The Classic Bacon & Tomato Sandwich

For as long as I can remember, the classic tomato and bacon sandwich is the first and best food of summer for me, and finally… FINALLY... my tomatoes are ripe.

It never really feels like summer to me until the produce starts coming in from the garden: cucumbers hiding in their trellises of vines, tomatoes starting to blush on the vine, zucchinis popping out to shock you with their size-of-a-bus secret hideaways. This year it’s been so wet and cool that my plants didn’t know what to do with themselves, and I have yet to get my watering routine set and going with any regularity because the rains have been so frequent and so heavy. I opted for some inexpensive greenhouses to protect my tomatoes from the late frosts we’re prone to getting until Mother’s Day, and while they did that trick the tomatoes were basically waiting for the sleepy pollinators to get to work and my tomatoes have been late, late, late. I’ve gotten outside to weed at least intermittently between studying, teaching, and job applications, and every time I venture out to the side garden it’s a jungle, which is the way the strawberries and carrots and morning glories and neighborhood cats like it, as well as the mosquitoes, henbit, and deadnettle. The tomatoes and cucumbers aren’t as enthusiastic, and the sedge and pigweed take advantage of that too. Finally though, the tomato vines are heavy with round green globes and I’ve been holding off from making my favorite Fried Green Tomatoes in anticipation of that first juicy sandwich.

In my opinion, there is no more perfect way to enjoy a beautiful tomato than sliced and resting in its own juices on a cool plate. I’m well-known in my family because as a child I would exit the family car upon arrival at my grandparents’ house and, feet never ceasing motion even as I hugged my Nannie hello (“whyyyyyy, look who it is!” she’d always say when I opened the back door, in a voice that I will never, ever forget and always love until the day I die), go directly to the kitchen counter or back out to my Granddaddy’s spacious garden to select a ripe, fresh tomato and slice it and enjoy it with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. A very close second to that joy, and its natural descendant, is a simple tomato and bacon sandwich. No fancy bread, no elite ingredients, unless you count that perfectly acidic red globe of juicy splendor. Just white bread, mayonnaise, bacon, tomato, salt, pepper. You may, if you absolutely have to, add things like lettuce or avocado or other extraneous things, but you can save that stuff for another day, the perfect bacon and tomato sandwich doesn’t need it. I’ll write out a recipe below just in case you’ve never had one and want to try it, but it’s as simple as it is good and anyone can make it.

Bonus fun: One of my favorite exercises to do in studying technical writing and computer science was the Peanut Butter Sandwich Problem (watch this great video below that shows the process and is one of my favorite things but also bless that boy’s heart he’s so frustrated OMG) Always great to apply those skills I’ve been studying, so feel free to send me TikToks of your sandwich attempts following along. I may or may not have made a few steps a little more vague than necessary just to add to the fun.