This time I'm almost positive I'm right. When it comes to a tomato sandwich, you're not going to make one unless it's with a home grown tomato. So, that's a given: tomato sandwiches are made with homegrown, truly vine ripe tomatoes. So the core value of a tomato sandwich is simplicity to let that (for most people who don't grow tomatoes or have a friend who does) rare commodity shine. There is nothing like the taste of a vine ripened Georgia grown tomato. You want a very basic bread- fresh white for me. A little mayonnaise and maybe some salt and pepper. You peel the tomato, slice it, put it between the two pieces of bread. You then cut the sandwich in half on the diagonal (because that makes all sandwiches better) and eat it. If you can make and eat while the tomato is still warm from being in the summer sun: all the more better.
Store bought tomatoes are an after thought for most sandwiches. A nice little piece, but unless homegrown and ripened on the vine, nothing special. A borderline garnish.
Would you believe there are people who take that home grown tomato and put it in a sandwich with sandwich spread, cheese, pickles, and then grill it. It's not a bad sandwich. I tasted one. But in that sandwich, the tomato is just another tomato. The flavor, so rare and subtle, just becomes run of the mill tomato flavor.
So what?
I want it to be about the things where there is a clear right and conversely wrong way to do or think about something, and in this case I am clearly right.
I want it to be about knowing what's really important and not cluttering it up with other stuff that detracts from the important thing that we as leaders have to identify and help others understand.
I want it to be about people realizing that they don't need all that other stuff. The best thing is right here. We already have it.
But it's still that you can usually be right and alone and lonely or in a community and less in touch with your rightness.
The main reason I would want someone to make their tomato sandwich my way is because I do believe it's the best way to honor the tomato, but also a part of it is I need the energy I can gain from someone doing something my way. Which will leave them feeling a little less energized and still wondering what the grilled sandwich with pickles and sandwich spread would taste like.
Can we make our sandwiches and not just tolerate how others make theirs, but try to gain some understanding of why they like their sandwiches so much and how we can love them (the people, not their sandwiches) better?
How do you like your tomato sandwich?
1 comment:
I scrape the mayo on the bread so that it doesn't overpower the tomato. I like white bread that gets gummy and clings to the roof of my mouth. I peel, salt and pepper the tomatoes about an hour ahead of time, marinated to heighten the flavor of the tomato. And it's "big boy" or "better boy" grown in georgia red clay with manure added.
But honestly, I don't see many of these tomatoes. My deck pots don't produce much and the rest of my yard is too shady.
Mostly I find myself poking at red things and asking whether that's a "real" mater or something bought in a store. (Real maters can't be bought.) It's usually when I'm peeling that I make a decision (fake maters are hard to peel-and I have this vision of someone in a cowboy hat asking "are you a real tomato" but that's another movie). But it's nice when someone gets excited and points out a brandywine or a cherokee purple. If it weren't for people's enthusiasm about such things I'd never try anything but big boy and better boy. Although I'm still not sure whether yellow Jubilees are really tomatoes, but I'm content to eat them anyways, and they taste good if I close my eyes and not look at what I'm eating.
I'm sorry, what was the question?
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