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Grilled Tomatoes
Wipe tomatoes, spread little Crisco on each with a knife, and set on grill pan near to clear fire. Turn often, basting or keeping moist with Crisco. Whole tomatoes cook in 7 to 10 minutes, according to size. Sliced ones in about 5 minutes. When meat or ham is being grilled tomatoes will cook in pan underneath the grid on which meat rests.
A gridiron recipe from a shortening company's promotional cookbook, written for a coal or wood fire with an open grate. The method transfers to a broiler or a heavy pan without much loss.
- "Clear fire"This means a fire that has burned down past smoke and flame to steady glowing coals — the equivalent of coals raked even under a grill, or a broiler fully preheated. Cooking over flames blackens the skins before the flesh softens.
- Grill panHere this appears to be the shallow pan that sat beneath the gridiron to catch fat, not a ridged skillet. Modern equivalent: a sheet pan or the lower tray of a broiler pan.
- CriscoThe book was published to sell it, so it appears in nearly every recipe. Any neutral fat with a high smoke point works; olive oil or bacon drippings give more flavour on tomatoes.
- Whole versus slicedWhole tomatoes need the 7-10 minutes given and benefit from a shallow cross cut in the skin so they do not burst. Slices should be thick, about 1/2 inch, or they collapse before they colour.
- Turn oftenThe one instruction to obey. A tomato left still on one side goes to liquid inside while the skin sets; frequent quarter-turns keep it holding its shape.
- Cooking under meatThe final line assumes the tomatoes sit in the drip pan and cook in the fat falling from the meat above. This still works under a broiler with a rack, and it is the best version of the dish — but the tomatoes will be softer and greasier than grilled ones.
- Seasoning and yieldNo salt or pepper is specified; season after cooking, since salt draws water out and hinders browning. Allow one medium tomato or two thick slices per person as a side.
This comes from A Calendar of Dinners, one of the recipe books Procter & Gamble commissioned after introducing Crisco in 1911 to teach cooks what to do with a hydrogenated vegetable shortening — hence the appearance of Crisco in a recipe that needs nothing more than a tomato and a fire. Grilled or broiled tomatoes belong to the British and Anglo-American breakfast tradition, where they were cooked in the pan beneath bacon, ham or chops on the gridiron and served alongside them. The instruction to use the fat dripping from the meat above is older than the cookbook and older than gas ranges: it is simply what the drip pan under an open-fire gridiron was for.