Sage Tanguay: This is Recipe Roundup episode 68. Once again this week we are exploring unusual food combinations, this time with Jake Hyer. He brings us two recipes from the deep recesses of his childhood memory.

Jake Hyer: I haven’t had either of these combinations since I was a small child. These were items that were both only available at Grandma’s House. I do remember vividly my bedtime snack: graham crackers with a slice of Velveeta cheese.

Sage: So this was your bedtime snack?

Jake: This was the bedtime snack before, you know…
Sage: Oh my gosh…
Jake: …before you go get your bath, you know.

Sage: And what is the second one.

Jake: So this sandwich I hadn’t thought about in a very long time but I first started working here and Scott Smith told me about his sandwich with mayonnaise and grape jelly. And that made me think of this sandwich, which I haven’t had since I was a kid. But it’s also ingredients that you would not think intuitively ‘that’s gonna be a great sandwich.’ And it may or may not be — I haven’t had it a long time. So, it’s turkey, cottage cheese, and ketchup on wheat bread.

Sage: Jake initially wanted to utilize these sandwiches for our fundraiser – whoever raised the least amount of money would eat the other’s culinary creation.

Jake: However, Scott will not eat this. Ever. Because it has cottage cheese.

Sage: Let’s just dive right in. First, I’ll describe – we have laid out the turkey on one side then drizzled it with ketchup and then on the other piece of bread we’ve put our cottage cheese and then stuck ’em together. So we are gonna go ahead and try.

Jake: It’s exactly how I remember

Sage: Really?

Jake: I feel like I’m back at Grandma’s house and I’m 5 years old.

Sage: Do you like it a lot?

Jake: It’s all right. The ingredients are more mind-blowing than the actual taste.

Sage: It’s not bad. It is not something I think I would… I don’t know, who knows I could get in a weird mood and want this. I’m pretty weird when it comes to food though. So when you told me about this the part that freaked me out wasn’t the cottage cheese, I really like cottage cheese. I also really like ketchup. But it was a combination of cottage cheese and ketchup that I was a little bit like… tomato in cottage cheese – fine. That’s like ricotta and pasta sauce. It’s very Italian. But ketchup is so sweet. So that sort of was the weird part for me: the sweet savory-ness of ketchup plus the creaminess of the cottage cheese and the texture. It’s really fine. But again, it’s sort of like mmm would I do it? I don’t know. I’m gonna eat the rest of the sandwich, I can tell you that! …Huh… Yeah, it’s a mess, it’s a mess – I’ll say that. Oh yours looks nice and neat though. That’s just me, that’s me and my gluten-free bread, don’t worry about it.

Jake: Just checked in with my mom to see, did I come up with this or how did this ever come to be because it’s one of those things that I totally remember having as a kid but did you all feed me this or did I somehow come up with this idea out of my own creative mind?

Sage: It seems like a kid creation.

Jake: Yeah, and she said those were all ingredients available in your grandmother’s fridge.

Sage: This is obviously a sandwich that’s created when it’s like, “Ugh, there’s just turkey and bread? Well, what else is there? Is there any cheese? No, there’s only cottage cheese! Well, is there like mustard? No, there’s only Ketchup!” So yeah, it’s good though. I might actually eat it again!

Jake: But one thing we should talk about is, I had no idea the controversy surrounding cottage cheese. I love cottage cheese. It’s like who would not love cottage cheese but um, apparently it’s quite a polarizing food.

Sage: It’s a big no from a lot of people. I really like it. I think it’s an easy way to get some extra fat and protein. It’s good. Okay, so – Graham cracker and Velveeta.

Jake: So this may be more… you may have a rave on this, you never know.

Sage: (giggles) It’s really good

Jake: It does kinda go together.

Sage: I’m not against American cheese, but before we tasted this I sliced myself a little bit of Velveeta. First of all, Velveeta. I mean, it tastes like American cheese but it’s different. It has a distinct texture, a distinct flavor that is just slightly more processed than like a Kraft single. So I tried it just so I would remember like, okay that’s like the baseline of it. Yeah, this is really good. I think you don’t really realize that it’s cheese. Like a Twix bar without the chocolate is what it reminds me of right now. Like a salty Twix bar. It’s pretty good.

Jake: Okay, interesting. I like it. It’s pretty good.

Sage: It’s pretty good. I think it’s because Graham is an overwhelming flavor. Like it’s a really strong flavor and I don’t think we realize that necessarily. Like when you’re eating s’mores, the chocolate and the marshmallow are so sweet that you don’t realize that the graham cracker itself is actually very flavorful.

Jake: Sure

Sage: It’s not like a normal cracker. They’re also not salted which helps balance out the immense amount of salt in the Velveeta.

Sage: Cottage cheese on a sandwich. I’m a big fan of that and I’m actually thinking, you know, another thing I’m a big fan of is potato chips on a sandwich.

Jake: Yeah, for sure.

Sage: So I’m now thinking I might try to create a sandwich that has both potato chips and cottage cheese and then you get this like creamy salty crunchy mix.

Jake: What about your ketchup flavor?

Sage: Exactly. Yeah. I wonder if that would help me get over the ketchup, like I think maybe the liquid ketchup provides too much liquid makes, it too sloppy – but if I put ketchup potato chips like, Canadian ketchup potato chips in there, that might be the perfect combination for me.

If you want to recreate the exact recipe, Jake says his grandmother would have had over roasted turkey lunch meat. But if I were going to make this again, I would use a more savory option, like Cajun or pepper turkey. When it comes to the graham crackers, Velveeta, American cheese, or even spray cheese is a yes for me!
This recipe and all of my recipes can be found online at alleghenymountainradio.org. If you have an unusual food combination you would like to share with the show, please send it to sage@amrmail.org. For Recipe Roundup, this is Sage Tanguay.