If you have ever attended a Toastmasters meeting, you know what Table Topics are: impromptu opportunities to speak for two minutes on a surprise topic. Because, among other things, April is “grilled cheese sandwich” month, the top topic at this week’s meeting of the Los Gatos Silver-Tongued Cats toastmasters club was–tah dah–how to make the best grilled cheese sandwich. I wasn’t called on to speak, but the topic sent me into the nostalgia zone. It was a special day when my mother made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. These she often served with condensed canned tomato soup to which she added milk instead of water. This was my favorite lunch and, to this day, I resort to a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup as comfort food to warm me on a cold wet day or console me when I’m blue.
My husband also remembers grilled cheese and tomato soup as the signature lunch of childhood. It could be the sandwich that nourished an entire generation of American kids. The cheese, of course, was American cheese. It melted flawlessly and oozed out between the slices of white bread browned with margarine. Today, I make grilled cheese with the luxuries of real butter, sourdough french bread, and sharp cheddar cheese,which doesn’t melt as silkily as American cheese but has a more robust flavor.
Other foods of fond childhood memory include pigs in a blanket, pork and beans on toast, chipped beef on noodles,and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. When I made lunches for my own kids, I tried new delights such as honey-roasted turkey wraps or cream cheese and ham on banana bread. But my kids, too, only remember the grilled cheese sandwiches.
What food from childhood do you remember best?
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