Monday, September 10, 2012

the Great Grilled-cheese Debate


So my buddy Mike expressed horror ("Noooooooooo!" --he tweeted) about the photo in the previous post-- the one showing a sandwich that I had called "grilled cheese." As far as Mike is concerned, it's not a grilled-cheese sandwich if it's got meat in it, but I say the label is perfectly fine. I joshingly accused Mike of the Buddhist sin of attachment to name and form, i.e., allowing oneself to be so fixated on a rigid concept that one gets worked up when that concept is "violated" in even the smallest way. Such attachment is unhealthy because of the suffering it generates: (1) it generates suffering in the mind of the attached person, whose narrow, fragile concepts are too easily messed with; (2) it generates suffering in those around the attached person, because those people are forced to hear the attached person's doctrinaire rants on what constitutes a real or proper X or Y. (Full disclosure: I plead guilty to having engaged in such rants myself-- especially when it comes to language, but in other matters as well.)

In response to my accusation, Mike whipped out a reductio ad absurdum and asked how any discourse can be meaningful without notions of name and form. A Buddhist would agree with Mike, of course; Buddhism is the middle way, after all: you do have to be able to distinguish your car from your cat if you want to drive to work. But you should never get so attached to the supposed meaning of the words car and cat that you fail to see how flexible these concepts can be-- this pace Mike's appeal to a "Platonic ideal of grilled-cheeseness." (Plato-- and his ideal forms-- lies at the opposite end of the metaphysical spectrum from Buddhism. I find Platonic metaphysics to be stultifyingly rigid to the point of being dangerous.)

I decided to do a bit of research on grilled-cheese sandwiches, thinking to myself that, if I can't convince Mike in Buddhist terms, I should at least try to do so in Platonic terms. Wikipedia, that sublime, unimpeachable authority, seems to be of two minds as to the question of what constitutes a grilled-cheese sandwich. When you look up "cheese sandwich," Wikipedia has this to say:

A cheese sandwich is a basic sandwich made generally with one or more varieties of cheese on any sort of bread. In addition to the cheese, it may also include meats, vegetables and/or condiments. Cheese sandwiches can be uncooked, or heated so that the bread toasts and the cheese melts (a dish referred to as a grilled cheese sandwich, toasted cheese, cheese toastie or simply grilled cheese).

Score one for Kevin, right? Wrong. Immediately after this, the article says:

Cheese sandwiches with added meat (such as ham, bacon, turkey and other meats) are generally referred to by more specific names. If ham is included, for example, the result is a "ham and cheese sandwich".

Note, however, that the phrase "are generally referred to" indicates that Wikipedia doesn't consider its own pronouncement authoritative: the passage has a descriptive, not a prescriptive, tone. All I needed to prove my point was an authoritative source that shows it's possible to call a sandwich "grilled cheese" even if it has meat in it. And in that regard, I scored big. What greater authority can there be than The Grilled Cheese Academy of Wisconsin? Here, in fact, is their website's splash page:


Front and center, what do we see? A grilled-cheese sandwich with meat in it. Take a tour of their sandwich menu, and you'll quickly see that almost every sandwich features meat and/or vegetables. Now of course, some people will still stubbornly refuse to be convinced even by authoritative evidence, but I trust that my long-time buddy will expand his notion of grilled-cheeseness to include more than just cheese. Conclusion: if your grilled-cheese sandwich has meat in it, you can still call it a grilled-cheese sandwich. To deny this is to run afoul of The Grilled Cheese Academy's doctrine. A dogmatic Platonist can surely appreciate that.

(Written with love, Mike. With love.)

DIGRESSION: I hate myself for making a move reminiscent of the dirty pool played by theologian and philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga, a conservative Christian, has made a career out of annoying, lawyerly arguments that stress the mere possibility of Concept X's being true as a way to shove a foot in the door for the legitimacy of Concept X. Plantinga's arguments against evolutionary theory, as well as his free-will defense in discussions of theodicy, stink of this approach, and I have done the same in the above post. Mike was arguing for the impossibility of calling a "bemeated" grilled-cheese sandwich a grilled-cheese sandwich; I was merely arguing for the possibility of doing so.


_

29 comments:

Kevin Kim said...

Let me anticipate two objections.

1. I anticipate a cheerful "Still not convinced!" from Mike. That, or a Scots verdict of "Ha ha! Not proven!"

2. I anticipate self-righteously above-the-fray comments to the effect that "you and Mike are both fucked in the head."

The Maximum Leader said...

