Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 14, 2009
Read all about it...
Pettus L. Read
I can’t believe there are people who still can’t make a mater
sammich
Just the other day, I was looking through one of my wife’s “Country Wanna Be” magazines. You know the ones. Those that have pictures of old furniture out in the yard with ankle high grass under a tree like a Little House on the Prairie movie set.
They take rustic to a high level and attempt to suggest there are people who actually live that way out under the trees. I don’t think so in our state, due to the fact that if they did, there is not enough Backwoods Off available to keep the chiggers and ticks away while sitting in our tall grass around a table eating little cucumber sandwiches.
The thing that caught my attention in the magazine was a recipe for a tomato sandwich. Mater sammiches are my specialty, and I was real interested in what trendy folks do to make one. Right off the bat, I knew whoever wrote that recipe never grew a homegrown tomato in Tennessee.
In the first line they suggested using slices of challah or brioche bread with butter and a sprinkle of sea salt. First of all, I really don’t know what those breads are; and second, sea salt was a staple in the kitchen cabinets of my mama, from whom I learned to make mater sammiches at an early age. And, everyone knows it is Miracle Whip on lite bread – and not butter – that makes a real mater sammich.
So, I guess it is up to me, once again, to repeat the true art of making a Tennessee mater sammich, so the influence of the trendy people will not corrupt the mater sammich making process. Butter is really good on a lot of things. It’s great on hot buttermilk biscuits with molasses, fresh roasting ears of corn and other items too numerous to mention here. But, butter on a mater sammich is just wrong.
To those who are not schooled on the correct terminology of what to call those beautiful red juicy fruits, there is a difference between a tomato and a mater. A tomato by some standards is a fruit grown hundreds of miles away. A mater is a bright red, juicy fruit that has had our love and care for several months and is most certainly what you would call a real homebody. Homegrown maters are what summer is all about.
My summer wouldn’t be complete without a fresh mater sammich every day or so. There are many ways to make one, but there is only one true country way to serve up your garden delights.
A few years back, I gave out my mater sammich recipe to help the mater novice create the perfect sammich. Just in case there is another generation of those who have failed to perfect their own mater sammich, here it is again.
A country mater sammich has to be made in an orderly routine using mayonnaise, white bread (or lite bread, as it is called in the country), and a fresh ripe mater from the garden.
You place two slices of fresh lite bread on a plate. Next, take a kitchen knife and spread a good amount of mayonnaise on both slices of bread. Make sure the knife hits the sides of the mayonnaise jar so a clink can be heard sounding from the jar. This doesn’t help the taste of the sandwich, but it reminds you to buy more mayonnaise the next time you are at the store. We are having a good mater season this year and we wouldn’t want to run low on mayonnaise.
Next, slice your homegrown mater, avoiding the temptation to swipe a slice for now, into several thick slices. You should not be able to read a newspaper through any of the slices. This helps hold in the juice; and besides, if you wanted thin slices you could have gotten a tomato at a restaurant in town.
Add pepper and salt as desired. Place the slices on the lite bread and gently put the pieces of bread together. Ladies may want to cut the sandwich in a triangle; but real Tennessee mater eaters like their sammiches whole to avoid the losing of any juice. Bite into your sammich and enjoy what summer is all about.
Happy mater sammich eating, and I hope none of it drips down your arm. Of course, if you are eating outside at one of those dining room s
ets in the yard, that really won’t
matter.
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