Here in the south this time of year there are two things that are high on the list of important and debatable topics:
- Duke’s or Hellman’s
- To peel or not to peel
Growing up in Texas just a mere few decades ago there was no choice at all. Hellman’s was your only choice. One dare not venture to the Miracle Whip side of town or your grandmother’s silver would be summarily repossessed. Now I know this will ruffle a few feathers’s but, after living in North Carolina, a few decades and a few hundred tomato sandwiches made with Duke’s later… I surmise that had Duke’s been in Texas when I was around there would have been a hefty debate as to the finer points of why Duke’s was on my sandwich. Now I can feel a few of you Hellman’s advocates beginning to strut around like a banny rooster at sun up, but all the crowing in the county will not change my mind.
Way back when I was eating Hellman’s mayo and tomato sandwiches in Texas my tomato’s were big, fat, and doused with plenty of salt and black pepper and dare I say… unpeeled. I was not educated enough to understand that the reason you peeled your tomato was it might have looked a little unladylike like when you bit into that juicy ripe tomato and as the juice was dripping down your face that some skins were so tough that they made you do your best beaver interpretation to knaw through that tough ole skin, so as not to pull the whole tomato slab right out of your cheap white bread.
How dd I come to this new epiphany? Well, one of my sorority sisters and I were arm wrestling over “to peel or not to peel” and “Duke’s or Hellman’s” one sweltering day and she helped me realize the error of my old ways.
One can say when you know better you do better..so today even though this may make my grandmother turn over in her grave, I say if I have my druther’s I would eat a tomato sandwich with Dukes Mayo, with peeled tomatoes on a loaf of country white bread from my favorite little gourmet food and gift shop Dandelion and Friends. Now I know ya’ll know I am partial because people I love bake that bread. Even though my heart is in North Carolina I am a transplanted Texan. I still have a few of my Texan ways and Texans say-If it’s true it ain’t braggin’. And Ya’ll it is true!
That bread is darn good! Try it out yourself. Even if you are a Hellman’s, unpeeled tomato heathen. I’ll pray for you!
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