I was seven years old in 1969 during the moon landing, with the whole extended family gathered around the enormous TV console. It was a very memorable event for me, but the thing I most remember is that mom made me and my friend a simple BLT with mayo. For some reason it was like a visitation from Jesus for both of us. We spent the next few years making them or begging for them relentlessly. We thought it was our own thing. Over the next fifty years I've tried to recapture that, but never entirely succeeded in reaching the same culinary apogee. Still trying. Every BLT comes with free a flashback to that hot July day. And a remembrance of that best of friends who we lost twelve years ago.
Brands matter. See if you can match the brands that your mother used; especially the mayonnaise. Bacon will be harder to match.
In 1969, my family would have made its own mayonnaise, so try that, too.
If I want a flashback to my childhood, it's peanut butter and jelly. But it has to be Skippy peanut butter on Wonder bread with Smuckers jelly, and freezing cold whole milk. Anything deviation doesn't trigger the same brain cells.
Bacons vary widely even across brands today. It is very much not a simple commodity product. You are taking a living animal which may be of several different breeds and raised in any number of environments. You butcher it, itself a skilled occupation. Then cure it using a number of highly variable ingredients and parameters for a variable amount of time. Slice it with varying thickness.
Cured meats are entire world unto themselves. I have had bacon that tasted like a salty strip of cardboard, and bacon that is a peppery, savory, chewy/crispy revelation.
In many ways the BLT is sort of the perfect example food for showing how non-commoditized ingredients actually are. It's only five ingredients: bread, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise. But each of those ingredients can vary extremely widely.
Take some generic white bread, thin cheap bacon, old iceberg lettuce, out of season grocery store tomatoes, and Miracle Whip and you'll have a result that you wouldn't understand why anyone on Earth would eat.
Then get some good bakery sourdough, thick cut heavily peppered bacon from a small farm that treats their pigs well, fresh butter or Bibb lettuce, late summer tomatoes from your own garden (the best tomatoes simply don't ship), and whip up a batch of mayo yourself without any preservatives using good eggs and oil. It will likely be one of the best meals you've ever eaten.
delichon · · focus · HN ↗
reaperducer · · focus · HN ↗
Brands matter. See if you can match the brands that your mother used; especially the mayonnaise. Bacon will be harder to match.
In 1969, my family would have made its own mayonnaise, so try that, too.
If I want a flashback to my childhood, it's peanut butter and jelly. But it has to be Skippy peanut butter on Wonder bread with Smuckers jelly, and freezing cold whole milk. Anything deviation doesn't trigger the same brain cells.
ricardobayes · · focus · HN ↗
munificent · · focus · HN ↗
Cured meats are entire world unto themselves. I have had bacon that tasted like a salty strip of cardboard, and bacon that is a peppery, savory, chewy/crispy revelation.
In many ways the BLT is sort of the perfect example food for showing how non-commoditized ingredients actually are. It's only five ingredients: bread, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise. But each of those ingredients can vary extremely widely.
Take some generic white bread, thin cheap bacon, old iceberg lettuce, out of season grocery store tomatoes, and Miracle Whip and you'll have a result that you wouldn't understand why anyone on Earth would eat.
Then get some good bakery sourdough, thick cut heavily peppered bacon from a small farm that treats their pigs well, fresh butter or Bibb lettuce, late summer tomatoes from your own garden (the best tomatoes simply don't ship), and whip up a batch of mayo yourself without any preservatives using good eggs and oil. It will likely be one of the best meals you've ever eaten.
furyofantares · · focus · HN ↗