re: Consider the tomato of the field: TulaneLSU’s guide to the tomato sandwich

Friend,

By no means an expert like you, I am here to share some of my triumphs, but more often my failures, and learn from masters like you. When it comes to tomato sandwiches, I will happily sit at your feet and listen to your teachings.

That said, it was back to the kitchen this morning. As the tomatoes flow in each morning to our cousins house, I feel like Montgomery Brewster. The harder I try to put a dent in this mountain, the taller the mountain of tomatoes becomes. And please be assured, none of the photographs in my posts contain a tomato that has ever been refrigerated. Perhaps the water droplets have aggravated a case of presbyopia or macular degeneration.

My first attempt was a take on the Insalata Caprese, whose etiology, like the pizza, is incorrectly, though wistfully, attributed to a dish representing Italian national pride. Regarding Caprese sandwiches, if you have never had Il Classico at Casa Della Mozzerella in the land named for Jonas Bronck, you have not experienced the heights to which this dish can soar. Casa has arguably the best mozzerella in the States, phenomenal bread, sourced at a nearby Teitel Brothers, believe it or not a Jewish bakery in the middle of America's real Little Italy. But their tomatoes are not as good as Grandfather's or even our cousins'.

This morning, I toasted the fancy sandwich bread to a nice crisp. Then using fresh moozt made by BelGioioso, which suffices but does not set any great standards, the sandwich was nearing completion. A few swirls of GV extra virgin olive oil, or Bramasole if you prefer, and a dash of salt and pepper covered the tomato slices. Nearly forgetting the fresh basil from the garden, I jumped to my scissors and did my best Dom DeMarco impression, chopping basil to a finer consistency than Dom did when he was alive and making arguably the best pizza in Brooklyn before Mark Iacono, who learned much of what he knows from Dom and will freely say so.





So would I rather this sandwich or the Il Classico from Casa? The tomato was undeniably better here, but overall, Il Classico remains the standard bearer.

Due to the criticism I received for using the precooked Hormel, which I insist is a good product, I opted for the Hempler's European brand center cut bacon. Cooking it on low, it took nearly an hour to cook a pound, which ran $6 a pound. There is much more meat than fat with this bacon, and it tastes like both bacon and good ham at the same time.



My gourmet bread was toasted once again, perfectly golden to hold the meats. No salt, no pepper, and certainly no mayo were needed to make this a smoky, savory, and fresh snack. I was contemplating the Trinity earlier, so I considered how I might cut this in three pieces, which I did. I shall call this the TulaneLSU cut: two equilateral triangles from the NW and SE corners and then a chevron shaped center cut of the sandwich. Unfortunately, our hosts did not have any toothpicks.





For dessert, I decided to make a second ham and tomato sandwich, but add a sweet component. We have plenty of fresh Driscolli strawberries, so I added them to the ham. It was a smashing good sandwich I call "The Triple Red." The sugar, sour, salt, and acidity are a powerful combination.



I currently have a pot of Lima beans, which people here call creamer beans, going in the pot with the leftover bacon fat and drippings. I think a tomato and lima bean sandwich is in the near future. Do not worry -- I shall keep you informed.



Yours,
TulaneLSU

That look’s disgusting.

Friend,

Thank you for your heartwarming story about your mother's lima beans. I wonder what she was doing to cause them to be so gritty. Did she try them from multiple farmers? Regardless, I will never downvote your post about your dislike of Lima beans. And do not give up on your tomatoes!

I have been in the test kitchen all morning at our cousin's, not Cousin's. We started with some eggs from a neighbor's yard chickens. They were, as some say, yummy. I lightly scrambled them and then added some of the thick European bacon from yesterday.







Moving on to more savory topics, being that it is America's Independence Day, I went to the Walmart and purchased a ten pack of Oscar Meyer classic hotdogs at the roll down price of $2.50. I also purchased another loaf of bread. The Great Value white loaf was $1.32 and the Bunny bread was $3.56, so it was an easy choice: GV. As for hotdogs, it has been at least a year since my last hot dog. They have a charcoal pit here, so I brought it to temperature for the two hotdogs I was cooking.

One of my younger cousins saw how I had fileted each dog down the middle in order for the dogs to have a flat surface. She said, "Why do you do that like that?"

After correcting her use of dangling modifiers, I responded, "This is how Bud's Broiler cooks them. It is the only way to make a hotdog palatable."

After constructing the comestible, her precociousness continued: "Why are you eating your hot dog on a sandwich."

"Young lady, this is not a hot dog. It is a tomato sandwich with pickles and New Orleans style hotdogs with it. The tomato sandwich is like James Earl Jones baseball soliloquy in The Field of Dreams."

She responded dumbfounded, "Field of what?"

"It is a baseball movie long before your time. Anyway, everything that he says about baseball could apply to the tomato sandwich. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But the tomato sandwich has marked the time.

"This bun, this sandwich -- it's a part of our past, cousin. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

"Ohhhh, people will come, cousin. People will most definitely come."

She left without saying another word.





And finally, it is time for me to reveal the big sandwich: the Lima bean and tomato sandwich. It is such a perfect duo of summer time produce that it is amazing why it is not a tradition in itself. After constructing it, I know why it is not. The little beans are, as Julia Roberts once describing snails, "Slippery little suckers." Keeping all your beans between the comfy confines of your bread is nearly impossible. Even with two hefty hunks of tomato, you will still lose a majority. But the bites that remain filled with the beans are exceptional.





We may well be approaching the dimensions of a Top 10 list. So many tomatoes and ideas remain.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Seeing a thread begin with "Consider" makes me miss Coolidge

Friend,

We have a haul today! I finished 14 lbs of heirlooms and tomorrow promises to be another tomato day! If time permits I shall share my latest tomato discoveries. Salt versus soy shall be explored.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

I like my version. Fresh, ripe home grown tomato, thickly sliced, mayo on both sides, salt and black pepper, all on white Bunny bread (not toasted) Simple perfection. :)

A tomato sandwich is good and all but damn I wish I was this bored.

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I have eaten 18 pounds of tomatoes today, including 12 tomato sandwiches, one representing each of the disciples.

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Don’t you mean apostles?

Jesus Christ has many disciples, including those of us on this board. But there are only 12 Apostles.

This thread compelled me to take the drive out to Romeville and go to Rome's Homegrown Tomatoes, but they're closed for the season. Guess I've gotta find an alternative. Any recs?

quote:

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Seeing a thread begin with "Consider" makes me miss Coolidge

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Yeah, needed a "tm: Coolidge" somewhere in there. And most posts need to credit John Kennedy Toole.