Some tomato sandwich makers opt for Cherokee Purple

In his recent column about North Carolina tomato sandwiches, Donald Bryson, CEO of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, said it’s perfectly all right to substitute one heirloom tomato for another.

For instance, he said some people prefer the Cherokee Purple (shown above), a tomato that is “darker, richer and less orderly than the German Johnson (shown below).”

“The Cherokee Purple may be lumpy, cracked and green at the shoulders,” Bryson said, “and that is part of its charm. It looks like something grown to be eaten rather than photographed, and its deep, complex flavor requires little more than bread and mayonnaise.”

 

It’s got to be soft white bread, and Merita Old Fashioned works best. The brand was invented in 1901 at the Highland Bakery in Birmingham, Ala., by William Fisch and Herman Machow, who operated a lunchroom there.

 

Legend has it that in the bakery’s early years, the MERIT-A award was conferred on superior bakery products. Highland Bakery consistently won the award, and Fisch and Machow decided to display the MERIT-A symbol on the packages. By mistake, a printer left out the hyphen, and thus, the name “MERITA” was born.

 

Over the years, the Merita brand has changed hands several times and is presently part of Flowers Foods, based in Thomasville, Ga., one of the largest producers of packaged bakery products in the United States with 2025 sales of $5.3 billion.

It’s OK with the people at Flowers Foods for folks to opt for Bunny, Sunbeam or Wonder white bread, because the company owns those familiar brands, too. 

 

Some folks in eastern North Carolina lump them all together, anyway. Their grocery list might read: “white-lofa.” That’s short for “a loaf of fresh, soft white bread.”

As for the mayonnaise part of a tomato sandwich, only Duke’s will do. The Duke’s Real Mayonnaise was invented by Eugenia Duke in 1917 in Greenville, S.C.

 

Mrs. Duke made sandwiches (pimento cheese, egg salad and chicken salad) in her home kitchen and delivered them to troops stationed at Greenville’s Camp Sevier training base for National Guardsmen during World War I. She charged a dime for one of her sandwiches and made two cents profit on each one.

Mrs. Duke began bottling her mayonnaise as a separate product around 1923. Her recipe called for oil, egg yolks and cider vinegar, which gave the mayonnaise a spunky tang, but no sugar.

 

“Duke’s is the only mass-produced mayonnaise on the market without any natural or artificial sweeteners, and that makes a huge difference,” said freelance journalist Emily Wallace of Durham.

Mrs. Duke sold her mayonnaise business in 1929 to C.F. Sauer Company of Richmond, Va., a family-owned business that was started in 1887 by a young pharmacist named Conrad Frederick Sauer, who began retailing flavoring extracts. (Sauer Brands and Duke’s is now owned by Advent International of Boston, Mass., a private equity investor.)

Every now and then, someone will attempt to sneak a jar of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise into the tomato sandwich discussion. Hellmann’s was created in 1913 by Richard and Margaret Hellmann, German immigrants, who opened a delicatessen in New York City.

 

Food writer Susan Stafford Kelly of Greensboro, N.C., polled readers of Our State magazine to gauge their mayonnaise favorite – Duke’s or Hellmann’s.

 

She said: “Among the more creative responses was: ‘I asked my homegrown tomatoes. They said Duke’s…and frankly looked a little offended at the question.’”

Furthermore, Bryson said: “The use of Miracle Whip is not a legitimate subject for debate.”

Try a griddled tomato sandwich….

Or for a complete “upgrade,” go for a peanut butter, tomato and mayonnaise sandwich. Just spread a healthy glob of creamy peanut butter (in place of the Duke’s) on one slice of bread.