We are both fucked in the head on this item... That said, Ha! Not proved is indeed what I would claim. Your appeal to authority is a dubious one. While Wisconsin is America's dairy land, they are also big into meat. In Wisconsin if it doesn't have meat in it, it isn't worth eating.

An informal poll of my extended family ended in unanimous agreement that the addition of meat to a grilled cheese changes it to a grilled meat & cheese sandwich.

And by the way, we all love grilled ham & cheese sandwiches.

Kevin Kim said...

Indeed, any appeal to authority is dubious, but I've at least shown that someone calls a "bemeated" sandwich a "grilled-cheese sandwich." Which is all the wiggle room I need. Meanwhile, I respect your and your in-laws' brave, albeit doomed, stand against the Wisconsin monolith.

Kevin Kim said...

I was honored by your retweet, by the way.

Charles said...

If I put ham in a grilled cheese sandwich, I call it a "grilled ham and cheese." In other words, I generally try to be as descriptive as possible, within reason. While I don't have too much of a problem with stretching the definition of "grilled cheese" to include a bemeated sandwich, I think I might have a problem if someone made me a grilled corned beef and cheese on rye with sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing and then told me that I would be eating a "grilled cheese sandwich" as opposed to a "Reuben."

Conclusion: categories can be flexible, but the more flexible they are, the less useful they tend to be.

Maqzito said...

I will have to agree with Mike. Sure, of course you can argue that technically a grilled cheese can have meat in it. You could do that about pretty much anything. It would be very easy to fall back on the argument that language is fluid, culinary trends are fleeting, etc. But let me ask you this: if you came over to my place and I told you simply "I'm going to make us some grilled cheese sandwiches", what image would pop into your mind of what you were going to be served? Also, citing the Grilled Cheese Academy website to help your argument (which it certainly does) also sorta works against your argument at the same time. The website just seems to be set up as a marketing tool paid for by Wisconsin dairy farmers to promote the sale of more varieties of Wisconsin cheese by offering up examples of sandwiches (which don't seem to be iconic by name or ingredient combination... basically, it just looks like a bunch of made up new sandwiches with made up new names, mind you, none of the sandwiches call themselves simply, "grilled cheese." They all have a special name to distinguish themselves from grilled cheese.) that are not the traditional standard grilled cheese (using many different kinds of meats, cheeses, herbs, veggies). And we all certainly would agree that a traditional standard grilled cheese as we all know it does not require that it be made with Wisconsin cheese exclusively. So, the website's very existence is an acknowledgement to the fact that most people have a fairly narrow view of what a grilled cheese is: bread and cheese (usually American or Cheddar), grilled in some sort of fat.
So, maybe you're right that technically your sandwich was a grilled cheese... but your argument has little practical application in the real world. Pretty much anytime someone makes a grilled cheese sandwich with something else other than just cheese and bread, there will most likely be a qualifier added before or after "grilled cheese" or, as the Grilled Cheese Academy does, a completely new name for the sandwich is created.

Maqzito said...

Oh and another thing! You seem to be pickier about food designation with yourself: "No Italian will ever confuse Food Lion's version of it for the real thing, but Food Lion's ciabatta has its uses" while not giving the same allowance for widely accepted "pickiness" to Mike! :)

Kevin Kim said...

Charles,

I appreciate your conceptual flexibility. You seem to be talking about the philosopher's "heap problem": if I'm piling grains of sand on a tabletop one by one, at what specific point do I have a true heap of sand? If I declare my pile to have achieved heapness at Grain #20,001, then subtract a single grain, do I not have a heap?

By the same token, if I add bits of bacon to my grilled cheese, when does my sandwich cease to be a grilled-cheese sandwich and become, oh, a bacon melt? The Reuben you cite is an example of a "true heap" in that we can clearly see it's no longer a grilled cheese: too much has been done to it.

Categories are constructions applied to reality. Because reality is always in flux, I'd venture that most or all categories are never 100% accurate or hermetically comprehensive in their functioning. We can compensate for this either by acknowledging that there's a need to be flexible when we categorize, or by allowing for category-straddling "platypi."

Sean/Maqzito,

Augh! Betrayed by my own brother! In response to your first comment, I'd say that if someone offered me a "grilled cheese," my mind would be open as to what to expect. (In Korea, when I was learning how to order food by phone, I once ordered a pepperoni pizza and got a pizza with pepperoni, ham, and a mass of onions.) As for whether the Grilled Cheese Academy is misusing the term "grilled cheese," I'd like to think they're not: as experts, they know best. Of course they're hawking their own cheeses, but if they had thought that "Grilled Cheese Academy" would be a misnomer, they would have named their site and company something else.

