Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches

A croque-monsieur is a French-style ham and cheese sandwich, sold in every café and sometimes even on the Street. When I first went to France, croque-monsieurs were dipped in béchamel sauce before being cooked on a griddle, but lately the béchamel seems to have disappeared. In the 1970s a law was passed controlling the price of croque-monsieurs and croissants—France’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve controlling interest rates. The result, in those inflationary days, was that croque-monsie