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Stewed Tomatoes
Scald by pouring water over them, peel, slice and cut out all defective parts; place a lump of butter in a hot skillet, put in tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, keep up a brisk fire, and cook as rapidly as possible, stirring with a spoon or chopping up with a knife (in the latter case wipe the knife as often as used or it will blacken the tomatoes). Cook half an hour. Serve at once in a deep dish lined with toast. When iron is used, tomatoes must cook rapidly and have constant attention. If prepared in tin or porcelain, they do not require the same care. -Mrs. Judge Cole.
A plain skillet stew that depends on fast evaporation rather than long simmering. The chief thing the original is warning about is metal: carbon steel and cast iron react with tomato acid, which is why the recipe insists on speed, attention and a wiped knife.
- Use a non-reactive panThe "tin or porcelain" alternative is enamelled cast iron or stainless steel today. In either of those you need not be as vigilant about constant attention or blackened knives; bare cast iron will dull the colour and give a faintly metallic edge.
- "Brisk fire"Medium-high heat, uncovered, so the juice reduces as fast as it is released. The point of the half hour is evaporation, not tenderising.
- Half an hour is rightUnlike many nineteenth-century vegetable timings, this one is not excessive. Sliced tomatoes need roughly 25 to 35 minutes over a good heat to collapse and thicken into something that will sit on toast without soaking it through.
- "A lump of butter"Read it as 1 to 2 tablespoons for about 2 lb of tomatoes. More butter makes it richer but slows the reduction slightly.
- PeelingPour boiling water over the tomatoes, or drop them in for 15 to 30 seconds, then into cold water; the skins slip off. Cut a shallow cross at the base first if they are stubborn.
- Tomatoes have changedModern supermarket tomatoes are less acidic and often less juicy than the field-ripened fruit assumed here. Very ripe field or plum tomatoes give the best result; underripe ones will need a pinch of sugar to balance and less cooking to reduce.
- The toastLine the serving dish with thick, dry toast and spoon the tomatoes over just before it goes to the table. Left to stand it turns to paste, which is why the recipe says serve at once.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of tomatoes, cooked down this way, serves four as a side dish.
Stewed tomatoes were one of the standard American vegetable dishes of the later nineteenth century, a period in which the tomato had moved decisively from suspicion to staple; earlier generations had grown it as an ornamental and doubted its wholesomeness, and by the 1870s and 1880s cookbooks such as this one print several tomato recipes as a matter of course. The insistence on tin or porcelain rather than iron reflects a real kitchen problem of the era: acidic fruit attacks bare iron, and enamelled ware was still relatively new and prized for exactly this reason. Serving the stew over toast is the same domestic logic that produced creamed dishes on toast generally a slice of bread turned a soft, wet preparation into something substantial enough for a family table. The attribution to "Mrs. Judge Cole" is typical of Buckeye Cookery, which was compiled from contributions by Ohio housewives and identified them by their husbands' titles.