In response to your second comment, I'd plead innocent of your charge, because I nowhere deny that Food Lion's ciabatta is a ciabatta. (I make reference to "the real thing" from an Italian's point of view, but continue to use the term "ciabatta.") None of this makes me innocent of holding my own double standards, but in the specific instance you cite, I'm not guilty.

Maqzito said...

"In response to your first comment, I'd say that if someone offered me a "grilled cheese," my mind would be open as to what to expect. (In Korea, when I was learning how to order food by phone, I once ordered a pepperoni pizza and got a pizza with pepperoni, ham, and a mass of onions.)"

The problem with this is that I'm pretty sure we were all assuming that we were talking about the version of grilled cheese in the US, and specifically grilled cheese without any qualifiers. I would bet serious money that you are in the very very small minority of people that would expect (or wouldn't be surprised for) a grilled cheese to have more than just cheese on it when presented without any qualifiers. I personally love to put tomatoes on mine, but I would always tell someone that I had made them a "grilled cheese with tomato." However, ESPECIALLY in the US where you'd have to contend with lawsuits from vegetarians who unknowingly had bitten into a sandwich that had little bacon bits in it, for example, people (especially restaurants) are as least as descriptive to add a qualifier. The thing is, I don't think that anyone here is denying that your sandwich with salami (looks like salami to me, is it?) is a TYPE of grilled cheese. What the argument really is is that one shouldn't simply call a sandwich with meat and cheese in it a "grilled cheese", but one must add a qualifier.

Maqzito said...

part 2

"...if they had thought that "Grilled Cheese Academy" would be a misnomer, they would have named their site and company something else."

True, but all that proves is that the sandwiches on the list are TYPES of grilled cheese. It does not prove that one would ever say "grilled cheese" WITHOUT qualifier to refer to the more diverse sandwiches. In fact, the "experts" (and I say "experts" snarkily, because looking at the site, I don't feel like these people are really experts like culinary anthropologists or something... it just seems like a bunch of marketing people got together and said "we need to sell more types of cheese here in Wisconsin, not just cheddar... what are some other things we can add to grilled cheese") never refer to any of the non-traditional grilled cheeses without creating an entirely new name of the sandwich, which goes even farther from just saying "grilled cheese with ham." So if the "experts" aren't even willing to refer to these sandwiches without qualifying them in some way, then why would we? This is important because I doubt anyone would have made a stink about it if you had referred to your sandwich in the original post as a "grilled cheese with salami" or whatever meat that is lurking inside.

"In response to your second comment, I'd plead innocent of your charge, because I nowhere deny that Food Lion's ciabatta is a ciabatta."

But you do deny that it is a real ciabatta: "No Italian will ever confuse Food Lion's version of it for the real thing, but Food Lion's ciabatta has its uses." Your use of the word "real" acknowledges that it is not true incarnation of the bread. You could have easily said that it was a "bad" ciabatta or a "poorly executed" ciabatta, yet you deliberately used the word "real." And although no Italian would confuse it with real ciabatta, it probably would trick a lot of Americans. Just because some Americans don't recognize that it isn't a real ciabatta, doesn't mean that it has become a real ciabatta. You might argue, "aha! but American pizza is obviously not the true pizza that originated out of Naples, yet most Americans would rightfully call something from Domino's a pizza." This is the essence of my argument: perhaps there are people such as yourself that have a more inclusive definition of what a grilled cheese (without qualifiers) is, but that group is most definitely in the minority. Perhaps one day the tide will turn so that referring to a grilled cheese (without qualifiers) is more inclusive, but I'd bet a lot of money that if you took a poll now and asked people to describe what is in a grilled cheese (without qualifier), the poll would overwhelmingly say: bread, cheese, pan fried in butter/margarine.

PS. I bet you were pissed when the pizza with all those onions arrived. was it like piles of onion?

Kevin Kim said...

[Part 1 of 2]

Seanicles,

Yes, I was pissed because the pizza violated my idea of what a pepperoni pizza should be. But I adapted. Or as Clint Eastwood grated in "Heartbeak Ridge," I improvised, adapted, and overcame. Were I to go back to Korea and order a pepperoni pizza, I'd know to expect ham and a thick, ugly layer of onions along with the pepperoni.

