Phagomania: The Art of the Cheese Pull

Cheese, glorious cheese. Everybody loves cheese, and whichever cheese you love, the luscious ooze of melted dairy goodness is the money shot of the food industry.

It’s been employed for decades by everybody from fast food giants like Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Taco Bell, up to modern day bloggers and Instagram snappers. You know the classic shot – a slice lifts up from a whole, fresh pizza trailing a web of gooey cheese threads. It now even has its own title in the advertising biz – the ‘cheese pull.’ Dreaded by food photographers, it reportedly takes hours and lots of equipment (steamers for cheese anyone?) to set up the perfect ‘cheese pull.’

Advertisers and marketers know that there is some science behind the pull, with the cheesy image speaking to the brain in a very primal way. Communicating beyond words, it sets a yearning trigger. A recent study showed that cheese can trigger the same chemicals in the brain as addictive drugs; it virtually puts the ‘porn’ into ‘food porn’. They say ‘sex sells’ but in the food industry, stretched cheese sells.

We're particularly taken by one recent twist on the classic cheese toastie. As reported in this very column back in April, rainbow-coloured foods have been the big trend of 2016, and it's a trend that knows no bounds. Behold, the Rainbow Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Recently made available at London pop-up stall Grill My Cheese, it is owners Nisha Patel and Nishma Chauhan’s take on a similar invention from Hong Kong’s Kala Toast.

“We just wanted to have a bit of fun with it,” explains Nisha. “It had to taste amazing. Goats cheese and truffle oil go well with the flavours and make it into something really special.” But they also had to combat negative assumptions about the rainbow colouring.

“It was important to keep the colouring as natural as possible,” says Nisha. “We used beetroot, rocket, caramelised onions and a small amount of food colouring. We trialled everything multiple times to get it perfect.”

It sounds serious, but in reality the Grill My Cheese outfit are set on fun and experimenting. “People take food too seriously these days,” Nisha proclaims. But as a small, independent business, what about battling that corporate “cheese pull”?

“We absolutely can take on the big dogs, with our cheese-pull images at least!” says Nisha, who regularly posts pull shots on the pop-up's Instagram account. “We don't have stylists to prepare our cheese shots for us, so they're a lot more natural, and therefore in one way more appealing.”

Ah, that elusive cheese attraction – where does it come from? “I can't put my finger on what is so appealing about melted cheese,” Nisha muses. “But it really is mesmerising. I watch cheese being melted every day and it still fascinates me.” Nisha also proposes that it has a truly universal, international appeal: “There's a version of grilled cheese/ a cheese toastie from so many countries. It's totally relatable for everyone. On seeing an image of melted cheese, everyone can imagine the taste and the texture and how delicious it is.”

So whether you were truly aware of it or not, there’s a seriously strong chance that at any moment the power of cheese could compel you – so why fight it? Get grilling!