I am celebrating. And I’m not celebrating ‘something else altogether’ because I am incorporating portions of ‘two or more of the above’.
