on toasties
allie dent
There’s a fellow who stands outside the Saint Andrew’s student union every night dressed as a grilled cheese sandwich. In the drunken stupor of freshman year, he is my best friend. A jolly chap with a thick brogue to match, he’s an unofficial local legend. His name never seems to stick with anyone, despite his bizarre-yet-charming presence, so he is forever branded in my memory as Grilled Cheese Man.
Studying in Scotland at the ripe age of eighteen means adapting to the newfound freedoms of college life while simultaneously getting a slap in the face about being an American studying away. Like any good relationship, Grilled Cheese Man and I are the embodiment of the classic enemies-to-lovers trope.
From the first night of Freshers week, I decide that Grilled Cheese Man will be my drunk best friend—mostly because the first night of Freshers week is the first time I’ve ever been drunk, and Grilled Cheese Man is conveniently (or rather, unfortunately) located outside of the singular discotheque in town.
Our friendship begins with a cultural argument for the ages—one that can only be paralleled by the age-old question of “tomato” versus “tomato.” Trying his best to simultaneously do his job and evade the tiny drunk girl pestering him, he hands me a flyer for the late-night “Toastie Bar” two streets over: a student-run operation that hawks “toastie” sandwiches for a few cents.
“What the fuck is a toastie?”
“What do you mean? I’m dressed like one right now.”
“No, you’re dressed as a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.”
Grilled Cheese Man makes sure I know that the rest of the world is not American.
I make sure Grilled Cheese man knows that I do not care.
It is at this moment that Grilled Cheese Man decides to undertake the task of becoming my trans-Atlantic guru, swearing to correct my Americanisms and teach me the ropes of The University of Saint Andrew’s. Grilled Cheese Man is clever. His first piece of sage advice doubles as a perfectly delivered sales pitch: The answers you seek, young padawan, lay at the Toastie Bar.
I may never step foot in a church during my time at Saint Andrew’s, but in his sage wisdom Grilled Cheese Man delivered me from my vodka soda haze into the promised land paved with Kraft American Cheese Singles. Grilled Cheese Man was the way and the truth, and the Toastie Bar was the light. Despite our different snack food denominations of Toastie and Grilled Cheese, the practice of making the hangover delicacy was rooted in the same tradition, a comfort amidst a sea of confusing cultural differences. Although the student body chooses to separate into classifications of Saints and Sinners for various events, the chapel nave collects college students drunk on wine from their pub-crawl pilgrimages to saints Tennent and Guinness and prepares to break cheesy, greasy bread together three nights out of the week.
Under the kind shepherding of Grilled Cheese Man, faithful parishioners from all corners of Saint Andrew’s three narrow streets converge upon the tiny red church with five pence at the ready; faithful donations seeking a cure for “the spins” often accompanied by loosely made promises to shun the corruptive influence of the party gods—until the following weekend, that is.
At this point, it may be necessary to mention that the Toastie Bar is a conversion tactic run by the Christian Student Union. Although the drunken-sandwich-to-devout-piety pipeline is not very successful, it would be remiss to omit it entirely.
Perhaps this is part of the charm of the Toastie Bar in my eyes. My mom is halfway around the world and time-zones away. Thus, the frantic and overworked evangelical students help to fill a hole at two-thirty in the morning that would otherwise be the dominion of my devout mother. The Christian Student Union now has the task of shaming me for going out in a too-tight, too-tiny leather skirt in Scottish winter and singing ABBA’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme” wildly off-key. I suppose Toastie Bar holds such a grip on my freshman year because of some strange connection to home, even if that connection comes from catching the end of a familiar turn of phrase in conversation or noticing a recognizable Veggie Tales poster along the walls or getting a lesson on how I should invest in a winter coat since we’re on the frigid Scottish coast by one of the toastie chefs.
While I joke about a religious guilt trip as the shadow of my mother’s strict parenting, it’s possible that I find myself in the tiny chapel on South Street most nights because I do feel guilty. Unlike my mom, my dad only finds himself in the pews when he wants to hear a good story. His favorite is the Parable of the Talents, with the philosophy that we’re all given unique gifts in life, but to misuse or ignore what we’re given is a disservice to the tools we’ve been allotted.
As the academic year goes on and my grades slip further and the empty bottles pile up higher, the sinking feeling of not using one’s talents grows heavier—about five pence heavier—each time I walk through the church doors.
There’s a sort of inherent comfort I cling to that accompanies a “toastie” seldom found in any other staple childhood meal. A grilled cheese sandwich never hurts my stomach the way the kabab place on the corner of Bell Street does. A grilled cheese sandwich never fails to sober me up after a long night of knocking back shot after shot and playing pool. A grilled cheese sandwich never sleeps with the green-haired punk girl from three doors down the hall like my boyfriend does every other night, either.
