Don’t Call Yourself A Southerner If You Don’t Know ‘Bout This

I was born and bred in the great state of North Carolina, and it's the only other state I've ever called home besides Georgia, so yeah...I'm as southern as sweet tea itself.

Growing up, I spent lots of time with my grandparents, and my Grandma had a very structured meal plan: corn flakes & orange juice for breakfast, a big home-cooked meal for lunch (which she referred to as dinner), and supper (that's actual dinner for all of you non-southerners) always consisted of various sandwiches.

My Grandma's sandwich spread was pretty basic: bologna, cheese, lettuce, PB&J, etc...but it wasn't until I grew up and met people from other parts of the country that I learned a shocking fact: southerners do sandwiches differently.

For instance, in high school, I worked with a girl from California (she was actually the first person I'd ever known from the west coast.) The first time I mentioned a peanut butter & banana sandwich, she looked at me like I had three heads. Her jaw hit the floor even more when I introduced her to pineapple & mayonnaise sandwiches.

Other honorable mentions on the southern sandwich spread include cucumber sandwiches, fried bologna sandwiches, and pimento cheese.

This one, though, trumps them all: The official sandwich of the south: tomato & mayonnaise---DUKE'S mayonnaise if you wanna get technical---and no, this is not an ad, but every true southerner knows that there are two kinds of mayonnaise in this world: Duke's and everything else. And don't you dare try to slip any Hellman's (or worse, Miracle Whip) into a southerner's food; we are born with mayo radar and we ain't afraid to use it.

Fun fact #1: Tomato sandwiches taste better when the tomatoes are given to you in a plastic grocery bag by a friend or neighbor, who randomly stops by with a "bag o' maters fer ya!"

Fun fact #2: There is no such thing as too much pepper on a tomato sandwich.

Fun fact #3: Tomato sandwiches taste better when eaten on your grandma's floral Corelle dishes.

If you've never experienced this delicacy, well bless your heart...get you some mayo and a 'mater, and get ready for heaven on a sammich! Wanna take your tomato sandwich to another level of yum? Try it on my super-simple 3-ingredient beer bread.

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