I'm amazed at how much debate such a tiny issue has provoked, and am even more amazed that this post provoked you, of all people, to comment (since you've largely been a lurker on my blog), but here I go with another reply:

"I would bet serious money that you are in the very very small minority of people that would expect (or wouldn't be surprised for) a grilled cheese to have more than just cheese on it when presented without any qualifiers."

As you know, it's not logical to argue that majority opinion = right. A long time ago, the majority European opinion was that the sun revolved around the earth. People can be wrong on an embarrassingly massive scale.

As to the whole "add a qualifier" thing, I think you did my arguing for me in your next comment when you wrote:

"True, but all that proves is that the sandwiches on the list are TYPES of grilled cheese."

Let's say I've discovered a new creature. I classify it as a mammal. A rival scientist comes along and says, "No, no, no-- it's closer to a marmoset!" I'd reply that that doesn't take away from the fact that it's a mammal, since "marmoset" is a subset of the larger category. So if you concede that "the sandwiches on the list are TYPES of grilled cheese," then you're in agreement with me.

I see that you're hitting the authoritativeness of the Grilled Cheese Academy pretty hard. I'm not sure why you're so focused on deconstructing their authority, since that's what they've devoted their efforts to producing: sandwiches that are, effectively, subtypes of grilled cheese.

[Maybe I should email those folks and get their opinion. Hell, for all I know, they'll side with you!]

I have no trouble admitting that most people would, if told they were being served "grilled cheese," imagine a cheese-only sandwich. That doesn't bother me at all. What I find astounding, though, is that people think they can tell me that I can't call a sandwich with a bit of meat in it a "grilled cheese" as well. On what holy authority do they do this? The "wisdom" of the masses? There's certainly no logic involved in denying me my right to use a certain label.

Kevin Kim said...

[Part 2 of 2]

"But you do deny that it is a real ciabatta: 'No Italian will ever confuse Food Lion's version of it for the real thing, but Food Lion's ciabatta has its uses.' Your use of the word 'real' acknowledges that it is not true incarnation of the bread. You could have easily said that it was a 'bad' ciabatta or a "poorly executed" ciabatta, yet you deliberately used the word 'real.'"

I could just as easily have not used the word "ciabatta" immediately after having made my "real" comment, but I did, because I'm comfortable with continuing to use that label, as I explicitly said in a previous comment.

My essential point (to bring us back into focus) was and is to argue that there's nothing improper about referring to a grilled cheese with a little meat in it as a "grilled cheese." I showed that it was possible to do so, because at least one company that devotes its time to cranking out grilled cheeses does exactly that. "Esse implies posse," as Dr. Vallicella likes to say: if something exists, then of course it must be possible. You've conceded that the sandwiches on display at the GCA website are "types of grilled cheese," and that's all the wiggle room I'm asking for.

Whew. What a lively-- if bizarre-- discussion. I assume that what compels us to have this debate at all is that it has immediate philosophical ramifications: we're talking about issues of naming and reality, after all, so I suspect that the "purists" in this thread feel that I've somehow violated reality, and that I need to be set straight-- as if I had insisted that an alpaca was in fact a shark. I find myself surprised by your and Mike's ardor because I don't think I've made any such violation at all. I still feel that clinging too closely to any label is attachment to name and form, and while I'd never call a Reuben a grilled-cheese sandwich, I do think the phrase "grilled cheese" contains an inherent categorical flexibility that you're just not acknowledging. (Then again, in your previous comment, you did at least obliquely acknowledge that flexibility.)

Kevin Kim said...

Further expert testimony: Nate Pollak, a self-styled "grilled-cheese professional," uses the term "grilled cheese [sandwich/es]" multiple times in this HuffPost article to refer to the whole gamut of innovative Bay Area grilled-cheese sandwiches, many of which include meat. For example, Pollak writes:

"Our local grilled cheese joints prep and cook their grilled cheeses in unconventional ways. They boast about hours of food prep to perfect each sandwich filling, that isn't even cheese. THE AMERICAN Grilled Cheese Kitchen's Mushroom Gruyere sandwich features a roasted wild mushroom duxelle, which takes two cooks and over eight hours to prepare. The Toasty Melt truck prepares garlic mashed potatoes with chives and bacon for their Irish Cheddar Bomb sandwich. 



And of course, many of our beloved grilled cheese eateries feature locally made cheeses, artisanal breads, specialty spreads, handmade preserves, and seasonal produce. This, I believe, is something you will never see stretch across the country with a franchise concept, nor[,] dare I say it, in [Mom's] kitchen. 



