Here's Why Pimento Cheese Is Such A Big Deal At The Masters
Few creations are as uniquely American as pimento cheese, that mixture of cheddar cheese, pimento peppers, and mayonnaise (and maybe cream cheese) that's as delicious as a lone sandwich as it is a spread on burgers. And even though pimento cheese is originally from New York, it's hard to deny its impact on Southern culture, where it's referred to as "the caviar of the South." This association has no greater apotheosis than it does as the signature food served at the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. It's not just that pimento cheese is available at the Masters; it's that it's intimately associated with it — at a curiously low price of $1.50 per sandwich.
But how did that association happen in the first place? There's no too-good-to-be-true story here about a golfer accidentally dropping white bread into a vat of pimento peppers. We do know that a husband-and-wife duo named Hodges and Ola Herndon started selling the legendary sandwich not long after the Masters Tournament itself began. And while that price point has risen since its inception, it hasn't increased that much — and it's a bit of a point of pride for Augusta National that it remains so low. Augusta National opened in 1933 as the brainchild of legendary golfer Bobby Jones, and the inaugural Masters Tournament wasn't far behind it in 1934. The history of its association with the pimento cheese sandwich is nearly as old.
Pimento cheese has been part of the Masters since the 1940s
Hodges and Ola Herndon made the sandwiches in their own kitchen during the 1940s, with friends helping package them. Their son Tom even drove them to the course in several batches daily and sold them alongside his college fraternity friends from the University of Georgia. Their original options included egg salad and ham, but it quickly became apparent which sandwich choice was the winner. Tom Herndon himself has a letter from 1948 from Bobby Jones and course chairman Clifford Roberts thanking him for the sandwiches — which were originally sold for a quarter.
It's a purely Georgia beginning but couldn't quite last that way. A decade later, the Masters had grown to the point where the Herndons couldn't keep up with demand, and sometime during the 1950s (sources differ on when specifically), they stepped down. But by this point, pimento cheese sandwiches had become synonymous with the Masters, so they had to keep the tradition going — and they did so by handing the job over to caterer Nick Rangos. It's not clear whether the recipe Rangos served for the next half-century was the Herndon's original or Rangos's own version, but whichever the case, it remained unchanged in that entire period. Only the price was altered — and even then, not by much, rising to the current $1.50 price point in 2003.
The recipe has changed at least twice
Sometime in the early 2000s, though, there was some sort of falling out between the course and Nick Rangos (or maybe they just wanted to save money), so the man who'd been supplying pimento cheese sandwiches to golf enthusiasts for 45 years was out, and a catering company called Wife Saver was in. Rangos adamantly declined to share the recipe, so Wife Saver had to recreate it from scratch. They apparently nearly figured it out, only for the course to switch vendors again in 2013, after which patrons were decidedly unhappy, as the new recipe also wasn't quite there. The controversy has since faded, indicating that the new vendor eventually figured things out. Whatever was going on, though, Augusta National has never commented about the changes.
So, while there may not be a concise tale about their origins at Augusta, the simple fact is that pimento cheese is so associated with the Masters because it's been that way for close to a century. Sometimes, traditions are traditions because they're really old (and because they're delicious).