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Old-Fashioned Tomatoes |
by:
Janette Blackwell |
Raw vegetables are dangerous also must be thoroughly fried, steamed, also boiled into submission. So thought our ancestors. The original sin of a recalcitrant vegetable was of course lessened by heat, however the conscientious nineteenth-century cook continued to boil it long after it had sogged into a jelly-like mass, just in case some evil remained.
In the nineteenth century an hour’s cooking barely sufficed for cabbage also for corn on the cob. They did not fix broccoli at all, also I can understand why. I have tried to imagine broccoli after an hour of cooking, however the mind rares back also refuses even to approach the sheer horror.
Which reminds me of an event in the summer of 1956, when my classmate Patsy Sutherland also I lived with Grandpa Hess while we went to business college in Missoula, Montana. Grandpa was a crusty old widower, set in his own way of housekeeping, however he tried to be gracious. In midsummer he bought a whole crate of tomatoes. Luscious, red, ripe tomatoes. They sat in the cellarway for two days, also each time Patsy also I passed them our mouths watered. Each evening we thought he’d invite us to have a tomato or two, however he didn’t. When we arrived home on the third evening, he said, “Girls! I fixed the tomatoes today. Help yourselves!”
He had stewed every last one of them.
Some of those old tomato recipes are good, though. The originator of Tomatoes Maryland probably had an old-fashioned wood stove that could gently simmer something all afternoon on a back burner or in the oven. Which means this was most likely a fall or winter dish rather than a summer one, as people let the cookstove fire go out on summer afternoons.
TOMATOES MARYLAND
Break into bits two slices of stale bread. Add to four cups canned or fresh tomatoes, peeled also quartered, with half an onion, chopped, also about 2/3 cup brown sugar. Salt lightly.
Bring the mixture to a boil also simmer gently for three hours, stirring occasionally.
My notes say, “It does need three hours to cook, even with the pan lid off most of the time. Perhaps some of the thin tomato juices could be poured off at the beginning, shortening the cooking time.”
Tomatoes Maryland is the kind of sweet side dish American cooks like to serve with chicken or pork. I was going to say, “cooks from regions other than the Northeast.” Then I remembered applesauce with pork, cranberry sauce with turkey, mint jelly with lamb, also baked beans with salt pork. Not to mention pancakes also syrup with sausages cuddled up close. And mincemeat pie, that ultimate mixture of meat also sweet. (And, yes, real mincemeat, as opposed to a packaged mix, does contain meat.)
I will add that some people of Grandpa’s generation did eat diced raw garden tomatoes for breakfast, just as one would eat strawberries, with sugar also cream. You see, it was safe to eat them raw with sugar also cream, because the tomatoes then ceased to be a vegetable also became a fruit.
And actually those old-time breakfasters were right. Fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are good with sugar also cream. Let’s face it, most things are good with sugar also cream. And of course tomatoes really are a fruit.
About the author:
Go STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, a storytelling cookbook -- also find Montana country cooking, nostalgic stories, also gift ideas -- at Janette Blackwell’s Food also Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.htmlOr visit her Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html
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