The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Food historians generally agree that cooked bread and cheese combinations [in many different forms, textures and tastes] were ancient foods known across most continents and cultures. The earliest recipes for food like these are found in Ancient Roman cookbooks. Modern grilled cheese sandwiches descended from these ancient recipes. Welsh rarebit, cheese fondue, focaccia, pizza, and mozzarella sticks are all variations on the same theme.

Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready.

The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 7, 1928. Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success. Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread presliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim.

 The bread was advertised as, "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."

St. Louis baker Gustav Papendick bought Rohwedder's second bread slicer and set out to improve it by devising a way to keep the slices together at least long enough to allow the loaves to be wrapped After failures trying rubber bands and metal pins, he settled on placing the slices into a cardboard tray. The tray aligned the slices, allowing mechanized wrapping machines to function.

W.E. Long, who promoted the Holsum Bread brand, used by various independent bakers around the country, pioneered and promoted the packaging of sliced bread beginning in 1928. In 1930 Wonder Bread, first sold in 1925, started marketing sliced bread nationwide.

 

The grilled cheese sandwich is a variation of the French recipe, the "Croque Monsieur," which is a hot ham and cheese sandwich served in Bistros and has been around since the early1900's. It is made with two slices of bread, buttered on one side only, with ham and cheese in the center, and fried in clarified butter. However the English claim that they in fact invented the sandwich, claiming that long before the word sandwich came into use, it was common for workers in the field to place meat, fish, or cheese between two slices of black bread.

 

Who invented the grilled cheese Americans know today? We will never know, but we can (given the ingredients) place it in time. Culinary evidence suggests our modern grilled cheese (consisting of processed cheese and sliced white bread) began in the 1920s. That's when affordable sliced bread and inexpensive American cheese hit the market. Government Issue cookbooks tell us World War II Navy cooks broiled hundreds of "American cheese filling sandwiches" in ship's kitchens. This makes sense.

 

The sandwich was economical, easy to make, met government nutrition standards AND (if done right?) quite tasty. In the 1940s and 50s these sandwiches were open-faced and usually made with prepackaged grated "American" cheddar cheese. It wasn't long before school cafeterias and other institutional kitchens followed suit. The usual accompaniment? Tomato soup. At that time, tomato soup would have been perceived as a healthy dose of Vitamin C. Excess sodium was not an issue.

 

Kraft process cheese delux individual slices were introduced to America in 1950

 

By the 1960s; the top piece of bread became standard. The reason is not clear. Possibly this was the least expensive way to make a popular sandwich more filling.