Grilled Cheese Man says he saw that one coming. I pretend I don’t hear him.
There is a universal experience for those who frequent the altar call of the Toastie Bar: The awkward stagger to find an empty chair, the ungraceful process of dropping into a seat a little too close to the ground, the room beginning to warp like a scene from Willy Wonka as you attempt to focus on the tiny print numbers on the order ticket. Everything feels disjointed. Distorted, much like the imposter syndrome that has attached itself to me from the moment I got to campus.
When I think of my long nights sitting in those uncomfortable plastic chairs waiting on a sandwich I sometimes think of the climax of Pixar’s Ratatouille, when the emaciated food critic takes a single bite of his meal and is suddenly transported back to the comfort of childhood. The critic’s name is Ego. Funny. My relationship with food is a reflection of my ego, too. In the stead of a healthy coping mechanism when I can’t afford to spend money on toasties, six boxes of bowtie pasta will be sacrificed every weekend only to never be eaten by anybody. I like to come home when drunk and make pasta for the people who live in my hall. Like being visited by some sort of door-to-door pasta Mormon, the not-so-friendly-behind-your-back friends that live in my building will stumble home to find an overflowing bowl of pasta outside each of their respective doors, usually with some cryptic fortune-cookie phrase scribbled in lip-liner on a sticky note attached to the bowl:
Twirly pasta – a fun shape for a fun friend hehe! : ) xoxoxoxo
The offering of over-cooked, under-seasoned noodles is an attempt to care for others in the way I desperately want to be taken care of, although the offering is never accepted. The childish notes left on the dishes bring me back to how my lunches were packed in grade school, my version of the comforting Ratatouille dream sequence. My mom’s handwriting scrawled across a sheet of paper always sits at the top of the lunchbox:
Twirly pasta – a funny shape for a funny little girl. Kisses. Mom.
Notes like these always make me smile at memories of kindergarten lunchtime. My college friends do not smile. The pasta always sits outside the door, untouched.
One particularly lonely night, I find my way back to the Student Union with two sandwiches in tow instead of leaving pasta on doorstops. Grilled Cheese Man is in his usual spot. I approach with a weary smile. Without words, I meekly extend the spare sandwich to him. He looks between me and the greasy napkin, his expression softens, and he accepts the offer with a softly spoken, “Thanks”. We sit on the curb together and eat in silence. No sharp remarks, no witty retorts, just grilled cheese. It is comfortable, and it is quiet, and it is the closest to communion that I have been in months.
Grilled Cheese Man says he’s glad I decided not to make pasta tonight.
I tell him I’m glad, too.
Grilled Cheese - A cheesy gift for a cheesy moment. Xoxo.
Although I will not be passing philosophy my freshman year, my introspective exploration of the divine meaning of grilled cheese remains the defining stamp in my Saint Andrew’s career: a candid cover photo for the university paper housed forever in the archives. I suppose I should be flattered. After all, the Louis Theroux wannabe from Salley Hall, determined to begin his ground-breaking career in journalism, chose me out of the sea of toastie purgatory to act as inspiration for his debut crack at the press.
That eager “fresh face of journalism” has since changed his major.
I continue to ponder the philosophical qualities of grilled cheese, usually after three glasses of wine.
The photograph is quite comical. The article is about the Toastie Bar, focusing on the Christian Student Union that works to put the whole shebang together every weekend. The cover photo is an excellent example of the wonders of an entry-level photography class: amidst the sea of ravenous students devouring their Toastie Bar sweatshop sandwiches, my face peers upward with eyes turned to the sky with the slightest hint of a tear falling down my face. The grilled cheese sandwich, fresh off the panini press, has burned my mouth. Ex-Journalism-kid, however, paints it as a moment of penance—The Toastie Bar has succeeded in their evangelism efforts, and his name is finally featured as a contributor to The Saint. Grilled Cheese Man says it should hang in the MOMA. After the initial publication, Pseudo-Louis Theroux receives praise from Grilled Cheese Man for a week at the expense of my dignity.
I recognize it is silly to meditate on grilled cheese for eight pages. I have never seen Grilled Cheese Man again, either. I would like to tell him that the journey to enlightenment that he promised on that first meeting three years ago has finally come to an end; that I have found nirvana in the nave of a little parish in a little town on a little strip of the Scottish coast. I would like to tell him that, though he won’t believe me. I don’t believe me either. The answer to adolescence can’t be found in a grilled cheese sandwich, though it may offer some food for thought.
Grilled Cheese Man would laugh at that joke, I think.
