"Between Meals" - April 10, 2020

[Joe Ross]

salted rye to flame
butter braised • caraway popped
roast beef • melted Swiss

(had this in Drafts for a couple of days, not wanting to be a spoiler, in any way)

[Tony S]

It’s possible you don’t have the right answer if you aren’t sure how it all relates. This is a 100%er.

Gotta agree, take another look because you'll be sooooo mad if you only got part of the way there. This is one of those where there is no ADMONISHMENT, no remember the MAINE, no having to worry your MELLON, no PAGEANT to compete in, it is 100% all the way if you get the right answer.

So I liked the puzzle and the answer (of course I always do when I solve the meta), and I saw how GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE was between "matching pairs." However, I was led to believe from the clue to 40A that the sandwhich letters (a t s s s o d a) would somehow correspond to bread slices, e.g. that those letters would have spelled pumpernickel or something; if not that, then they would somehow correspond to the "meals" the answer letters were "between." The title was "Between Meals" -- what are the (plural) meals that our answer was between?

Between Meals confused me as well because I began looking for something hidden between types of ground grain (oat meal, corn meal, etc) or between b'fst, lunch, dinner, etc. but this went nowhere so I switched to the "matching pairs" clue and that led me to the solution. Thus the puzzle's title does not quite mesh with the answer as far as I can see.

[yourpalsal]

I was happy to get GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE, but was slightly nervous about that SODA in the bookends. Just a coincidence, I take it?

[burak]

Gotta agree, take another look because you'll be sooooo mad if you only got part of the way there. This is one of those where there is no ADMONISHMENT, no remember the MAINE, no having to worry your MELLON, no PAGEANT to compete in, it is 100% all the way if you get the right answer.

So I liked the puzzle and the answer (of course I always do when I solve the meta), and I saw how GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE was between "matching pairs." However, I was led to believe from the clue to 40A that the sandwhich letters (a t s s s o d a) would somehow correspond to bread slices, e.g. that those letters would have spelled pumpernickel or something; if not that, then they would somehow correspond to the "meals" the answer letters were "between." The title was "Between Meals" -- what are the (plural) meals that our answer was between?

Yeah - I kept looking for the letters "breakfast", "lunch", "supper", "dinner", etc. But first, I saw "ham", "beef" and "egg"; but couldn't connect them into any kind of answer. Should have latched onto "bookends" I guess, but kept trying to back to the title. The title is usually a very important hint. But - the only rule about the metas is "There are no rules"...

I'd say the title is always a very important hint, but that's what it is, a hint. In the beginning I had difficulty solving the meta sometimes because I was following the title, the prompt, the obvious hints etc. to a tee. Now I've learned that it's sometimes impossible -or just makes the answer too easy- for the constructors to very obviously define what the answer is going to be. Here, the title is a nice wordplay but it's better to stop at "between" and not expect a perfect match.

[Colin]

Seems like some folks are having trouble linking the solution to the title “Between Meals”? I don’t understand why... who doesn’t have a grilled ham and cheese between pancakes for breakfast and pizza for lunch?

[Al Sisti]

Well I did it to myself again. I was in such a hurry to get on the shore, I stopped when I found GRILLED CHEESE. My streak, which went back to Dec 2017 (you remember that one, right? A little thing called PAGEANT?) is over. Serves me right. Ah well, Thursday is another day.

[Nycerjohnnie]

It’s possible you don’t have the right answer if you aren’t sure how it all relates. This is a 100%er.

Gotta agree, take another look because you'll be sooooo mad if you only got part of the way there. This is one of those where there is no ADMONISHMENT, no remember the MAINE, no having to worry your MELLON, no PAGEANT to compete in, it is 100% all the way if you get the right answer.

So I liked the puzzle and the answer (of course I always do when I solve the meta), and I saw how GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE was between "matching pairs." However, I was led to believe from the clue to 40A that the sandwich letters (a t s s s o d a) would somehow correspond to bread slices, e.g. that those letters would have spelled pumpernickel or something; if not that, then they would somehow correspond to the "meals" the answer letters were "between." The title was "Between Meals" -- what are the (plural) meals that our answer was between?

It's a fair point, I'm not sure the title really makes sense this week. But I get the sense that the meta is not always tied so closely to the title?

[eagle1279]

I was happy to get GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE, but was slightly nervous about that SODA in the bookends. Just a coincidence, I take it?

I also noticed SODA but it was at the end of ATSSSODA so I agree it was a coincidence, not to mention the fact that I usually have a soda with my favorite sandwich...

