Tomato Sandwiches

Finally, the first bright red tomato has ripened on our vines and was quickly eaten.

The first tomato has to be used in the South’s favorite sandwich, the sliced tomato sandwich.

It seems there are quite a few experts on making these sandwiches. My, the internet comes in handy. Headlines, “The Secret to making the Very Best Tomato Sandwich” which gives you such sound advice as this sandwich is not a sandwich with tomatoes, it is a sandwich made with nothing but a tomato.

They do make two points that 99 3/4% of us know. You have to use the cheap white bread that is a no-no the rest of the year and you have to eat it over the kitchen sink. If the sneaky tomato slice isn’t escaping from between the two pieces of cheap white bread requiring you to capture it before it hits the sink, then it’s the juice combined with an unhealthy portion of mayonnaise dripping down your chin.

Proper Southern mothers know that you use toasted bread for the tomato sandwich, but who has time to toast bread when it is the first tomato of the season, just grab it and run for the white bread. Toasting bread is way down most of our lists for this annual feast.

According to one article, there are 17 ways to build a better tomato sandwich. Besides eating 17 of these messy things, what else can you add? Some suggestions were slather your bread in butter and toast in a frying pan. Where are my cholesterol pills? Add some slices of avocado.

Oh, yes, let me go pick an avocado from my grove or where ever they grow. Now one suggestion did make a lot of sense, add some crisp bacon slices(skip the lettuce). Some leaves of basil or arugula? Who wrote this stuff?

And lastly the mayonnaise, you know the brand. Isn’t it worth it to have the very best on this occasion?

Bon appetit, y’all.