Fruit Sandwich #1: The Whitest Sandwich Ever

The South has given us many things over the years. Barbecue. The Drive-By Truckers. Louisiana hot sauce. Fried Chicken and Faulkner. Biscuits and gravy. Of course, for every Alton Brown there’ll be a Paula Deen; for every Hank Williams there’ll be a Hank Williams Jr.; for every Nashville Hot there’ll be a West Memphis Three. What the South gives, it takes away.

Which brings us to NASCAR. Many reaction pieces have already been done about this Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweet (but now it’s our turn).

Making my favorite sandwich. I swear it's delicious. @Hellmanns pic.twitter.com/sK5XeHxVi9

— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) April 5, 2016

I’m not sure who thought it was a good idea to take culinary advice from a guy who inhales gasoline fumes for a living, but he is apparently not alone. Recipes for the sandwich predate Dale Jr’s tweet on the internet, though these days a google search for banana mayo sandwich is more likely to result in increasingly angry lifestyle pieces riffing on his enthusiasm for the snack. It appears to be an actual thing people eat. Some sports teams grow playoff beards, the Washington Nationals eat banana-and-mayo-sandwiches.

Of course, both the Earnhardt tweet and the piece on the Nationals linked above reference Hellman’s mayonnaise, but if you know anything about the South’s obsession with mayonnaise, or even if you’ve read Thom’s piece on pimento cheese, you know this: in the South, you use Duke’s. Nothing else will do.

As it turns out, I actually can find Duke’s locally.

Well whaddaya know pic.twitter.com/7vw9QTMh4f

— Sandwich Death Panel Czar (@JimBehymer) May 15, 2016

So what does the Tribunal think of the banana and mayo sandwich? is I’m sure the question you’re all asking yourselves.

This just seems like a good idea, right?

Let’s find out, shall we?

Note my more sandwich-friendly slicing method

Item #1: this is, both literally and figuratively, most likely the whitest sandwich ever.

Here goes…

You bite into it and get, yes, white bread and mayonnaise, this is a familiar sensation, then…

banana

then white bread and mayo

then banana again

No. No, this will not do. It does not work. This is not a you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter meet-cute situation, this is a you-got-your-mayonnaise-on-my-banana, prepare-to-die situation.

Dale Jr. has a potential remedy for us though.

The banana mayo sandwich combo reaction is always so passionate. What if you added peanut butter? That's always an option you know.

— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) April 5, 2016

*sigh* Didn’t we already do a peanut butter and banana sandwich? Very well. IF I MUST

Banana, mayo, and peanut butter

The bananas were a little older at this point, softer and yellower, and they fell apart a bit as I was slicing them. I put a thick smear of mayo on one side, peanut butter on the other, and banana slices on both sides. I slapped the sides together, cut the sandwich in half, and split it with my youngest, Ian.

Banana, mayo, and peanut butter

At first, I hardly noticed the mayo, so it was a significant improvement. As we have learned, banana and peanut butter just work together, and the white bread was not an impediment to that. Eventually though, I had a bite with a good-sized hit of mayonnaise and… this time, it kind of worked? Maybe it was the peanut butter, maybe it was the increased sweetness of the riper banana, but this time around, it all came together in a way it had not the first time. Ian thought it was pretty good too.

I’m not going to have another one of these any time soon to be sure, but maybe it’s not quite as weird as I thought. Maybe it’s not quite as disgusting and angry-making as the folks at GQ and Salon thought? Anybody out there a fan of the banana/mayo combination?

Jim Behymer

I like sandwiches.

I like a lot of other things too but sandwiches are pretty great