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The Melting Pot
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1900s-present - American lunch-counter cooks adapting club-sandwich ingredients into a simpler bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich
The BLT became a lunch-counter and diner standard in the early 20th century as sliced bread, commercial mayonnaise, bacon, lettuce, and ripe tomatoes converged in American kitchens. Its simplicity is the point: crisp bacon, juicy tomato, cool lettuce, toast, and enough mayonnaise to bind the sandwich.
Difficulty
Easy
Prep time
10 minutes
Cook time
10 minutes
Total time
20 minutes
Servings
2 sandwiches
Region
United States diners and lunch counters
Era introduced
1900s-present
Introduced by
American lunch-counter cooks adapting club-sandwich ingredients into a simpler bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich
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The BLT is often treated as timeless, but its familiar form depends on modern convenience foods: sliced sandwich bread, ready mayonnaise, year-round lettuce, and bacon sold for quick pan cooking. The sandwich likely grew out of late-19th and early-20th-century club sandwich habits and became common as a shorter diner and lunch-counter order. It is also seasonal in spirit: the best BLTs are built around ripe summer tomatoes.
Drafted with BLT history from Saveur (https://www.saveur.com/culture/ultimate-blt-history/), sandwich-history context from Sandwich Magazine (https://www.sandwichmagazine.com/fillings/blog-post-title-four-cty8z-webj5-4frca-lwfrb-y8b9w-f8e56-y6xy4-476tk), and modern method context from The Food Charlatan (https://thefoodcharlatan.com/b-l-a-t-bacon-lettuce-avocado-tomato-sandwich-with-aioli-sauce-and-feta/).
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