It’s Just Not Summer without a Tomato Sandwich
It took moving to the South for me to appreciate the beauty of a proper tomato sandwich. Not that we didn’t get beautiful, juicy tomatoes of every conceivable variety in Minnesota.
It’s just – who would name with pride such a simple thing? A sandwich made merely from bread, mayonnaise, and a salt and pepper sprinkled slice of tomato? Sure, enjoy it. But where’s the effort?! What’s it done to deserve such a moniker, much less praise?
Well, praise be. This sandwich is deserving of all.
Once I’d learned that true mayonnaise is not the same thing as “salad dressing” (to which a ravenous nine-year-old me was subjected when a well-meaning aunt spread the latter between sandwich bread with a slab of Velveeta, all packed in a paper bag for an hours-long, stuffy bus-ride home; it nearly did me in; I digress, but I’m serious – no “salad dressing,” you know what I’m talking about, Miracle Whip),…
AND more specifically, after I’d discovered the pleasure of good old-fashioned Duke’s, I was on my way. Yes, by then I’d moved to central V-A and regularly drove past the stately brick warehouse that was the C. F. Sauer Company’s base of operations. (They had the most gorgeous rose bushes ringing the cast iron fence.) So I’m partial to Duke’s.
Side-note: When I reward our pup for coming when called with a dollop of Duke’s squeezed onto my finger, he comes every time.
With so few ingredients, each one counts. But most important is the tomato. If it’s winter in the north, and all you can get are those pucks picked green from somewhere you’d have to fly to find, don’t make this sandwich. Just don’t. Wait for summer when you can walk out back and pluck an orb warm from the sun or lift off the dirt-dusted stall of a local farmer’s market.
Others will tell you that you have to use white, sliced sandwich bread. I get it. And that’s fine. “Whatever blows your hair back,” as Mr. Hollywood throws around whenever there’s such a monumental decision to make. These days, I’ve been diggin’ Dave’s Killer Bread in thin slice – seedy or not (hair-blowing and all that). Just don’t toast it.
A few years back, Mr. Hollywood treated me to a birthday dinner down the road at a restaurant as celebrated as it is under-stated. It’s aptly named The Shack. They introduced us to J. Q. Dickinson salt. I love luxuries that still come in under ten bucks. Harvested from the remains of an ancient sea now under the Appalachian mountains, it’s pretty daggone delish. But whatever.
Use what you’ve got, and unless your doctor told you otherwise, don’t skimp. Not on the salt, not on the mayo, and definitely not on the tomato.
After all, isn’t that summertime: season of excess? Go crazy. Call it a tomato sandwich and rave, shameless as the long days’ sun.