Bread, butter and a slice of cheese are all National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day asks for. Keep the heat lower than you think it needs, and give the middle time to go soft before the crust goes dark.
No founder or establishment record has been located in the indexes checked, and the day's name returns nothing in the Federal Register, in California's newspaper archive or in HathiTrust's full text. Its earliest archived third party listing was captured in May 2012, already headed 12 April, which dates the listing rather than the day.
A California newspaper called the Big Pine Citizen printed a recipe on 13 July 1929 under the heading Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. It opened by telling readers to spread bread with butter. The sandwich at the center of National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day already had the name it carries now.
The story that circulates about that name says nobody used it until the 1960s. The decade is right. The claim is not.
In Google Books' English corpus, grilled cheese sandwich moves ahead of toasted cheese sandwich in 1960 and stays ahead in every year through 2019. The 1960s are when the newer name won, not when it was coined.
DEALS & OFFERS
National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day ran on April 12. Here’s who celebrated with offers this year.
The problem starts with the cheese. A block of aged cheddar in a hot pan does not behave, and that was a manufacturing headache long before it was a lunch one.
James Lewis Kraft, of Chicago, filed a patent on it in March 1916 and had it granted that June. His method was blunt. Cut the cured cheese small, put it in a steam jacketed kettle, bring it to about 175 °F and keep it stirring throughout.
The Second World War is where the legend puts the sandwich's invention. The Cook Book of the United States Navy, issued in 1944, does carry a cheese recipe, scaled like almost every recipe in it to a hundred portions at a time.
It is headed American Cheese Filling. Ground American cheddar is stirred together with prepared mustard, chili sauce and mayonnaise until it is smooth. A note underneath tells the cook to spread the mixture on one slice of toast and put it under a broiler.
The words grilled cheese appear nowhere in the volume. Neither does toasted cheese.
For decades the two names ran side by side, and the older one was ahead. In California print between 1900 and 1959, toasted cheese sandwich turns up 286 times against 201 for the grilled version.
The grilled hits cluster at the end of that run. One falls in the 1930s, fourteen in the 1940s and 186 in the 1950s.
The month is in print before the day is. A Ventura County Star story of 8 April 2001 describes the sandwich being honored during National Grilled Cheese Month, and it turns up again in a Dairy Farmers of America trade publication.
The day's full name is harder to find. It returns nothing in the Federal Register, nothing in California's newspaper archive and nothing in HathiTrust's full text, and nothing in those indexes names a founder. What can be dated is the listing rather than the day: the earliest archived third party listing was captured in May 2012, already headed 12 April.
TIMELINE
cheese of the Cheddar genus cannot be heated to a temperature much above its melting point without disintegrating and permanently losing its true cheesy character
GOOD TO KNOW
The menu labeling regulation at 21 CFR 101.11 uses Grilled Cheese (Cheddar or Swiss) as its worked example of a menu item that comes in versions. Its illustration of a slash pair of calorie figures reads 450/500.
Explaining where it drew the line for 14 and 15 year olds under 29 CFR 570.34, the Department of Labor wrote that preparing an occasional hamburger or grilled cheese sandwich did not seem to place young workers at risk.
The standard of identity for pasteurized process cheese names thirteen permitted emulsifying agents, all of them phosphates, citrates or tartrates. Their solids may not exceed 3 percent of the weight of the finished cheese.
Exodus and Iggy Chaudhry cooked a grilled cheese 10 ft 10.7 in long in Milwaukee on 21 October 2023. It took more than 88 lb of cheese, and the leftovers went to local food banks.
HathiTrust's full text finds the phrase Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day in School Foodservice Journal for 1978 and for 1979. Both volumes are search only, so whether it named an observance or a cafeteria menu day cannot be read.
WHY THIS DAY MATTERS
Take the calcium out and the protein lets go.
Emulsifying salts sequester calcium, which lowers the concentration of free calcium ions and breaks the casein micelles into small clusters. The proteins then take up water and disperse, which is how the fat stays evenly distributed instead of running out.
Under 21 CFR 133.169 pasteurized process cheese is heated for not less than 30 seconds at a temperature of not less than 150 °F. The same section makes Pasteurized process American cheese a legal designation for process cheese made from cheddar, washed curd, colby or granular cheese, or any mixture of them.
A 2000 National School Lunch Program rule works a portion counting example around a Tuesday menu of a hamburger, a turkey sandwich and a grilled cheese of one and a half ounces. When the saturated fat limit for snacks sold in schools was finalized in 2016, commenters argued it would exclude grilled cheese along with chicken tenders, hot dogs and pizza.
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No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found in the indexes checked, and its name returns no documents in the Federal Register.
COLOPHON
National Grilled Cheese Month keeps all of April for a sandwich that asks for nothing but a pan, some bread and a cheese that melts. Keep the flame low so the middle catches up with the crust, and set out tomato soup for dunking.
Cheese toast lovers, rejoice! Celebrate National Cheese Toast Day with your favorite cheesy recipes and flavors.
It's time to stack it up and celebrate National Sandwich Month with delicious flavors, creative combos, and mouthwatering bites!
