Thoughts on a BLT

The way that we celebrate the first great tomatoes of the year has not changed since I was a child: making and devouring the fabled tomato sandwich. We look forward with extreme anticipation to the long-standing annual ritual of sandwiching juicy slabs of the first tomatoes between two slices of white bread slathered in mayonnaise. Just the thought of that first tomato sandwich of the year makes me drool.

In addition to drooling, there is something primal about the slurry of tomato juice and mayonnaise dribbling down your face while eating a perfect tomato sandwich. The mess is a defining part of the tomato sandwich rite; without the mess, it can't be a great sandwich.

An Amazing BLT

After the first few tomato sandwiches of the summer have scratched the tomato sandwich itch for us, we are ready to move on to the first BLT of the year. The BLT may be the simplest and best sandwich on the planet. The synthesis of firm white bread, juicy acidic umami-laden slabs of ripe tomato, silky fatty mayonnaise, smoky chewy salty strips of thick bacon, and sweet crisp lettuce forms a sandwich whose flavor and texture is light years ahead of the sum of its constituent parts.

The BLT's glory lies in its simplicity and it is a sandwich that begs not to be improved. Its downfall can also lie in its simplicity. Without the absolute best quality ingredients, the BLT can fail miserably.

In our three years out here in Oregon's Willamette Valley, we have learned much about flora and fauna, what can grow and what cannot, what the seasons are like, local customs and products, all things that were alien to us when we relocated from Virginia.

A key finding with respect to the ultimate tomato and BLT sandwiches: for the same reason that this is a world-class location in which to grow wine grapes, it is not so great for tomatoes. Those cool night temperatures that are so vital to preserving the acidity in wine grapes do not ripen tomatoes like we were used to on the East Coast where the night time temperatures rarely dip below the mid 60s.

Our night time cool temperatures surprise many people. Living here in the heart of wine country, wine tourism is huge business. We see our share of summer visitors from all over the US and the world, especially for the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) at the end of July every year (except of course in 2020, the totally unprecedented wild card year of our lives).

During high summer at the end of July, we are likely to have daytime temperatures into the 90s like much of the country, totally expected by our guests. That said, I cannot tell you how many IPNC visitors each summer resist our advice to pack a sweater. With our nighttime temperatures down into the 50s, they soon wish they had listened. No lie: yesterday morning we awoke to 47 degrees.

Those temperatures, while extremely pleasant for us, pose a problem for our tomatoes. Where in Virginia, we could reliably expect field-ripened tomatoes about the July 4th holiday, push that back another month out here. We are just now getting into tomato season in the second week of August. Moreover, while any fresh field-ripened tomato is a good tomato, our Oregon-grown tomatoes just do not have the depth of flavor that we are used to. Even though our tomatoes are not ideal, they are still good enough to be worth celebrating.

The other key finding about Oregon: Duke's mayonnaise is hardly to be found out here. Duke's is a bit more acidic and richer than other competitors and has been my go-to mayonnaise all my life, spent mainly in Virginia, with short stints in Maryland, Alabama, and Texas. A Virginian by birth and at heart, my allegiance has always been to the Duke's brand owned by the C.F. Sauer company of Richmond, Virginia. Their headquarters on Broad Street is a Richmond landmark. Alas, they have been acquired by a North Carolina company. Though such is the way of the world: Duke's was originally a Greenville, SC brand before Sauer bought it in the 1920s.

One final thought about mayonnaise. You would think that with my insistence on the best of ingredients for the perfect BLT, that I would make my own mayonnaise. And you're right. I can make better mayonnaise in my kitchen than I can buy. But that's not how a BLT is made. You have to make it with your brand so that you can throw shade at everyone who prefers another brand. And we'll not even mention those deplorables who favor Miracle Whip.