So… you only eat BLTs a couple weeks a year?
My father grew up in a kosher household, and used to love “LT” sandwiches as a child. He was surprised to learn they were often served with bacon.
Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise and don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.
So I really don’t want to eat tomatoes that haven’t been put through a blender. Here’s an idea, just throwing it out there, I have never tried this. But say you have your basic BLT. Now, you leave off the mayo. Cars out in the street are crunching glass, leaving mayo street trails, and you can’t find the mayo jar to save your life. But you still have a BLT. BUT! What if, instead of tomato slices, you had cucumber slices on it instead?
The lettuce is not there for flavor, it’s there for texture. It’s the only reason I keep a head of iceberg around; it has no flavor but iceberg leaves have that perfect airy, wet, fresh, crunch that you’re looking for that you’re not going to get out of butter lettuce or spinach or some other more flavorful lettuce.
I might be okay with something like endive or really curly kale, but definitely not anything flat, and iceberg is still always the “authentic” version to me.
Huh? You could maybe replace the lettuce with cucumber, but you need the tomato.
Well, yeah in order to retain the name BLT. But I was pondering a theoretical way to make the sandwich more palatable. So it appears that the best way to improve a BLT without changing the name is to throw the jar of mayo into the neighbor’s backyard.
“Where’s the mayo?”
“What, um, I haven’t seen it (since I threw it over the fence).”
No, no, you don’t understand. The tomato is actually the heart and soul of the BLT. It’s sweet, it’s sour. Yes, the bacon is salty and fatty. But the tomato is the center, and the bacon and lettuce just elevate it.
I don’t even like tomato in sandwiches, usually. But the more I think about this, the more I realize it’s true. If you hate tomato, you should just eat some other sandwich. I don’t care for avacado. I don’t try to change guacamole, I just leave it for someone else to enjoy.
And now I’m really hungry for a BLT. But we aren’t shopping often, due to quarantine, and I can’t buy a tomato for a few weeks.
Do you have any cucumber?
Nope. The cheese must touch the mustard. The sharp tang of the mustard compliments the creaminess of the cheese and helps cut through the fat.Yellow mustard thinly spread works wonders in a grilled cheese with Jarlsburg or sharp cheddar!
Too late to edit:
Applewood smoked bacon, mayo, beefsteak tomato out of the garden, and romaine or leaf lettuce. Yum!
Also great on on a brioche bun or pandasal (phillipine milk bread).
Don’t see any reason that contradicts having the tomato up against the mayo. It can’t function as a barrier for the bread unless it’s on both slices.
Plus, since everyone is saying the tomato is the main star, that would suggest to me that it should be on the bottom, closest to the tongue, same place where the meat is placed in a meat sandwich (e.g. in burgers or sandwich). Surely you want the bacon’s flavor to mix with it, so it would go on top of that, and then the lettuce.
Though, again, I say that a bacon-forward BLT is also valid, and I would make it with bacon on bottom, lettuce in the middle, then tomato on top. (The onion I suggested above would be thin and next to the tomato, either side.)
Either way, keep that tomato next to a layer of mayo.
No, no, no. The mayo is essential. Again, Duke’s by choice. 2nd place is Blue Plate. Best Foods/Hellmans in a pinch. Tomatoes demand mayo!
And while you’re at it, instead of mayo, just use cat urine.
heh, i mentioned I don’t care for avocado or cilantro … I had to beg my fav burrito shop to let me back in … everyone else thought I should just “die” so I just tell them to go easy on the cilantro …
Nah, the flavors are too dissimilar. Cucumber is a light flavor that could replace the lettuce, but not the tomato–not even the wimpy store-bought ones. The only way I could see throwing in cucumber for the tomato is if threw some ketchup or some sort of vinegar on them to give them more of that tangy flavor. But it would still be inferior to the real thing.
I’m thinking about things that could replace the tomato in the bacon-forward BLT. Salsa or rotel could maybe work, and a common replacement for those is some sort of chili sauce. If you got the kind that has some lime to sour it up a bit, maybe that could replace it.
But, at that point, the lettuce would seem odd to me, so I dunno. Even in the bacon-forward BLT, it’s hard to think of anything better than a tomato for its purpose.
The BLT is a high quality sandwich combination. It’s simple, it tastes great, it is exactly what it’s supposed to be. No, Alton Brown, it’s not better as a tossed salad.
This isn’t to say that other sandwiches can’t be superior (hint, hint) it’s just that they aren’t BLTs.
Nice toasty bread, crisp lettuce, good bacon, ripe juicy tomato, mayo to lubricate it, it’s just a mix that works. High quality ingredients and you get a fine sandwich that doesn’t need to be “improved”.
I live in Hawaii. Friends and neighbors grow backyard tomatoes of many different varieties. It’s good here most of the year. 
OK then nevermind the cucumber, we’re going with pickles now.
cucumber instead of tomato ? Yes!
Definitely true for iceberg lettuce, but this year we grew some red leaf lettuce which not only had crunch, it had flavor. The stuff from the store isn’t as good, but still better than iceberg. Which will do in a pinch though.