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Macaroni and Tomatoes
4 ounces pipe macaroni 1/2 pound of tomatoes 2 ounces of butter Pepper and salt to taste Boil the macaroni for half an hour in boiling water, and then drain. Butter a pie dish, and put a thick layer of macaroni at the bottom; skin the tomatoes by putting them into a basin and pouring boiling water over them, cover them with a plate for five minutes, and the skins will come off quite easily. Then cut them into slices and put a layer on the macaroni, then some pieces of butter and a sprinkling of pepper and salt, then another layer of macaroni, and so on till the dish is full, leaving tomato on top, with a few rusk crumbs sprinkled over; put in the oven for a quarter of an hour. Serve with grated cheese.
A plain layered bake from the era before pasta was expected to be al dente. Two things need adjusting: the boiling time and the amount of tomato.
- Boil the macaroni far lessHalf an hour was normal for the coarse, thick-walled macaroni of the period. Modern dried macaroni needs 8-10 minutes, and since it will bake afterwards, stop a minute or two short of done.
- Pipe macaroniSimply hollow tube macaroni, sold in longer lengths than today's elbows. Penne, ziti or ordinary elbow macaroni all work; anything that holds its shape in layers.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the recipe says only 'the oven', and ranges of the period were not thermostatically marked. Bake at 375-400F. Fifteen minutes at that heat warms the dish through and sets the crumbs; if the tomatoes go in cold, allow 25-30 minutes.
- Increase the tomatoesHalf a pound of tomatoes to four ounces of macaroni gives a dry result once the tomatoes shrink in the oven. A pound of ripe tomatoes, or a pound of drained canned plum tomatoes, gives the layers something to moisten them.
- Weights4 ounces macaroni is about 1 cup dry; 2 ounces butter is 4 tablespoons.
- Rusk crumbsRusk is bread dried and re-baked hard, then crushed o a coarse, sandy crumb. Dry breadcrumbs or crushed plain melba toast are the closest equivalent; fresh soft crumbs will go soggy against the tomato.
- CheeseThe cheese is served at table rather than baked in. Grated Parmesan or a dry aged Cheddar is in keeping; adding a layer of it between the macaroni and tomato is a small improvement the original does not forbid.
- YieldAs written this feeds two as a main course, or four as a side. Season each tomato layer as you build, since there is no sauce to carry salt through the dish.
"Meat substitutes" as a cookbook heading is often associated with a specific moment: the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when vegetarian societies, health reformers and later wartime food economy all pushed cooks toward dishes built on pasta, pulses, cheese and eggs. Macaroni was a workhorse of that category in Britain and America, cheap, shelf-stable and widely available, and it was frequently paired with cheese or tomato to supply the savoury weight meat would have provided. The trick of pouring boiling water over tomatoes to loosen the skins, spelled out here at length, was a commonplace of nineteenth-century instruction, and its length here shows no more than thoroughness. The absence of any sauce, flour or milk marks this as a simpler style of macaroni bake, set against the roux-based macaroni cheese that would come to dominate.