Have you tried the California Gold at Mission Cheese -- goat cheese, prosciutto and fig preserves? Yes, please. 



Even more impressive is that today's short-order grilled cheese cooks are toasting, frying, pressing, and/or grilling these epic sandos to perfection. So I'm sorry[,] Ozersky, but [your] generalization is off -- there are folks here in the Bay Area that do these grilled cheeses right.

"
(italics added)

In the above italicized phrases, Pollak is clearly referring to sandwiches that have more than cheese in them, and is doing so without qualifiers. He seems comfortable in referring to those "sandos" that way, and so do I.

Maqzito said...

Biggles,

I do agree that "grilled cheese" does contain an inherent categorical flexibility. That has never been my argument with your position. My problem with your position is that your flexibility has swung so far that it REQUIRES qualifiers. The flexibility (sans qualifiers) that most people would agree upon would include different kinds of cheeses, or different kinds of bread, perhaps the addition of some kind of herb or spice (that might even be going too far for some). Your comparison to flat/round earth doesn't work because the earth is singular (proper noun) entity that exists in physical reality. Individual grilled cheeses do exist on earth in physical manifestations, but the concept and definition of a grilled cheese is an abstract cultural idea that absolutely is fluid, and over time, changes. What I'm saying is that right now, in contemporary America, a grilled cheese is defined as bread and cheese.
All these fancily worded arguments that we all have been making are all well and good but the fact remains: if you went to your local diner (or any diner for that matter), saw "grilled cheese" (without any qualifiers) on the menu, and ordered it, you're getting bread and cheese.
As for me, I don't care at all what you call it, as some folks in the South would say, "that don't make me no nevermind." You can refer to your sandwich with meat and cheese as a "grilled cheese" without qualifiers all you want, but don't be surprised for people to be confused at your odd usage of the term "grilled cheese" as something inclusive of meat. I go around telling people about my "cute mammal Maqz" and I wouldn't be misrepresenting Maqz at all. But I wouldn't do that because as a native US citizen, native speaker of American English, and member of contemporary American society, to refer to him in that manner would be absurd. I would most definitely get weird looks and surprised reactions if I talked about him that way. The fact that its possible to refer to him that way doesn't mean that I should. Then it just turns into a sort of "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you! Look my finger isn't touching you!" kind of thing.
As for my involvement in this debate, it really isn't that I'm just especially passionate about grilled cheese or this particular debate, really. Honestly, I don't remember the last time I had a grilled cheese. This fun discussion has been a way to distract myself when I'm not working and keep me from just sitting around feeling sorry for myself about the audition. This plus watching Hoarders and Intervention on TV. And wasting time on Facebook. And eating.

Maqzito said...

You've proven my point with this article. I don't disagree that these are TYPES of grilled cheese. But as you see in your quoted text, each individual sandwich is referred to by an entirely different name. He refers to them collectively as simply "grilled cheeses" because there are many types being referred to at the same time. And as I said, I don't disagree that you can make different types. I'm just saying that whenever you're talking about a non traditional grilled cheese, one will go out of one's way to describe what's unique about it (qualifiers).

Charles said...

This has gotten way too deep for me, but I will say this:

When I was in NYC recently I had a grilled cheese sandwich with fig preserves. (This was at the Beecher's Handmade Cheese shop in the Flatiron District. We also had a tomato soup with cheese to round out the lunch. What a glorious place.) It was, as the kids say, teh awesome. So much so that I've been looking around for reasonably-priced fig preserves here so I can slather them on all my grilled cheese sandwiches from now on.

(And I have no further comment on K's reply to my original comment, because I think we're on the page.)

Kevin Kim said...

Sean,

The essential point, though, is that I've now shown you two professional, purportedly expert, sources that casually refer to non-standard grilled-cheese sandwiches as grilled-cheese sandwiches. If they can make that move, then so can I.

I can do this all day: I can keep on finding professional, authoritative sources that use the term "grilled cheese" to refer to "bemeated" sandwiches. If your argument hinges on notions of linguistic convention (or, as Ellison puts it, definitions), then you can't discount the sources I've cited, because those sources are part of the masses whose linguistic conventions you cite in your favor. You may as well cry foul at the fact that they've "misused" the term in question. But as far as I can see, I haven't misused the term at all, nor have I opened the category so wide that "it REQUIRES qualifiers." Quite the opposite: I've shown you two sources that use the phrase without qualifiers. How many more sources must I cite?

