Three years ago at a party in Denver, I saw someone put ketchup on a grilled cheese and I still think about it

It was a friend's housewarming, and the snack table had a big plate of classic grilled cheese triangles. I watched a guy, a total stranger, pick one up, grab a bottle of Heinz, and just squirt a huge red line right across the top. I was frozen. It wasn't a dip, it was a full-on topping. He took a bite like it was the most normal thing in the world. I asked him about it later, and he just shrugged and said, 'It's just a hot sandwich, man.' That moment broke my brain... a grilled cheese is sacred. The buttery bread, the melty cheese, that's it. Adding ketchup turns it into a messy, sweet, soggy mistake. Who else has seen a snack crime this bad?

3 comments

3 Comments

mason_craig3426d ago

Consider the grilled cheese a blank canvas for cheap comfort food. My uncle used to make them with tomato soup, then just started putting the soup flavor right on the sandwich with ketchup. It's a poverty meal upgrade that makes a weird kind of sense if you grew up with it.

julia11926d ago

Is it weird that this feels like a bigger thing about how people learn food rules? I mean, you see someone do something like that and your first thought is they're wrong. But maybe they just had a totally different food teacher, like that guy's uncle with the soup. It makes me wonder how many of my own food rules are just accidents from how I grew up.

diana15520d ago

Look at the bigger picture of what a grilled cheese actually is. It's bread, butter, and cheese heated up, a simple vehicle for flavor. Ketchup is just another condiment, like adding mustard to a ham sandwich. Calling it a crime ignores how personal taste works, and how many great food ideas started as someone's weird experiment.