This month, the tuna melt gets a grilling. Can it ever be microwaved? Are cranberries and pistachios ingredients too far? Should we look beyond mature cheddar for the topping?
The tuna melt has had a busy 2020. In May, Bloomberg reported that Reddit had recorded a 30% surge in mentions for the melt over lockdown, during which the Virginia senator Mark “Two Slice Man” Warner went viral with his Instagram tuna melt tutorial. As Bloomberg put it of the melt’s apparent Stateside work-from-home renaissance: “One of the world’s great sandwiches is making a comeback.”
Warner’s “soon-to-be-world-famous” method certainly made global headlines – but bizarre ones. His monstrous concoction of half-drained tuna hastily mashed into dollops of mayo on untoasted bread, then microwaved, was, observers finally concluded, a deliberate wind-up (“I can’t get my wife and kids to eat these any more!”) to publicise a public health message about regular hand-washing. But that did not stop Warner’s Democratic colleague Kamala Harris from replying with her own guidance. Yes, the woman aiming to be vice-president of the United States of America found time to school the world in the ways of the tuna melt. How to Eat is not making this up. This is not a fever dream. It happened.