[oldjudge]

Well I did it to myself again. I was in such a hurry to get on the shore, I stopped when I found GRILLED CHEESE. My streak, which went back to Dec 2017 (you remember that one, right? A little thing called PAGEANT?) is over. Serves me right. Ah well, Thursday is another day.

Not to worry, you will still be a first round pick in the meta draft.

[DrTom]

Gosh, I thought that the BETWEEN MEALS was a pretty good clue because sandwiches are between meals (a meal between tow pieces of bread). I also almost stopped at HAM AND CHEESE but saw the AGRA at the top and thought, "hmm is this also a word that fits the criteria but we don't use" remembering MADEBACON. Then I saw TILT and knew that it had to be part of the answer.

I said I almost posted a spoiler because I was going to make a pun on the Rabbit and say "Hm, wonder if he is a Welsh rabbit?" But since Welsh Rabbit (its original name as opposed to rarebit) is a grilled cheese I thought it would be a foul.

[UTHfan]

sure "between meals" would've been confusing but there were no meals I could find. scone? egg?

[Laura M]

Gosh, I thought that the BETWEEN MEALS was a pretty good clue because sandwiches are between meals (a meal between tow pieces of bread).
[...]

Exactly! Crossword/meta clues are all about looking at words and meanings in a different way. In this case, " 'between' meals" where "between" is an adjective (I guess) modifying "meals," as opposed to "between meals" where between is used more normally as a preposition.

I said I almost posted a spoiler because I was b=gong to make a pun on the Rabbit and say "Hm, wonder if he is a Welsh rabbit?" But since Welsh Rabbit (its original name as opposed to rarebit) is a grilled cheese I thought it would be a foul.

I love the Welsh rarebit/rabbit connection! But I agree that it would have been spoiler-adjacent to post it earlier...

[Al Sisti]

Well I did it to myself again. I was in such a hurry to get on the shore, I stopped when I found GRILLED CHEESE. My streak, which went back to Dec 2017 (you remember that one, right? A little thing called PAGEANT?) is over. Serves me right. Ah well, Thursday is another day.

Not to worry, you will still be a first round pick in the meta draft.

Well, there's that... Actually I'm taking this better than the old me would have (back when the Cowboys used to lose only a couple games a year, no one could talk to me for days after a loss. In the past few years, that would have amounted to a lot of "silence"). The only thing that would be a bummer would be if this is the week that mine is the first entry they pull.

[oldjudge]

Funny, I’m a life long Giant fan. However, in the mid-1990s I had the opportunity to meet some old Cowboys including Roger Staubach, Harvey Martin, Chuck Howley and Randy White, and to a man they were a pleasure to be around. Roger Staubach is one of the nicest people I have ever met.

[Joe Ross]

...that would have amounted to a lot of "silence"...

So, no silence, then?

:::sigh:::

Alas.

Alack.

[MaineMarge]

I thought that was a darned yummy meta

[Bird Lives]

I thought that the exterior letters would spell out some form of bread, like PUMPERNICKEL or PEPPERIDGE FARM WHOLE GRAIN HONEY WHEAT. Instead, it was ATSSSODA. I did find a recipe for it in the bread-and-crosswords subReddit, but alas all the grocery stores around here are out of yeast.

[Bird Lives]

You could think of BETWEEN as an adjective rather than an adverb. A "between meal" is meal consisting of something between two other identical things -- slices of bread or, in this case, letters. There were eight such sandwiches

[Toby]

I've enjoyed this discussion of what to call the ends of a loaf of bread. In Hebrew, one word is "neshika" which means "kiss" and probably refers to the fact that the ends of old fashioned bread loaves get stuck together while baking. It brought back long-ago memories of the unsliced Jewish rye bread we ate as children. It would have a small black and red label (I think it was a union label) pasted right on the crust, like a postage stamp, that was hard to remove. My grandmother told us children it would make us smart if we ate the label, and so we did. I think she was the smart one.

Speaking of sandwiches, another interesting discussion is what you call the ends of a loaf of bread

Crusts, but heard of heels. Wife is Canadian and calls them croûtes, which translates to crusts.

My wife turned me onto the Yiddish term "krycek" (not sure of the spelling; pronounced "cry-check"), which I have adopted. It struck me as funny because there was an X-Files character with that name and he was a bit of a "heel." I've always wondered if that was the inspiration for his name, but have never been able to confirm it.

[tim1217]

... I'm not sure the title really makes sense this week. But I get the sense that the meta is not always tied so closely to the title?

I find this to be especially true with Gaffney. That's why it's sometimes difficult to get a 100% feeling with his metas. Shenk usually ties it all together very nicely (IMHO).