You argued that calling Maqz a "mammal" wouldn't be illogical, but would amount to absurd usage. But since we're talking general versus specific categories and designations, is there a problem with referring to Maqz generically as a dog and not as a chihuahua? Is "Good dog!" somehow bizarre, or should I, when referring to Maqz, always say "Good chihuahua!"?

Specificity isn't always necessary for terms of reference. If you argue that it is, then you're committed to referring to Maqz only by the most specific terms possible: canis familiaris.

Sorry to drag Maqz into this, but you mentioned him first! Heh.

Kevin Kim said...

Elisson,

I have to apologize, because your pro-Mike comment re: definitions got lost in the comment-publishing shuffle. I swear this wasn't intentional. I thought I had, in fact, published the comment along with Sean's latest salvo. Mea culpa.

Maqzito said...

By the way, its actually canis lupus familiaris. Hehe.

You're digging yourself in bigger holes each time you quote a source (which I don't mind since it helps my case). First of all, I never disputed the validity of your last source. In fact, I said that the article proves my point. In the quote from the article you posted, did the author ever refer to a single specific sandwich as simply "grilled cheese"? No. Each individual sandwich he referred to had some catchy fun name. When he referred to the group collectively, he indeed said, "grilled cheeses." I would do the same thing too. If there was a plate in front of me of the sandwiches, one with ham, one with basil, one with sausage, one with bacon, I would not say, "Hey look at that plate of grilled cheese with ham, grilled cheese with basil, grilled cheese with sausage." That would be silly (I mean, I could say that, but that wouldn't be necessary). This is not what I'm proposing at all. I would say, "look at that plate of grilled cheeses." Why? Because, as I've been saying over and over, I don't deny that your sandwich or other less traditional ones are TYPES of grilled cheese. The problem is, in your original ciabatta post, you are referring to a single specific sandwich. What I'm saying is that when you refer to a single specific sandwich and that sandwich happens to be a non-traditional type of grilled cheese, it would be strange to call that sandwich simply "grilled cheese." I'm therefore also saying that if you're referring to a single specific sandwich that IS traditional, one would call that sandwich simply "grilled cheese." So, I'm not discounting your sources. The GCA one I view with skepticism but that is neither here nor there. Even if I completely trust it, it still helps my case. There is not one specific sandwich on the site that is referred to as simply "grilled cheese" without some extra name added to it. Yes, collectively, they are grilled cheeses, but singularly, they have specific names. Your sandwich on your post was a specific sandwich.

Perhaps soon the convention will change. As we learned in the articles (the Pollak one and the Ozersky one that Pollak linked to) we might be on the cusp of an invasion of grilled cheese chains into the mainstream in malls across the US. It will be interesting if it really takes off across the entire country to hear what people refer to their specific sandwiches as if they contain meat. It's entirely possible that it might become widespread convention to refer to a meaty grilled cheese as a "grilled cheese", but for now, such is not the convention.

When you refer to the Maqz example you put words in my mouth saying that I'm arguing that one must always refer to things by the most specific term possible. This is obviously not what I'm saying. I don't refer to my cello as Mougenot Cello from Mirecourt. I'm not proposing any change to any other aspect of any other object or concept. The only thing that I'm addressing in this discussion is grilled cheese. This is why, really, most of the other comparisons we're making to other things are pretty much irrelevant. As you know, language is not simply a set of rules without exceptions. There are lots of irregularities. You said "Specificity isn't always necessary for terms of reference." I absolutely agree that it isn't ALWAYS necessary. But in this specific case of grilled cheese, it might not be absolutely vital, but its certainly much, much more in line with convention. I mean take this blog for example. Everyone who has weighed in has at the very least raised an eyebrow to your usage.

Kevin Kim said...

[Part 1 of 2]

"You're digging yourself in bigger holes each time you quote a source (which I don't mind since it helps my case)."

Taunt away! But you know that I'm providing evidence where you're not. I'm actually trying to anchor my argument in reality. So far, it's 2 to 0. There-- my own taunt!

"When you refer to the Maqz example you put words in my mouth saying that I'm arguing that one must always refer to things by the most specific term possible. This is obviously not what I'm saying."

But that's precisely what you're saying.

"I don't refer to my cello as Mougenot Cello from Mirecourt. I'm not proposing any change to any other aspect of any other object or concept. The only thing that I'm addressing in this discussion is grilled cheese."

