Cheesy good

For most of my life I have battled the confusion, the crippling gulf of misunderstanding, and the depths frustration involved in trying to establish common ground when finding the right name to describe a sandwich which is squished between the two heated plates of a small kitchen appliance and cooked thus, until the primary sandwich filling (inevitably cheese) is dangerously and deliciously molten and ready to eat.

As a child, from as soon as I could speak I learnt that these curious type of cooked sandwiches were called 'toastie pies' and were made in a 'toastie pie machine'. It was only in my teenage years that I realised that this was some southern farmer dialect spoken only by those living in rural New Zealand, or possibly even confined to my family alone. Come to think of it, I have in fact, never come across anyone outside of my family who calls them this.

Through the years I have come by the following variations: Toasties, cheese toasties, toasted sandwich, breville, grilled cheese sandwich, and who could forget the virgin mary cheese sandwich - it sold for $28k (in fact there has been a whole range of holy cheese sandwiches, Google it.) *edit: I was clearly to lazy to put a link in here.

Then there's the priceless Australian 'Jaffle' - this sound like a conjoinulation to me but I'm pretty sure it's not. These are made in a Jaffle iron (of course) and I read somewhere that the name comes from 'Jaw Full', which is less a conjoinulation, and more just lazing talking.

But it's the Americana I'm interested in here...

"In the United States, the Toastwich is possibly the earliest toasted sandwich maker, dating back to before 1920. However, it wasn't patented until March 3, 1925 (applied for on May 26, 1924). It was invented by Charles Champion, whose other inventions include a corn-popping machine for mass-producing popcorn." [wikipedia]

And so it is that I have finally reached a point in my life where, by the power and the beauty of the conjoinulation, I will never again be misunderstood when describing that most versatile of snack foods: The Toastwich.