Well, predictably, everybody but me! While I adore crunchy, melty, salty grilled cheese, gloppy and too-sweet tomato soup is not my choice of pairing. I want a nice vegetable soup instead, made with a thin tomato broth. My point is that I've found a cookbook that can ruin this pairing for just about everyone.
Just in case you're not already skeptical about recipes from The Abridged Edition of the Saturday Evening Post Fiber & Bran Better Health Cookbook (Cory SerVaas, M.D., Charlotte Turgeon, and Fred Birmingham, 1977) because it's a '70s "health" cookbook, you should also know that this came from the diet chapter. Yep. It not only has to be fiberful, but it also has to be low-cal, so these recipes double the chances of sacrificing everything that makes people love grilled cheese and tomato soup.
First up, the riff on grilled cheese:
They're open-faced, so there's way less crunchy toast. Whether you see mustard and barely-cooked onion as exciting additions to the best part-- the cheese!-- is a matter of personal interpretation. (Of course I see it as a chance for things I hate to completely overpower the thing I love.) The worst part, though, is hinted at in the last line: "Cut each piece into 4 squares and serve with the aspics."
The aspics? Yes, this swaps out tomato soup for Individual Tomato Aspics.
What this means in practice is you get to eat your rapidly-congealing open-faced grilled cheese with a blob of V-8 congealed around an artichoke heart stuffed with cottage cheese and garnished with imitation mayonnaise!
If the thought of having to eat tiny squares of oniony cheese bread served with a side of jiggly V-8 makes you wish for a stiff drink, well, the diet chapter offers some drink recipes too! (Minus the "stiff" part, because alcohol has calories, you know.)
You could have Calf Shots or Sea Juice to drown your sorrows! Never mind that "calf shots" sound either like veterinary pharmaceuticals or the least popular variety of upskirt photography... or that "sea juice" sounds like a mouthful of ocean water. Just have a goddamn drink already.
Alternatively, decide that life is too short to waste on this nonsense and have a crisp, gooey, rich grilled cheese with whatever you like.
I wonder how many people substituted breaded, fried onion rings for plain ones in the first recipe. Those drinks sound pretty scary, and I can't help but think that the aspic would turn out gritty thanks to some pulverized wheat bran cereal. Hopefully they absorb water better than grape nuts.
ReplyDeleteIf you want fiber in everything, you've got to learn to deal with some grit.
DeleteThe open-faced sandwich sounds like it has more to do with Welsh rarebit than American grilled cheese to me - cheese and mustard always sets my mind in that direction. Nothing excuses the tomato aspics, though!
ReplyDeleteI guess I always thought of the cheese in Welsh rarebit as being more of a sauce, but there are probably different variations.
DeleteThe drink recipes. Ew. I would never . . . I mean, how much liquor can one put in them?
ReplyDeleteThat would clearly be a waste of good liquor!
Delete