Tomato Toast
Put some canned tomatoes in a frying pan with a little butter and salt. Cook lightly and pour over slices of toasted bread, buttered and softened with cream.--Mrs. Dr. G.
A three-line supper dish that depends entirely on reduction and seasoning, since there is nothing else in it. The whole success rests on cooking the tomatoes down far enough that they sit on the toast rather than soak through it.
- Cook further than "lightly"Modern canned tomatoes often come in a good deal of juice. Break them up and simmer 10-15 minutes until the liquid has largely gone and the mass holds its shape on a spoon.
- QuantitiesNone are given. A 14-oz can with 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter covers four slices of bread and serves two as a light supper.
- "Softened with cream"The toast is buttered, then moistened with a spoonful or two of cream or half-and-half poured over each slice. Do it just before the tomatoes go on, or the bread collapses.
- BreadUse a firm white loaf cut thick and toasted dark. Thin sandwich bread will not survive both the cream and the tomatoes.
- SeasoningSalt only, as written. Canned tomatoes vary widely in acidity and added salt, so taste at the end; a pinch of sugar tames a harsh can, and pepper is a reasonable addition.
- PanA frying pan is right because the wide surface speeds evaporation. Avoid uncoated cast iron or bare aluminum, which react with the acid and give a metallic edge.
Toast dressed with a hot savory topping was a familiar American answer to what to put on the table at short notice, and the family of dishes runs from creamed chipped beef to Welsh rabbit to milk toast for invalids. This version belongs to the moment when commercially canned tomatoes had become widely available after the Civil War, which is why the recipe opens with "canned" as a matter of course rather than as a substitute for fresh. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was assembled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housekeepers, and short entries like this one, signed with an initial, show the book working as a collected household file rather than a single author's manual.