You want to start a Facebook food fight? Post a picture of a tomato sandwich

It is the simple things in this world that mean the most. And it doesn’t get much simpler than a tomato sandwich.

And this is “Mater Sammich,” season, as my friend John Doheny puts it.

On a lark Monday, I was eating a “mater sammich” for lunch and decided to take a photo of it a couple of bites into the process. Then, I did the next logical thing, I posted it to Facebook with the comment, “If you don’t get it, you probably ain’t Southern. #summmerinthesouthland.”

A lot of people get it.

More than 100 people commented on the photo, many of them telling me what was wrong with my sandwich, primarily that it was on toasted wheat bread and not plain white bread.

Someone even suggested adding cucumber slices — that ain’t happening.

More than 260 people reacted to the photo, most expressing their “love” and “like” of the simple tomato sandwich.

Who knew you could get such a response? One of my former editors, Joe Kieta, an Ohio native who now lives in California, actually congratulated me on getting more than 100 comments on a tomato sandwich. It may have been the highlight of 34 years of journalism.

For the first time in seven years, I am not growing my own tomatoes. So, I am at the mercy of folks like my friend and neighbor Carter Berry and Bill Bryce, who lives in Salem, works in the College of Agriculture at Auburn University and sells his homegrown tomatoes at the Uptown Market on Saturday mornings in downtown Columbus.

Bryce, 53, has been growing tomatoes and other vegetables most of his life. He learned from his father, Harrison Bryce, who at 83 is still selling his vegetables on Saturday mornings.

Wednesday, the younger Bryce was home is Salem when he took a few minutes for a phone interview. He has about 400 tomato plants in the ground, and the crop is just starting to come in.

He had just finished lunch when I called.

“I just had a tomato sandwich,” he said.

Of course, he did.

Like most folks, Bryce has a special way he assembles it.

“I like it on lightly toasted white bread, with Kraft Light mayonnaise, a little pepper, maybe a little salt,” he said. “Bacon is OK if you got it, but you don’t need it. This time of year, I will eat them four or five days a week for lunch.”

It’s funny how people are particular about the way they make their sandwiches. I like mine on toasted wheat bread, the tomatoes sliced thick with the peel still on it. My wife likes her tomatoes sliced much thinner, so, needless to say, we make our own. I like Duke’s real mayonnaise — and it ain’t the low-calorie stuff. I am generous with the salt and pepper.

No bacon for me, though like Bryce, I will take it if some is in the refrigerator. But I prefer it with just meaty slices of ripe, red tomato, the juices and mayonnaise creating a sauce usually ends up on my shirt.

People are all over the board on the mayonnaise — and they are awfully loyal about it. Tammy Stephens, one of my Facebook friends, shared her recipe: “Sunbeam Bread, Blue Plate Mayo and plenty of salt and pepper!!!”

Some people want Hellmann’s or Miracle Whip. But around these parts, Duke’s has a cult following. Now, I know why. Duke’s founder, Eugenia Thomas Duke, was born and raised in Columbus before moving to Greenville, S.C. She was the youngest of 10 children raised by a father who was a tailor.

She’s a home girl.

That explains the generational loyalty to Duke’s. I like it because it tastes good, just like it did 100 years ago, I suspect, when Mrs. Duke was selling her sandwiches to soldiers in South Carolina.

But we digress.

As important as the mayonnaise is, the tomato is the star of this show. It has to be fresh and grown locally. I will make special exceptions for tomatoes from Slocomb, deep in south Alabama, and Sand Mountain, up in the northeast Alabama hills.

Bryce’s tomatoes — he grows Celebrities, Big Beef and Beefsteak — taste the closest to what I grew up on. My father had a small farm — we called it the Hog Pen — and what comes off Bryce’s farm reminds me of Hog Pen tomatoes.

Bryce will be harvesting tomatoes until about the third week of July when the summer heat wins and the tomato plants cease producing. The fact that the season is usually less than two months is one of the reasons so many people love tomato sandwiches, Bryce said.

“They are here, then they are gone,” he said. “The good quality ones don’t last that long.”

So, post that picture of your lunch on Facebook. Let people see your tomato sandwich. It’s a great way to start a food fight.

This story was originally published June 15, 2017 at 4:46 PM with the headline "You want to start a Facebook food fight? Post a picture of a tomato sandwich."