Bread and Cheesuses

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

I’ve started a cult.

I began laying the foundations of my church in March when I rediscovered the Vitruvian food that is the grilled cheese sandwich, with its crisp-yet-soft bread; creamy, gooey cheese and condiments; and tomatoes and arugula, here or there, if one feels so inclined.

Perfection incarnate.

My adoration drove me to eat grilled cheeses every lunch and dinner for two weeks straight, and has since prompted an office Post-It note on which I record each consumption of the divine meal. I’m currently up to 95 grilled cheese sandwiches since March, which amounts to approximately 0.6 sandwiches per day — though, it’s more like four on Monday, two on Tuesday, etc.

I’m not ashamed. As Reader Editor Zach Hagadone told me, “The power of two grilled cheeses will give you the strength of four Soncireys.”

From this love came the Cult of Cheesus (The Sentient Grilled Cheese Sandwich), which has its own cosmology, apocalyptic myth, practices and iconography thanks, in no small part, to an afternoon Hagadone and I spent procrastinating instead of doing actual work. Since its genesis, Cheesus has amassed no fewer than seven followers, including Publisher Ben Olson, who I baptized against his will by virtue of our small office space.

It was never my plan to be the high priestess of a grilled cheese sandwich, but when divinity’s timer chimed, I came with a ready plate. I now aim to convert Bonner County and then, one day, the world.

There’s a lot to learn from the humble grilled cheese. Modern society’s conceptualizations of food swing from one extreme to another, often promoting simultaneous, contradictory ideas.

For instance, food can be a cultural touchstone — an avenue through which someone can learn about their heritage or understand a foreign place and people. It can also be an overly processed, commodified lump with no purpose other than to produce endorphins and help companies rake in money.

Food is touted as the cure for all ills and the secret to longevity. It’s also wrapped in shame, and abstaining from it allegedly rewards moral superiority. This concept especially applies to the relationship between religion and food — it can be a holy, integral element of worship like the Eucharist, or be emblematic of sin and damnation, like the apple.

The Cult of Cheesus adds a steady, cheesy layer to this multifarious sandwich.

Food is life. It’s both the basic sustenance that helps us survive and a means by which we can truly live.

Humanity has been evolving and thriving alongside bread for an estimated 14,000 years and cheese for at least 7,000, meaning those foodstuffs have existed throughout and before all of recorded history. Yet, when we finally created enough bread and cheese to keep everyone happy and fed, we decided to shame people for eating them.

How can a relationship so ancient and integral be anything but precious — sacred, even?

Reimagining food as both sin and salvation is simply another way to capitalize on our bodies, giving companies opportunities to charge for both the sickness and the cure. Digitally-edited — often weirdly hypersexualized — advertisements hawk decadence in the form of high-sugar-fat-grease-carb pseudo-food made with little to no nutrients and sold for pennies, preying on low-income households while spreading obesity and diabetes.

When this inevitably alters our bodies, other companies step up to sell pills, protein shakes, diet sodas and weight loss drugs, shaming their audiences for eating any and all foods that don’t inflate the profit margins of companies like Nestlé or Jenny Craig.

The Cult of Cheesus proclaims that humanity’s relationship with food should not be reduced to a cycle of hunger, overconsumption and shame.

The idea isn’t to eat a grilled cheese for every meal — which is unhealthy and exclusionary to anyone with dietary restrictions — but rather that eating a grilled cheese is emblematic of the ultimate relationship between humanity and food. It’s delicious, comforting, filling, inexpensive, versatile, easy to make and available to everyone.

It’s not something you have to hold your nose to eat, nor is it something that encourages you to gorge yourself to death. It’s a simple sandwich to eat and go about your day energized and smiling.

Real food is a human right that nourishes not just our bodies but our spirits. If you agree, well, Cheesus welcomes you.