flipBrown Bag Egg Salad Sandwich
Brown Bag Egg Salad Sandwich
Why this dish? When you're tracing for hours, curve after curve, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge on tracing paper, you don't leave your drafting table to go eat. At Lamont, Marie Tharp often ate a sandwich prepared in the morning and slipped into a paper bag — the "egg salad sandwich" was the absolute standard of American office lunch at the time.
Two slices of white bread enclosing a salad of hard-boiled eggs mashed with mayonnaise, spiced with mustard and crunchy celery. Cheap, filling, can be made the night before: the fuel for long days of mapping.
I didn't have time to waste on lunch — the men would go to the cafeteria to talk among themselves, and I would stay at my table with my soundings. In the morning, I'd mash two hard-boiled eggs with a fork, a spoonful of mayo, a little mustard, and a bit of celery for crunch; I'd slip it all between two slices of white bread in a kraft bag. Believe me, you draw the ocean floor much better on a full stomach. It was modest, but it was mine.
- •Eggs — a few, hard-boiled (protein base)
- •Mayonnaise (Hellmann's) — a good spoonful (creamy binder)
- •American yellow mustard — a dash (tangy kick)
- •Celery stalk — a little, finely chopped (crunch)
- •White bread — two slices (support)
- •Salt and pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Brown Bag Egg Salad Sandwich
Two slices of white bread enclosing a salad of hard-boiled eggs mashed with mayonnaise, spiced with mustard and crunchy celery. Cheap, filling, can be made the night before: the fuel for long days of mapping.
Why this dish? When you're tracing for hours, curve after curve, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge on tracing paper, you don't leave your drafting table to go eat. At Lamont, Marie Tharp often ate a sandwich prepared in the morning and slipped into a paper bag — the "egg salad sandwich" was the absolute standard of American office lunch at the time.
I didn't have time to waste on lunch — the men would go to the cafeteria to talk among themselves, and I would stay at my table with my soundings. In the morning, I'd mash two hard-boiled eggs with a fork, a spoonful of mayo, a little mustard, and a bit of celery for crunch; I'd slip it all between two slices of white bread in a kraft bag. Believe me, you draw the ocean floor much better on a full stomach. It was modest, but it was mine.
Ingredients (period version)
- Eggs — a few, hard-boiled (protein base)
- Mayonnaise (Hellmann's) — a good spoonful (creamy binder)
- American yellow mustard — a dash (tangy kick)
- Celery stalk — a little, finely chopped (crunch)
- White bread — two slices (support)
- Salt and pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Eggs — 3 (protein base)
- Mayonnaise — 2 tbsp (binder)
- Mild mustard — 1 tsp (kick)
- Celery stalk — 1 small stalk (crunch)
- Chives (optional) — 1 tbsp chopped (freshness)
- Sandwich bread — 4 slices (support)
- Salt, pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Method
- Hard-boil the eggs for 9 minutes in boiling water, cool under cold water, and peel.
- Mash the eggs with a fork in a bowl — leave some chunks for texture.
- Finely chop the celery (and chives).
- Mix eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, celery; season with salt and pepper.
- Spread generously between two slices of bread, cut diagonally.
- Wrap in paper and keep cool until lunch.
How it was made : In postwar America, the egg salad sandwich was part of the classic brown bag trio alongside ham and peanut butter and jelly. Industrial mayonnaise, democratized since the 1920s, was its soul. It was made in the morning, sometimes labeled on the bag with the owner's first name.
The contemporary twist : Replace some of the mayonnaise with Greek yogurt and add a pinch of turmeric: a golden color like a "bathymetric map" and a nod to the depths she mapped.
Sources : Irma S. Rombauer, Joy of Cooking, 1936 and later editions · Hali Felt, Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor, 2012
Marie Tharp · Charactorium
