The FamSam

My family on my mother's side, back at least to my Grandparents, have eaten a sandwich of sliced tomatoes between two slices of white bread, one spread with peanut butter and the other with mayonaisse or Miracle Whip [preferred] . That is the classic version. I know it sounds gross. It does not taste gross. It tastes savory, salty, sweet, acid, tangy, fresh. Especially this time of year with ripe tomatoes.

There apparently have always been tweaks to the sandwich according to personal taste. For instance, my Mother adds a sprinkling of sugar to her tomatoes. Aside: she also puts sugar on the radishes of her radish sandwich but I digress. I on the other hand sometimes toast the bread. Wild and crazy, right? Lately, I been thinking that bacon would be a good addition. Meanwhile, to be a more responsible blogster I called my Mom to get some history [if any] behind how this sandwich came into the family. Apparently it just had always been a sandwich her family made. I had never thought much about it but she said it was a poor man's BLT. Exclesior! Let there be bacon...

...and there was bacon and Cam saw that it was good.

That is toasted farmer's market white bread, garden tomatoes with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, Miracle Whip [still preferred], good ol' Jiffy Peanut Butter and Wright's bacon. So I suppose the next logical step is the addition of Lettuce to round out the B and T. I guess I'll try that next he said lukewarmly.

*Moody interlude shot through a rain streaked window as Cam reflects on his lost youth*

 
The bacon does amp up the savory and salty and adds crunch. I'm sure lettuce will amp up the sweet and fresh and crisp. That is good, right?  Good, better even, but maybe not in the spirit of the original. The Classic of my youth with it's garden tomatoes between Wonder Bread with Miracle Whip and Skippy Peanut Butter is still my sentimental favorite sandwich.

I am curious if anyone else is familiar with this sandwich.

My first "English" breakfast

OK, don't know how to rotate a photo in blogger yet but you get the idea.

Above is said first English breakfast. We stopped at the Rendezvous our first morning in London on our way to Buckingham Palace. There's something I never thought I'd say.

Nice not fancy place. Diner-like, filled with business types and street workers and regulars and an American sign painter and his family.

The first surprise, the toast was cold and unbuttered. All of the toast we encountered in England was cold and unbuttered and usually served in a toast rack [to speed chilling presumably].

Second surprise, the bacon promised on the menu turns out to be ham. Not a "Canadian Bacon" ham but what we Americans call ham. They are both cured, I get it.

Third surprise, On the English Breakfasts we had the beans seemed to be Heinz Pork and Beans straight out of the can. I guess it was unrealistic to expect some slow rustic peasant beans from a peat fired hearth straight out of  a cast iron dutch oven. 

Pleasant surprise, grilled tomato.

Another oddly pleasant surprise, the sausage. A standard mild sausage with a casing but had what tasted like a corn meal filler. In the States I would see that filler as the hallmark of an adulterated sausage but it gave this sausage a corn doggie flavor which appealled to my low class tastebuds. I preferred it to the better, locally sourced, internal organ-y sausage we had with later breakfasts. 

A mild disappointment, the coffee. It arrived with a gorgeous crema

but it, and almost all of the coffee I had in England, seemed....not bad.....but...bland I guess. We did later get, what I considered, a good cup at our hotel in Bournemouth, brewed by the bed-and-breakfast-hotel manager/short-order-breakfast chef.

Anyways, after reading this it sounds sort of all Ugly American of me: everbody else's everything is inferior but that's not what I'm saying. I very much liked the "English Breakfast". When we got home I did my own homage: farmer's market egg, hot and buttered farmer's market cracked wheat bread, Eight O'Clock Columbian coffee, Wright's Hickory Smoked Bacon [not ham], Jimmy Dean's patty sausage, and Bush's Country Style Beans [with a little sage].

Blah, blah, blah...

Hi.

First: Exposition.

I've sarcastically talked for a long time about starting a blog of stuff I eat . Here it is.

Second: Explanation.

I had wanted to call the blog "Foodcation" with a premise of stuff I've eaten while on vacation or daytrips. Someone had already thought of that title. So my daughters volunteered to help me get started and suggested "Foodication" as an alternative. I liked it. Slightly suggestive [in my mind], and not limited to only vacation. As it turns out, they were actually saying "Foodiecation". I'm not a foodie and I don't take many vacations, so it is slightly misleading. I do like food and we do take daytrips. So......

I was so grateful that my daughters cared enough to get involved, and it didn't show in Blogger as previously in use either, and I'm too lazy to change it, so it stays.

Third: Long story short.

A blog about food I have eaten at a destination which could include my home.

Fourth: Question.

Who cares? Maybe only me.