National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day is a holiday celebrated on April 12th. This holiday celebrates a sandwich that just about everyone has enjoyed eating as a child. Grilled cheese is a sandwich loved by both children and adults. It’s also a sandwich that has continued to evolve over the years as chefs put forth their modern take on it. That makes this holiday a celebration of one of the most popular comfort foods available in the U.S.

The History of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

We were a little bit unsatisfied with our inability to find out the history of National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, so we decided to switch gears and focus on the history of the sandwich instead. Grilled cheese sandwiches go all the way back to Ancient Rome, so we think it’s fair to say that it’s been around for quite some time. A form of grilled cheese called Croque Monsieur was also made by the French around the turn of the 20th century. However, it wouldn’t be until the 1920s when the modern grilled cheese sandwich would be invented.

What happened during the 1920s? Well, the modern grilled cheese owes its existence to the confluence of its two most important ingredients: cheese slices and sliced bread. A few years earlier, in 1914, J.L. Kraft & Bros. Company opened its first cheese plant in Illinois. This company produced a cheese that was simple, cheap, and could be easily mass-produced. Although some people disparaged this cheese by giving it names such as “rat cheese,” it was otherwise a popular product.

The next thing that happened to allow more people to make grilled cheese sandwiches was the invention of the bread slicer by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. This invention made distributing white bread easier and more affordable to the general public.

Being able to use inexpensive white bread and inexpensive American cheese allowed consumers to make their own grilled cheese sandwiches more easily. And because making these sandwiches was a lot more affordable and a lot easier for just about anyone to do, the U.S. Navy began making grilled cheese sandwiches to feed U.S. sailors during World War II. This only helped to whet the appetite for grilled cheese sandwiches for the many sailors returning home after the war.

In 1949, Kraft produced the first Kraft Singles, and by 1965 they were available in supermarkets all over the United States. Before long, just about everyone was making grilled cheese sandwiches for their children and themselves, and the rest is history.

Observing National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day

Observing this holiday is extremely easy. All you have to do is make grilled cheese sandwiches for the day. These don’t have to be the grilled cheese sandwiches we’re all familiar with—American cheese on white bread—but can be any bread and cheese combination you can think of using. And while you’re making your grilled cheese masterpiece, use the hashtag #NationalGrilledCheeseDay on your social media accounts.