The Only Bread You're Allowed To Use For Tomato Sandwiches

A tomato sandwich might be a curiosity to some people, but to those who grew up in the Southern United States with a taste for tomatoes, it is one of the best dishes on the planet. Tomato sandwiches are exactly what they sound like: tomato slices sandwiched between two slices of bread, plus some mayonnaise. Of course, such simplicity warrants excellent ingredients, and although the tomato is the star of the show here, even the type of bread you use matters.

Before you reach for a $10 loaf of sourdough (America's choice during tough times) or an artisan brioche, know that the majority of Southerners will agree that the absolute best bread for a tomato sandwich is soft white sandwich bread, the kind you can pick up in any grocery store, not a fancy French bakery. You don't want anything to take away from the flavor of your tomato, like a nutty or flavored bread, and your teeth should sink right into the sandwich, so it's not the time for a chewy crumb. In addition, white sandwich bread works like a sponge to absorb some of that glorious tomato juice that will undoubtedly ooze out of the fruit as you bite into it.

In addition to the bread, you should aim to use the biggest and best tomatoes you can find, preferably homegrown or heirloom varieties from a local farmer's market. These also happen to be the best types for BLT sandwiches. As far as the mayonnaise goes, Duke's brand is king in the South, but any good mayo will do.

Heirloom tomatoes and the recipes they inspire are popular all over the country, which might make you wonder why the South took to the tomato sandwich so fiercely. Simply put, tomatoes like heat, and a lot of it. The fruit that thinks it's a veggie thrives in very warm temperatures, of which the South provides generously, especially in the summertime. In such conditions, tomatoes grow big and juicy, and in bulk, so the sandwich could have been a way to consume excessive amounts of them.

The earliest reference to the tomato sandwich can be found in an article titled, "Diet of the Teetotaler" from the "Alexandria Gazette," published on October 21, 1911. The author describes eating a meal that consisted of a lettuce and tomato sandwich, watermelon, iced tea, and a slice of coconut pie. Southerner or not, even after more than 100 years, that sounds amazing.

Interestingly enough, when tomatoes first came to the United States in the 1800s, they were considered poisonous. It was Thomas Jefferson who urged people to reconsider this assumption; he himself planted tomato seeds in his own garden at Monticello in Virginia where they, no doubt, grew beautifully due to the Southern climate. By the 1850s, tomatoes were considered a safe and delicious food.

Whether or not Jefferson ate his tomato slices on bread, we might never know. But if he is like other passionate gardeners, he might have stood right there in the soil and chomped on a ripe, just-picked tomato. Which is, perhaps, the second best way to eat garden tomatoes, right behind the tomato sandwich.