The Use of Cheese in The Grilled Cheese Featured in That One Scene in “The Devil Wears Prada”.
I found that during the first part of the global pandemic, when we were all trapped inside, where I had nothing much to do except log onto zoom to get to my classes, and procrastinate. It was an era of merely existing as couch potatoes, which not only gave us the time to watch a bunch of movies on Netflix, but also the time to psychoanalyze those movies. I, too, had been guilty of this, and with that, I will be showcasing my psychoanalysis skills, and how I applied them to a single story. It is a story of cheese, a sandwich, a guy who is a chef that either uses too much cheese or doesn’t know how much it costs, and Meryl Streep, who doesn’t really have anything to do with the article. This story is called: That one scene with a grilled cheese sandwich that has way too much cheese in The Devil wears Prada. If you have not noticed by now, the keyword of this article is “cheese”.
You may honestly be thinking “you’re crazy, no one cares how much cheese this guy is using”. Now, there are two reasons you are wrong. First of all, Nate (the dude who is making the grilled cheese) is the crazy one, as he is using so much cheese that I have to write about it, and two, everyone should care about how much cheese is being used. Now, let’s start off with the facts. The main character, Andy, comes home from her new job, and her boyfriend Nate makes her a grilled cheese sandwich. After having a conversation about her annoying boss, she ends up saying “I’m not hungry anymore.” in which he replies “Oh no no no, give me that. That’s like $8 of Jarlsberg in there.”
A little background on Jarlsberg for you: It is a mild cow’s milk cheese, it originates from the former countship of Jarlsberg (current day is a part of Vestfold county in Norway), and in 2019, a pound of Jarlsberg would cost $17. Now it may be more or less around the same price, as while doing some research, I found a website that sells it for $16.22 a pound, and most recently found that it goes for about $17.88 on amazon, plus tax, but I digress. For this situation, we will say it is $17.
If we use the quote from The Devil Wears Prada, Nate is using $8 worth of Jarlsberg in one sandwich. If we do simple math, and divide 17 by 8, and multiply it by 100 (to get the percentage), we get 47%. So, this dude is using 47%, which is almost half of a pound in one single sandwich. Here is another example of what a sandwich with 8 ounces of cheese would look like:
I had asked my mother, a former chef who is an experienced grilled cheese maker, about this particular situation. She had stated that “You could make about 8 grilled cheese sandwiches with a block of cheese. Realistically, you would use about one slice of cheese for each sandwich.” She has also mentioned that a sandwich with this much of a surplus of cheese would take quite a while to cook. This is most likely why he burned it in the scene.
I personally find it hard to understand something if I do not have a visual to aid my comprehension of the situation. Here is a photo of an 8-ounce block of cheese. If you look at the bottom right corner, you see that it weighs 8 ounces (226.79 grams), which is half a pound. Now in this scenario, since he is using 7.52 ounces, which is 94% of the block shown here. To simplify the information I just loaded on you, he is pretty much using the whole block shown in one sandwich. This can be considered weird for a multitude of reasons, but I will give you two. One, no one should use that much cheese. Two, he is a chef — supposedly. If he uses 47% of a pound each time he makes a grilled cheese sandwich, he will only be able to make two real grilled cheese sandwiches, and a really measly third sandwich.
While this entire time I have said he is using way too much cheese, there is also the possibility that he doesn’t know how much his cheese costs. This can cause serious implications for his financial stability. Nate and Andy live in New York, and seem to live in a one-bedroom apartment. Back in 2006, the year the movie came out, a one-bedroom apartment would go for $1,850–$2,850 a month. With Nate being a chef, which on average makes $4,334.16 a month, and with Andy being an assistant to an editor in chief for a fashion magazine, she would make an average of $3,247 a month. She would most likely make less, as she is fresh out of college. The combination of all the factors can make living in New York financially harder on them. With an average cost of an apartment being $2,098 a month, spending on average $942.68 on groceries each month (for both of them), spending around $870 monthly on transportation (again, for both of them), $56.89 on water and electric bills, and buying $17 dollar cheese for every two sandwiches he makes, it would cause some financial strain, as well as strain on the relationship if they feel that too much money is being spent. Even though there might be a fair amount left to save, there is the possibility that there can be limitations on how much can be saved.
Overall, even if Nate does use too much cheese, or doesn’t know how much it costs and is theoretically putting himself, and his future financial stability in jeopardy, or even his relationship, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, all that matters is that Nate is stupid. He should know how much cheese to use, or how much it costs. He should be able to not burn the grilled cheese. He should, but he doesn’t, and that’s fine, because I don’t like him, and that’s all that matters. That and the fact that I have time to psychoanalyze how much cheese is being used in one sandwich in a single scene in a movie that was made over ten years ago. That and that he burns a sandwich, even though he is supposedly a chef — supposedly. So, the moral of the story: one, he uses too much cheese. He isn’t able to make grilled cheese without burning it, and shouldn’t be in charge of his finances, because who spends $17 on a pound of cheese?
My second point? I need help… a lot of it.
