You probably know the song Love and Marriage by Frank Sinatra. In fact, there’s maybe even a fifty-fifty chance you know it without ever having seen Married: With Children. It’s a classic song, but in our house, it goes something like this:
Soup and sandwich
Soup and sandwich
Go together like … something witty that rhymes with soup and sandwich…
This I tell you, brother.
You can’t have one without the other.
Ignore the fact that I’ve yet to find a word that rhymes with sandwich. (I thought “orange” was bad enough.) Also ignore the fact that sometimes I pronounce it “thoup and thandwich” for reasons I won’t go into here. What’s important is that soup and sandwiches do go together like horses and carriages, especially if the soup is “tomato” and the sandwich is “grilled cheese.”
This isn’t something I particularly liked (or even tried for that matter) when I was a kid. So unlike most of my pizza and cheeseburger ramblings, this isn’t a taste combination I can claim to have loved my entire life. (There probably isn’t a kid alive who actually likes tomato soup, so this isn’t exactly an earth-shattering revelation.)
But this I tell you, brother, I’m sure glad I discovered it after getting all growed up. It really is one of natures perfect pairings.
The perfect sandwich uses American cheese. This fake stuff made out of I-don’t-know-what melts cleanly and uniformly, creating the perfect weld between two slices of white bread. The outsides of the bread should have been slathered in I Can’t Believe It’s Not Margarine and cooked quickly on a hot, non-stick pan.
The tomato soup should be of the Andy Warhol variety and prepared with milk instead of water. (Why water is even a rehydration option is beyond me.) Use a whisk to mix it and take care avoid burning. It heats up very quickly.
The proper eating technique is to dunk the sandwich into the tomato soup. You might find this extraordinarily similar to last week’s Toast and Hot Chocolate post. (And by now you’ve probably divined one of my most cherished eating paradigms.)
If you’ve tried this, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, set aside some time this Saturday. You won’t be sorry. In the meantime, I’m going to work on fixing the song.
Go together like a scratch and hand itch.
Go together like a ball and grand pitch.
Go together like a cut and planned stitch.
Go together like a boat and manned hitch.
Go together like a broom and tanned witch…
Hmmm… I’m getting there.
on May 12, 2009 at 3:41 am
See, in England we have soup OR a sandwich….but we would dip toast in soup. I myself am rather enamoured of tomato soup and salt and vinegar crisps….there’s a combo made in heaven…..
on May 12, 2009 at 7:41 am
Mmm…I had the grilled cheese and tomato soup combo yesterday. Was perfect! I, like you, never tried this combo until adult years. It was actually my 13 year old daughter that tried it first and told me how good it is. Can kids teach their parents? Maybe sometimes. 🙂
Great, now I’ve got that song stuck in my head.
on May 12, 2009 at 10:02 am
I love tomato soup!! Tony can’t stand the smell or taste, so I usually have it at work. However, there was a time when I was sick, and I asked for it, and he lovingly prepared it for me – even though he was probably on the verge of gagging the whole time.
Now that’s love!
Also, if you are out of butter (the horrors!) you can spread mayo on the outside of your grilled cheese sammie and it makes your bread extra crunchy!
on May 12, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Reminds me of childhood. Isn’t funny how much I hated tomato soup and now this is one of my favorites. I don’t use the american cheese now, however, I use brie, which melts so amazingly. Try it.
jen
http://www.bodaweightloss.com/blog
on May 12, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Or you can spray Pam on the outside and grill the sammie on your Foreman grill! Makes it more like a panini with grill marks.
on May 12, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Everything you described is exactly what my Mom used to make me on rainy days. I know I crave soup and melty cheese whenever it rains. Thanks a lot, Mom!
on May 12, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Goes together like beef and manwhich…
on May 12, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Mmm. Love it. Only we have started using colby cheese and grilled in real butter instead of slathered. My daughter hates using milk in her soup…so it’s water for us.
Dunking is required…as are Ritz (only) Crackers.
Good stuff!
on May 12, 2009 at 4:39 pm
my operation likes the outside spread with mayonaise to fry it … works, great, actually.
on May 12, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Okay, now I’m going to have to try the mayonnaise on the outside trick. I have to admit that never would have occurred to me.
on May 12, 2009 at 5:50 pm
me too, gotta try the mayo! 🙂
Not with the tomato soup tho….urgh!
You Americans really have some interesting/weird combinations….lol
Tusc 🙂
on May 12, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Yeah, because there’s nothing weird about black pudding, spotted dick, or bath chaps. 🙂
Smoke me a kipper! I’ll be back for breakfast.
on May 12, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I’m with you on the black pudding! wtf!!
You would love spotted dick and custard Mmmmm!
No idea what bath chaps are?
Kippers are amazing!
But the optimum word was ‘combination’! Like we eat soup, and we eat cheese toasties, but never together! Just like we wouldnt eat kippers with cheese!! lol But I bet you would 😉
hehe!
on May 12, 2009 at 9:22 pm
This British specialty is the lower portion of a pig’s cheeks, which are cured somewhat like bacon. Chaps must come from a long-jawed pig rather than the flat-headed species. Though quite fatty, Bath chaps are served cold in the same way as ham, often with eggs.
I guess eating a sandwich with a bowl of soup just doesn’t sound strange to me. (I mean, of course it doesn’t, because I do it.) But I mean from the point of view is it’s two reasonable foods. Not like sitting down to a meal of beets, hot dogs, and lobster.
on May 13, 2009 at 4:46 am
I’ve never heard of chaps. Possibly from up North. During the war, or even olde England? There were lots of foods that used to be eaten in poorer times like tripe….(urgh!), for example. I’d say cheeks were one of them. Waste not, want not…..lol
I hope you werent offended by my comment. It was a note of our differences rather than an insult my friend.
We do dip bread/toast in soup! You got into a cafe and say ‘soup and a roll’ please. You get to cavort all over the floor with the server…….lol
Tusc 😉
on May 13, 2009 at 6:36 am
Not offended in the least bit! (Now I’m worried my reply might have sounded like that. It was unintended.)
This is interesting, from a July 2006 article:
LONDON (AFP) — Traditional British delicacies such as bath chaps, jugged hare and brawn are under threat of extinction as youths in the kingdom haven’t even heard of them, a survey showed.
Just one percent of those surveyed under 25 recognised bath chaps — pigs’ cheeks covered in breadcrumbs — while only 1.6 percent had heard of jugged hare — hare meat served in a sauce of its blood mixed with port.
Brawn (jellied pig’s head) came third on the list, while squirrel casserole was fourth.
on May 13, 2009 at 11:06 am
OMG!! I love squirrels! Feeding them nuts in the park, not eating the sweet little things….awww!
I’d love to say I’m under 25 but I’m 45 and never heard of any of those……urgh! gross!
No wonder you think we eat crap! Perhaps the Queen still eats it…..dunno! Let me know if you’ve heard of Corgi stew….lol
Tusc 🙂
on May 13, 2009 at 2:26 pm
[…] brother Charlie mentioned grilled cheese and tomato soup in his post yesterday.  That made me want a grilled cheese!  I actually used 1 tsp. of light mayo instead of butter […]
on May 14, 2009 at 8:05 am
Go together like smoke and bong hits?
Just call me BustedRhyme.