Tomato Sandwich

Tomato sandwiches and I go back a long, long way. As a young sailor, I scrimped and saved to bring my young bride overseas; part of that was to live on tomato sandwiches for lunch five days a week. I could get them for a quarter each at the snack bar next to my workplace. Deceptively simple, but delicious! I’ve enjoyed them every since.

As I type this many, many years later, I’m devouring a tomato sandwich. It’s a bit more involved than my basic toast, tomato, mayo, pepper thing, but not by much. I know it may seem weird to have tomatoes and bread without bacon, but for me, it works. I’ve even been known to cook up a mess of bacon, but have it on the side instead of in the sandwich with the the tomato. And you can forget the lettuce altogether, thankyouverymuch. In my mind, there are much better alternatives.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first, then I’ll offer some of my variations.

Ingredients:

Bread
Tomatoes
Mayonaisse
Cracked Pepper

Instructions:

Like you really need these, but still…

Toast the bread.

Slice the tomatoes.

Put some mayo on the toast.

Pile tomato slices on top.

Crack some pepper over the tomatoes.

Cover it with the other piece of toast.

Devour.

Repeat as needed.

Variations:

Before we discuss any additions, let’s talk about the basics. For starters, there’s the bread. Obviously, you can make these with plain old white bread. You know, the stuff moms used for centuries for school lunches and the like. That’s what they used when I was buying tomato sandwiches four for a dollar, and they were great!

But why stop there? These days I’m into multi-grain breads. You can get some pretty darn good bread for not too much money if you check prices. They’re a lot better for you, and they have a much heartier taste, toasted or plain. Another favorite of mine is a bakery loaf of unsliced white bread. My bread knife helps me measure out the thickest slice I can cram into my wide-mouth toaster. Two of those, with a stack of tomato slices? Pure heaven!

As for the tomatoes, my two favorite varieties are beefsteak and roma. I like the beefsteak tomatoes because they’re big and Manly. No need to cut half slices to sit next to a whole slice to cover the bread. Just stack them one on top of the other, like poker chips. Big, fat, juicy poker chips. Sometimes I find beefsteaks so big, they’re bigger than the bread! Roma tomatoes just taste great. In comparison to other varieties, they don’t seem to have as much seed and pulp. Really, though, anything but cherry and grape tomatoes will be fine, and you can even use the baby tomatoes in an emergency. So go with what’s available. And just for fun, during the summer when you see them, you could layer yellow tomatoes with the red ones.

The last thing I want to point out is that, over time, I’ve found that a lot of very thin slices works better than thicker ones. I could go into all sorts of discussion on this, but let’s save some time. Try different thicknesses  to find what works best for you. But I would definitely start with thin slices.

I’m not going to tell you which brand of mayo to use. And I’m not going to whine and moan if you decide to use a mayo substitute. Just use whichever white stuff makes your mouth the happiest. And don’t skimp on the fresh, cracked pepper. It’s that last little thing that makes these sandwiches so good.

Now… if you’re still with me – and not busy slapping some of these together – we get to the add-ons. This is a limited list because once you get past this, you’re no longer in Tomato Sandwich Territory. You get into the “Tomato and … ” part of the landscape. But still, there are a few things you can add without crossing the culinary line.

Onions – I cut an onion in half, then half again. Working with one quarter of the onion, I slice them as thin as I can. Paper thin. See-the-knife-through-the-slice thin. Again, for me, lots of thin slices work better than one thick one.

Cilantro or parsley leaves – If you happen to have some fresh cilantro or parsley around, do yourself a favor and drop a bunch on top of your tomatoes before closing up your sandwich. They not only add flavor, they’re very healthy. And since this qualifies as Health Food in my kitchen, I get extra Manly Points for adding the leaves.

Any spices excluded, that’s about the end the additions you can consider before you’re out of basic territory, as mentioned above. But if you do stray, that’s OK, too. Just call it what it is; don’t hide behind a false name for your creation.

And there you have it: the humble but lovable tomato sandwich. Why not hit the local farmer’s market before it’s too late and get you some big home-grown tomatoes and…

Play with your food!

Lane

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