Well... no. You can't worm out of this: if you're trying to make any argument at all, your argument has to be generalizable, or it amounts to the logical fallacy of special pleading, and thus isn't an argument.

So let's try this again. What you're saying-- and I'm charitably assuming that what you're saying is generalizable-- seems to boil down to this:

It is always improper to refer to [genus] when you mean [species].

E.g.:

(1) It is always improper to refer to "grilled cheese" when you mean "grilled cheese with pepperoni." And:

(2) It is always improper to refer to a "dog" when you mean "chihuahua."

But is it always improper? To call Maqz a "dog" and not a "chihuahua" is improper-- how, exactly? And if you permit yourself to call Maqz a dog at times, then by parity of reasoning (generalizability!) you should allow me to call a specific non-standard sandwich a "grilled cheese."

Let me also address this:

"Each individual sandwich he referred to had some catchy fun name. When he referred to the group collectively, he indeed said, 'grilled cheeses.' I would do the same thing too."

[...]

"The problem is, in your original ciabatta post, you are referring to a single specific sandwich. What I'm saying is that when you refer to a single specific sandwich and that sandwich happens to be a non-traditional type of grilled cheese, it would be strange to call that sandwich simply 'grilled cheese.'"


So I shouldn't refer to a single specific dog as "dog," then. "Go bring the dog inside" isn't a legitimate thing to say? It has to be "Go bring the chihuahua inside"?

You may think I'm hammering relentlessly on the same point, and you'd be right. Arguing that you're talking only about grilled cheese sucks all the force out of your argument. Special pleading.

Kevin Kim said...

[Part 2 of 2]

Also, a grammatical note: the very term "grilled cheeses" indicates that "grilled cheese" is a countable noun, which means the phrase "grilled cheeses" applies to each sandwich individually, just as "fishes" (versus the plural "fish") refers to each individual species of fish. Moreover, the sentence "Let me go walk the dogs" refers to each individual dog, because "dog" is a countable noun, not a mass noun.

Hey, look, I'm gonna stop here, because this is tiring, and I'm sick of quibbling. I'll give you the last word, but I'm afraid I haven't seen much actual argument yet from you. I've provided both logic and empirical evidence for my case. On your side, I've seen plenty of ad hominem (dissing GCA), taunting/bravado (see your previous comment), fallacious appeal to the masses (numerous instances), and mere conjecture ("I'd bet a lot of money that if you took a poll now..."), but little of any real argumentative substance. Quote me a legitimate source, construct an ironclad syllogism-- something!

And on a lighter note-- for a guy who only seems to respect the opinion of people in great numbers, you'll be amused by this: in terms of Google hits,

canis familiaris (exact phrase) = 1.42 million results

canis lupus familiaris (exact phrase) = 931,000 results

In conclusion: woof. And have a grilled cheese. In whatever form you desire. Me, I'm having one with a bit of dog-- or should I say chihuahua?-- in it.

Maqzito said...

part 1

Regarding my evidence, as I said you've already provided it for me. And as I said, it works for my case. And if my understanding of special pleading is correct (which I'm not sure, since I of course haven't studied logic and philosophy and I don't know all that terminology like special pleading etc.), all I need to do to show that this case of grilled cheese is a case with its own unique rules and not generalize-able to other things (such as dogs) is to provide evidence, which you've done for me. Both your sources as I've said over and over, prove my case. If you're still refusing to see how your evidence works for my side, then I'll mention a few other bits of evidence for my side. I'm tired of this discussion too so I won't go and copy and paste all the links here but you can feel free to examine them if you wish, pretty easy to just google it.
1. wiktionary refers to it as a cheese sandwich thats fried in butter. I know from growing up with you that if you ever made a sandwich (ungrilled) with meat and cheese in it, you called it simply "sandwich" or, most often, identified it by whatever meat was inside.
2. epicurious.com yields 130 entries for grilled cheese. Overwhelmingly, when a recipe calls for more than just cheese on bread, the name of the recipe name is not simply "grilled cheese"
3. pretty much the same as #3 for foodnetwork.com except with more examples
4. pretty much the same as #3 for food.com... i could keep going on with these from different recipe sites all day. Do I get a "point" for each recipe that helps my case? I don't feel I need to go through all of them because there are too many examples to count.
5. restaurant websites all over the web overwhelmingly do the exact same thing as the recipe sites.
6. When recipe and restaurant websites refer to a simple grilled cheese, especially a sandwich with white bread, Amercian cheese, fried in butter/margarine, if they don't list the sandwich as simply "grilled cheese", they will refer to it as "the original grilled cheese" or the "traditional grilled cheese" or something like that; the qualifier will always be something that implies that that specific realization of grilled cheese is the "true" one. I don't think I really need to list all of them here because again, the list is way too long.

