Forget your BLT, just give me a T sandwich

[Y-Body]

It's a Southern thang ...
Forget your BLT, just give me a T sandwich

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GA. | It’s the time of year when you think you’re about as far from Christmas as you can possibly get. It’s hot, the slick fishing reel you found under the tree now whines like a police siren when you cast and everything on TV is a rerun.

But this is also the season of one of summer’s sweetest gifts, vine-ripe tomatoes. I was reminded of just how blessed some of us are while listening Friday morning to “Morning Edition” on National Public Radio.

Host Steve Inskeep was interviewing food blogger Dan Charles, who talked about three kinds of tomatoes, those bred tough enough to withstand the rigors of shipping, those grown in Mexican greenhouses and others grown in temperature-controlled hothouses.

The ones we common folk can afford are the first, the ones that ripen at 75 mph in dark boxes inside trucks on Interstate 95. “Supermarket tomatoes are often full of disappointment,” Charles said.

The only good thing about supermarket tomatoes is you could slice one in a wedding dress or tux. There’s no juice so there’s no worry. They’re like those lacy little purple cabbages people plant in their front flower beds in the winter, purely ornamental. They add a little pale red to a salad or sandwich and nothing else. They have the hardness and flavor of quartz.

But if you slice them thinly you can probably view solar eclipses through them without suffering eye damage.

Charles said his family grew their own tomatoes, and he ate tomato sandwiches in the summertime.

Inskeep was incredulous.

“Tomato sandwiches? Just bread and tomatoes?” he asked.

I can see why someone from outside the South wouldn’t appreciate tomato sandwiches, mainly because of inferior condiments north of the Mason-Dixon. I grew up with Duke’s mayonnaise and, thank God, it has survived. Mergers, hostile takeovers and other business dealings have destroyed the tastes of many brands — some ice creams come to mind — but Duke’s is still slathered on our sandwiches and stirred into our potato salad.

And we’ve never skimped on it. You can’t say you’ve had a tomato sandwich unless you have mayonnaise in the corners of your mouth.

We can get tomato-like objects year-round now. But even in my youth, tomatoes were available in the grocery store in the winter. Grown somewhere in Florida, they were more pink than red but they tasted more like tomatoes than those you buy today.

They came in threes in little plastic trays wrapped in cellophane. For those of you who don’t know, cellophane was a clear, crinkly plastic that you don’t see much anymore. Although it did have more flavor than modern supermarket tomatoes.

Maybe with a little salt and a lot of Duke’s mayonnaise …

[69camfrk]

Mater sammich: White bread, sliced homegrown mater, salt, pepper, 1/4 inch of Duke's mayo on both slices of bread, and slice of American cheese. It doesn't get any better than that. And for you poor suckers that aren't in the south, and can't get Duke's, you are missing out! Oh, for added zing, a big ole slice of Vidalia onion!

[RedLS1GTO]

You know what makes a tomato sammich better?

Bacon.

[Norm]

Home garden grown maters on white toast (dark), salt, pepper, mayo........all day long.

Spent a lot of time on SSI while training at FLETC, my favorite eating establishment, the Crab Trap on Ocean Blvd, just up from Saint Simon's Village. Their seafood type soups, chowder.........to die for.........Used to go by Davis Love III's house all the time, what a setup.

[Rob]

Dukes. Only dukes.

[lspencer534]

I picked up a few huge tomatoes at the Farmer's Market Tuesday, and I've been eating mater sammiches all weekend. White bread, Duke's mayo, and 2 thick slices of maters. I have two per sitting with baked Lay's BBQ chips and a Coke. Dayum! They're good!

[69camfrk]

Originally Posted by Norm

Home garden grown maters on white toast (dark), salt, pepper, mayo........all day long.

Spent a lot of time on SSI while training at FLETC, my favorite eating establishment, the Crab Trap on Ocean Blvd, just up from Saint Simon's Village. Their seafood type soups, chowder.........to die for.........Used to go by Davis Love III's house all the time, what a setup.

Man, I love the Crab Trap!!!!

[OddBall]

Originally Posted by 69camfrk

Mater sammich: White bread, sliced homegrown mater, salt, pepper, 1/4 inch of Duke's mayo on both slices of bread, and slice of American cheese. It doesn't get any better than that. And for you poor suckers that aren't in the south, and can't get Duke's, you are missing out! Oh, for added zing, a big ole slice of Vidalia onion!

[MrPeabody]

I will miss my tomato garden this summer. There 's nothing like the ones you grow. There is a produce stand not for from here that comes a darn close second, though. Also the ones at the Mexican market in town are pretty good, and half the price of the Supermarket, too.

Even when we grew our own, I used to go get large quantities at the produce stand when we canned tomato juice/V8 juice/Bloody Mary mix.

[Ms.Gem]

Oh yeah. Love me a good tomato sammich.

[OldSarge]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

You know what makes a tomato sammich better?

Bacon.

.....................

[Fasglas]

Ingredients...


Nothin' fancy...

[CertInsaneC5]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

You know what makes a tomato sammich better?

Bacon.

Originally Posted by OldSarge

.....................

There is a reason it's called a BLT and not a TBL sammich.

[snide]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

You know what makes a tomato sammich better?

Bacon.

Especially when you substitute the tomato with peanut butter.

[polarbear]

Toast, tomatoes, mayo, S&P. Every day when I came home from school- unless our avocado tree was on. Then it was the same thing- toast, avocado, seasoning salt, mayo.

[04 commemorative]

Originally Posted by RedLS1GTO

You know what makes a tomato sammich better?

Bacon.

And Hellmanns....

[Rob]

Originally Posted by 04 commemorative

And Hellmanns....

Ever tried Duke's?

[Giraffe (He/Him)]

A sandwich. Made from a tomato.

You people are a s t r a n g e bunch.

[WalkerInTN]

Originally Posted by 04 commemorative

And Hellmanns....

Hellmann's = potted meat.

Duke's = Porterhouse steak.

[Cybercowboy]

I only use Saptalich heirloom tomatoes grown in a very specific region of Arkansas that doesn't have any outside access other than pack mule. No more than a few dozen of these tomatoes make it to the outside, and only then can they obtained by engaging in a vicious bidding war attended by the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, or Bill Gates. Sometimes all three. Typically I'll start the bidding at around $50,000 per ounce, and see where it goes from there.

Once I've acquired several pounds of these tomatoes, only the finest artisanal bread will suffice. For that I hire a baker, flown in from France, for this critical duty. Sometimes this requires buying rather expensive equipment for his use, such as the French brick oven imported from Calais he demanded last season. Although his fee is extraordinary, he does come with his own sourdough starter and sea salt. This helps even out the expenses somewhat.

Then we have the matter of the pepper. Not just any will do. For my Saptalich roasted garlic aioli artisanal sourdough sandwiches, only the best Indian peppercorns from the temperate altitudes found in the foothills if the Himalaya mountains will do. These are carefully crushed using a diamond anvil device I had special made by a scientific instrument manufacturer.

And then we come to the final ingredient, roasted garlic aioli. This is a very time intensive process involving no less than 37 separate steps, and ingredients sourced from far and wide. The olive oil alone costs over $7000 per ounce. The roasted garlic takes days to prepare, as only a careful roasting only accomplished by an autoclave resting over 2000 meters below sea level will get the maximum out of those lovely cloves. I use the food processor only once for this and this alone, destroying it afterwards.

Sometimes, if I'm in a hurry, I'll just use Hellmans or Miracle Whip though. It depends on whether I can contract out the deep sea habitat that week.