The Annual BLT Feast

Sunday morning I woke with a sense of purpose. It was time for the annual BLT gorging event!  I started the BLT feast fest a few years ago, when I started growing heirloom variety tasty big tomatoes. I focused on the details: bread, bacon, lettuce, and mayonnaise, as well as the tomatoes, and it is worth building a day around it.

Variety of tomatoes from my garden in 2008

I do not buy supermarket tomatoes. There is no point. I know what tomatoes taste like and it's not that. I have often grown tomatoes, in Michigan and Ohio, and Illinois, and now here in Maryland. I've had sometimes spectacular success.  I've even had too many to deal with and ended up composting half rotted ones when I didn't make sauce in time.  I've also had crop failures. When I've not had a real vegetable garden, I've never-the-less had a tomato plant or two.  This year, I decided against even that. (The fields are lying fallow to get rid of the persistent fungus.) I know at the two terrific farmer's markets nearby I'd be able to get a wide variety of really good fruit just when I want them.

I awoke with the plan pretty well worked out in my head already. First, too much time in the car the day before resolved me to do the purchasing via Vespa. It also helps with any parking problems. So I needed a small backpack and one canvas shopping bag.  First, to farmer's market for bread and tomatoes. Then, drop stuff at home and go in the opposite direction for bacon and lettuce (no good local lettuce this time of year). Then, everything to the kids house, where they would share at least parts of my feast.

Waterpenny Farm, at Takoma Park farmer's market, has the widest selection of heirloom tomatoes of any place I've ever shopped. I've grown fond of the large pink and purple tomatoes. The first one I ever had I raised myself from seed:  Pruden's Purple. It changed the way I think about tomatoes. I have not had as much success with that variety since the first time - around here, I get maybe four or five tomatoes all season off one plant. The more common varieties that are similar - Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple - apparently behave better around here. I couldn't limit myself to just one variety, however. I ended up with eight dollars worth of tomatoes, pink and purple and orange and red and yellow. All big ones, good for sandwiches.

Then, the bread. I love bread. I eat very little bread. I don't actually think bread is very good for us - I think grain products are not natural for our digestive systems. I think human health problems began with the domestication of grass and the beginnings of grain based agriculture. (Also writing, commerce, civilization and government.) For my perfect BLT, I take a holiday from low carb. I need the perfect bread. But I've never settled on the perfect bread. Basically, I'm torn between sweet and savory. My BLT bread also has to be substantial enough not to melt when the juicy tomato is placed on it and then bitten off. (I had a brief excursion into english muffins for the BLTs a few years ago. They do ok, they've got substance and taste, but there is so much more out there to try.)  A couple of stalls down from the tomatoes, I got two loaves of bread - a raisin nut bread and a rustic rosemary bread, both already sliced.

Then, the bacon. I learned to go for the extra-thick bacon from naturally raised formerly happy pigs. I cook a whole package, because dealing with and disposing of the splattering fat is messy and annoying, and I only want to do it once. Any leftovers (when there are leftovers) becomes my homemade 10-seconds-in-the-microwave convenience food.

Lastly, BLT season does not coincide with the best of the local lettuce season. One can always get out of season lettuce these days. I haven't found the perfect match for my perfect sandwich yet. I often like the red-tinged loose-leaf heads, but this year I opted for a hydroponic butter lettuce head.  The leaves were actually thick and provided a satisfying crunch, but were light on flavor.

While I have made my own delicious mayonnaise, this year I just used the Hellman's in the fridge. My mother says to put mayo on both sides to insulate the bread from the tomato moisture. Instead, I put lettuce leaves on both sides of the tomato.

Altogether, the first half of my Sunday was all around BLT for lunch. I had two sandwiches, one on each kind of bread, very lightly toasted. The kids had bacon and bread (except for my oldest, who has discovered vegetables and fresh flavors). No bacon was left over. I found it exquisitely satisfying, just the right amount, and was extra active after the sun went down to compensate slightly.  But truly, I'm not concerned about the calories, just the goodness. I didn't go too far - I didn't eat a whole pound of bacon by myself. It was more about the tomatoes, and the bread was also there to set them off.