My Current Take on the Components of a BLT

Bacon Like many folks, I’m a huge fan of bacon.  It’s great in any role:  the main attraction, a side dish, or an enhancement.  Yes, it’s nothing if not versatile.

But I believe I like it best as an enhancement.  I love a bacon cheeseburger, for instance, or crumbly bacon on a salad.  I also nearly weep with joy whenever I get a big hunk of smoky bacon in a spoonful of potato soup.  Oh god, I feel a stirring in my loins, just thinking about it…

And is there any better smell in this world, than bacon frying in the morning while camping?  I submit that there is not.

I love a good BLT, and I’m also fond of the club sandwich, and the thick-cut stuff served with breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Any style of bacon gets a big thumbs-up from me.  Even the fake bacon (fakon?), known as Bac-Os, will do in a pinch.

Canadian bacon, however, isn’t bacon at all.  It’s ham.  But that’s OK, I’ll eat that too.

Lettuce As unlikely as it might seem, I get irritated about lettuce.  Because, you see, I prefer the good ol’ fashioned iceberg variety, and hoity-toity pains-in-the-asses always want to lecture me about it.  They snicker in a condescending tone, as if they’re dealing with a large retarded boy, and tell me that iceberg lettuce has no nutritional value whatsoever.

And I always shout, “Who cares?!”  If it’s important to you to impress your friends by eating slimy-ass hedge trimmings, then go ahead.  But leave me out of it.  All my life do-gooders have been preaching to us about eating more fruits and vegetables, and saying catty things like, “Hey, have you ever thought about maybe having a salad every once in a while?”

And when we do have a salad, they start bitching about that, too!  And criticizing, and belittling…  What the hell, man?  They’re like overzealous Baptist ministers from the Florida panhandle, or something.  Why can’t they just worry about their own lives, and stay out of mine?  Man, if you have elitist views about lettuce, then perhaps you should take a good long look at yourself?  I mean, seriously.

I’ve always enjoyed a good garden salad, and coercion was never necessary with me.  I would happily eat a big bowl of the stuff every day.  And I’m not the kind who dumps a tumbler-full of Kraft Thousand Island on there, either.  I use a shockingly small amount of dressing, and if the iceberg lettuce isn’t as nutritious as the slimy kind, I’m perfectly fine with it.  It’s something I’m able to deal with, on an emotional level.  Sure, it took a little counseling, but I’m there now.

So, please feel free to blow it out your ass.

Tomato I don’t like a big juicy tomato, I prefer the firm kind with not a lot of residual run-off.  I don’t really understand how this is possible, since I’ve spent very little time shopping for groceries during my life, but I have theories and techniques associated with the purchase of produce.

For instance, a firm head of lettuce will yield much more usable salad fixings than a spongy head.  And cucumbers often have soft spots, and thus require an extra-thorough inspection.  Tomatoes, I believe, should be firm and not too gigantic.  I’m not a fan of the Gilligan’s Island radioactive seed produce.  Outrageously large items often taste a bit… mealy.

I like tomatoes as a sandwich topping, and whenever there’s some kind of drought or whatever, and tomatoes are scarce, I still insist on them.  They usually have passive-aggressive signs that say things like, “We’ll still give you a tomato slice if you specifically ask for one, but they’re really expensive and rare right now, and baby children might by dying somewhere…”  And I always say, “Yeah, put it on there anyway!  Give me the tomato!”

Because I will not be manipulated by fast-food signage.

Mayonnaise I’ve long considered mayo to be the devil’s condiment.  It’s a disgusting substance.  I never use it at home, and become enraged when restaurant workers ignore my emphatic “no mayo” directive.  It’s as if they’re hard-wired to add that nastiness to every sandwich, and do not possess the ability to hold back on it.  There’s a very real cult of mayonnaise that’s difficult to counter.

However, I don’t mind it on a Wendy’s burger, for some reason.  Unless, of course, the burger-builder goes overboard and there’s a pronounced oozing.  I can’t explain this phenomenon, but there you go.  At Wendy’s I only tell ‘em to hold the pickles, and allow the workers to move forward with the mayo.  Believe me, this is a big deal.

I don’t like it on a BLT, though.  But I know most people do, and that’s why I’ve included it in today’s important exercise.

A memorable mayonnaise event:  I was in a Subway sandwich shop early one afternoon, nursing a wicked hangover.  This was years ago, in California (I think).  There was a couple in front of me, each around 19 or 20 years old, and it was as if they were ordering the anti-Jeff sanglich.  It was everything I hated, all in one place.

I think it was a tuna sub, and they wanted extra pickles (blecch) and loads of black olives (double blecch).  Then the guy said, “And LOTS of mayonnaise… LOTS of it!”  So, the sandwich engineer began moving that mayo nozzle back and forth across the hideous thing, and it began piling up at an alarming rate of speed.  “More!” the couple encouraged with enthusiasm, and that nozzle just kept unleashing evil unto this world.

By the time it was over, there was a large, quivering, shiny pile of mayonnaise atop the sandwich, and I very nearly vomited into a potted plant.  I don’t say that to be funny, my stomach literally began the launch sequence, and I was looking around for a place to blow it.

But I was somehow able to maintain, and I just stared straight ahead and thought about baseball until that awful thing was off the premises.

Toast It’s funny how the simple toasting of two slices of bread can turn a boring sandwich into something special, in two minutes flat.  Even a dull ham & cheese sandwich is elevated by a set of heated-bread bookends, or ear muffs, or whatever.

A BLT must feature toast, in my opinion, but I’ve met people who eat them on raw bread slices right outta the sack.  I find that to be ridiculous, but whatever.

Some sandwiches, however, cannot be made with toasted bread.  Like peanut butter & jelly.  Peanut butter on toast is fine, but the introduction of jelly changes things.  I also like meatloaf sandwiches on plain white bread.  Cold, leftover meatloaf on white bread:  yum.  Again, I can’t explain it, I can only report the facts.

Now, if you have anything to say about my assessment of the BLT components, please use the comments link below.  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Want to add some additional data?  Now’s your chance.

And I’ll see you guys again on Tuesday.

Have a great day!

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