A college kitchen’s elevated grilled cheese recipe
One of the most iconic food scenes in film: Remy, the gourmand rat of “Ratatouille,” takes a bite of cheese and a bite of a juicy strawberry in succession, savoring his small rat bites. He leaves the kitchen, entering a beautiful world in his mind with an explosion of colorful fireworks. That is how I felt eating my roommate’s favorite sweet and salty grilled cheese for the first time.
Pairing cheese and fruit is nothing new; it goes back to the cuisine that birthed a rat revolution. French cuisine uses fruit and cheese as complements: Fontainebleau whipped cheese with whipped cream and berries, pear tarts topped with gruyere. An end-of-meal cheese course, a fixture in French dining, is presented with a simple bread on the side and matched with palate cleansers like apples, figs and grapes. The tart flavor makes one savor the complexity and depth of the cheeses even more and provides a perfect balance to an otherwise intensely rich course.
Cheese boards piled with chutneys, preserves, jams and fresh berries have taken over the 2020s social media food scene. The trendy platters’ creative designs and complex layering of flavor, texture and color allow for incredible experimentation. Raspberry jam and brie, goat cheese and fig spread, Remy’s favorite: strawberries and cheese. Restaurant menus everywhere feature “elevated” grilled cheeses, pairing melty, decadent cheeses, crisped buttery bread and preserves, jams and spreads of all kinds.
My roommate’s suggestion of fruity grilled cheese was not shocking. Cheese and fruit are meant to be together; sweet and savory, tangy and salty, bright and aged. The best food pairings (re: munchies) come from experimentation, scarcity and taking odd-seeming suggestions.
I was bored of my everyday lunches and snacks and I agreed to my roommate’s childhood favorite — grilled cheese with jelly. I felt fine using my frozen sourdough and two shredded mozzarella cheese sticks; it was all I had. But…
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