The Tomato Sandwich Is the Most Honest Lunch in Georgia

There is a week in July, usually the second or third, when the tomatoes in my neighbor Mr. Pruitt's garden are so ripe they split on the vine. He leaves a paper sack of them on my steps without knocking. That is my signal that it is tomato sandwich season, and for about three weeks I eat one nearly every day.

People who didn't grow up here sometimes look at a tomato sandwich and think it must be missing something. It isn't. It is white bread, mayonnaise, a thick slice of tomato, salt and pepper. That is the whole thing, and it is the most honest lunch I know, because there is nowhere for a bad ingredient to hide.

The tomato is everything

You cannot make this sandwich in January. You can try, and you will get something cold and pink that tastes like the refrigerator. The tomato has to be heavy for its size, warm from the sun if you can manage it, and so ripe that cutting it leaves your board wet.

I like the big ugly ones best, the heirlooms with the cracks around the shoulders. Mr. Pruitt grows a deep purple variety that he got from his mother and won't tell me the name of. I suspect he doesn't know it either. I cut it into slices nearly half an inch thick, one slice per sandwich if it covers the bread, two if it doesn't.

The bread is soft on purpose

This is where I part ways with some of my food friends who want sourdough or something toasted. The bread should be plain soft white sandwich bread. The whole point is that the tomato juice soaks into it and the bread gives way a little when you bite. Toast fights the tomato. Crusty bread scrapes the roof of your mouth.

I will allow one exception: if the bread is a day old, you can toast it very lightly, just enough to warm it.

About the mayonnaise

The mayonnaise needs to be generous and it needs to go all the way to the edges of both slices. It is a seal as much as a seasoning. It keeps the bread from going soggy too fast and it carries the salt and pepper.

Down here people will argue about brands of mayonnaise with more heat than they argue about politics. I'm not going to name one. I will say it should be tangy rather than sweet, and that homemade is lovely if you have the patience, which in July I usually don't.

How to eat it

Salt the tomato slice heavily, more than you think. Grind black pepper over it. Put it together, press it gently, and eat it standing over the kitchen sink, because it is going to drip down your wrist. That is not a flaw. That is how you know it was a good tomato.

My grandfather ate his with a glass of buttermilk and a raw green onion on the side. I've tried it and I understand him, although I usually go for iced tea.

By the end of July the tomatoes start to get mealy and the sack on my steps comes less often. I always feel a little sad when the last one is gone. Then I remember that the best foods are the ones you have to wait a whole year for, and I start counting.