Maqzito said...

part 2

You also seem to be fixated on this esse/posse thing. That's fine, maybe your definition is possible, and as I said before, you can go ahead and call your meat and cheese sandwich a grilled cheese all you want and it doesn't really bother me or change my life in any way. As you know, I am a meat eater and I would be happy to be surprised to have a little salami in my sandwich. But, as I said before, your usage is strange in American society (as my evidence helps to prove). My problem here (something that I've mentioned before) is not so much about whether you would be lying to say that your sandwich is a grilled cheese, but that your usage is strange. I'm all for flexibility and I understand that getting tied up in definitions and boundaries can have real world implications that can cause real suffering. But this is exactly why, I'm containing my argument to the matter of grilled cheese. This is also one of the reasons I generally don't comment on blogs and political posts, etc. I don't feel qualified to participate in such a discussion properly and some of my own thoughts on "heavy" issues are evolving and changing. I'm not going to passionately state a position publicly when I haven't even boiled everything down in my own head yet. However, with grilled cheese, I've lived in the US all my life and I've certainly eaten many grilled cheeses over my 32 years. I feel qualified to participate in this discussion, and no matter how passionate you or I are about this subject, no one gets hurt or marginalized by our opinions, because they are after all, opinions, and we are just talking about grilled cheese... nothing heavier. There's nothing that either you or I can do within this limited forum to establish a grilled cheese absolute truth. And really, establishing an absolute water tight grilled cheese truth has never been my goal. My goal was basically to show that your usage is strange (nothing less, nothing more). The journey has been fun though.
I think you're right that this is a good place for the debate to stop. I'm sure that I haven't convinced you at all and you certainly haven't convinced me at all either. It was fun though :)

daeguowl said...

Going once, going twice....

And we have a new bidder!

I have two thoughts on this...

First one, if you ask me to make a Grilled Cheese (or what I would call a cheese toasted sandwich) and I borught it to you garnished with sweetcorn, kimchi or for that matter, one of Maqz's daily offerings, would you be happy to call that a Grilled Cheese?

In my opinion, the ratio of cheese to ham, bacon, or whatever should be considered when deciding what to call your sandwich.

If your sandwich is substantially filled with cheese with a dollop of ketchup, or a shake of bacon bits, then that could be considered to be a grilled cheese (with a little garnish).

If your accompanying filling is itself included in a substantial amount then I think you have to acknowledge its presence. A couple of rashers of bacon, or perhaps a couple of slices of tomato to roughly cover the area of the bread make it something more than a simple grilled cheese. The addition of tuna presumably makes it into a tuna melt.

In conclusion, I accept BH's argument that his sandwich is technically a grilled cheese (there is no patent or trademark to determine what actually constitutes one), I find it disingenuous that the additional ingedients are not mentioned.

I propose the following conventions be established:

1. Just a cheese filling should be capitalised. A Grilled Cheese.

2. A cheese filling accompanied with a substantial amount of another filling: A grilled cheese and...

3. A cheese filling accompanied with a minor amount of something that itself could be a standalone filling: A grilled cheese with...

4. A cheese filling with some kind of garnish or condiment: A grilled cheese...

More information/transparency is usually better. I'm sure Kevin would want me to inform him if I arranged a blind date with a girl (that used to be a guy, that is divorced, that has a third nipple etc.)

Kevin Kim said...

Daegu Owl,

You're referencing the "heap problem" that I'd mentioned to Charles earlier in this thread. I'm planning on writing another post about this.

I'm not against adding qualifiers. I'm just against people telling me that my saying "grilled cheese" for a non-standard sandwich is somehow wrong.

daeguowl said...

How many people have to tell you it's wrong before we have a heap? :)

Kevin Kim said...

"How many people have to tell you it's wrong before we have a heap?"

Probably everyone will have to weigh in. Problem is, some are going to weigh in on my side, and that's all the wiggle room I need.

See here, esp. re: possibility and permissibility.

hahnak said...

i never gave a seconds thought to this issue until your blog, Kevin. here are some more people hashing it out: http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/04/grilled-cheese-with-roasted-pineapple-ham-and.html

hahnak said...

also, i love the word "bemeated".