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 it felt wrong to use jelly. Jelly is a few dollars, intensely sweet and, yes, gelatinous. Nevertheless, it worked perfectly. The jelly was a perfectly-textured dip for the crisped grilled cheese, not gooey, melting, overly wet or sticky. The subtlety of the strawberry flavor and sweetness brought out the richness of the butter and cheese. It was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. As I dipped the buttery sourdough into the strawberry jam, I became Remy in the strawberry scene.
Living with a roommate, you gain bits and pieces of their lifestyle: their favorite snack pairings, comfort movies and beauty secrets. The jelly-dipped grilled cheese is one of many things I gained — and will always cherish — from the moments in my first college kitchen.
Recipe
2 slices of bread of your choice
1 tbsp butter
Any melty cheese
2 tsp jelly
Strawberries (optional)
- Thinly spread butter on one side of a slice of bread. Melt the rest of the butter in a medium-hot skillet.
- Put the not-buttered side face down on the skillet. After it lightly toasts, place the cheese on top.
- Place the second slice of bread on top of the melting cheese and flip to toast the other side in the butter.
- Remove from skillet when golden brown and serve on a plate with jelly and a side of strawberries.
Senior Arts Editor Kaya Ginsky can be reached at kginsky.edu.