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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 almost entirely on the pan and the heat. The instructions about iron and blackening are the heart of it.
- The pan is the hingeReactive metal is why the recipe frets. Tomato acid reacts with bare iron, dulling the color and adding a metallic edge; that is why the recipe says tin or porcelain need less watching. Use stainless steel or an enameled pan and the constant stirring becomes optional; bare cast iron will work only if it is well seasoned and the tomatoes go in and out fast.
- Wiping the knifeThe same reaction happens on a carbon-steel blade. A stainless knife removes the problem entirely, so ignore the wiping instruction unless you are using an old carbon blade.
- "A brisk fire"Medium-high on a modern burner. The point is evaporation rather than browning, so the tomatoes reduce instead of stewing in their own thin liquid.
- Half an hourReasonable here. Thirty minutes at a hard simmer takes peeled fresh tomatoes down to a thick, jammy stew. If yours are watery, expect longer; if you want them barely broken down, 10 to 15 minutes is enough.
- Scalding to peelPour boiling water over the tomatoes, or drop them in for 20 to 30 seconds, then into cold water. The skins slip off. Cutting a shallow X at the blossom end first makes it faster.
- Butter and seasoning"A lump" means roughly 1 to 2 tablespoons for 2 lb of tomatoes. Some period recipes add a pinch of sugar to offset acidity; this version does not, and it does not need it with ripe fruit.
- Toast liningThe toast is structural, meant to absorb the liquid. Use a sturdy bread, toast it dry and hard, and assemble at the table or it turns to paste.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of tomatoes serves four as a side dish.
Stewed tomatoes appear in nearly every American community cookbook from the 1870s onward, and their ubiquity marks how thoroughly the tomato had been rehabilitated: it is often said that the fruit was once widely distrusted as a member of the nightshade family, though this is a much-repeated folk narrative rather than documented practice. The recipe is credited to Mrs. Judge Cole, which was the standard convention of the genre " a married woman identified by her husband's title. The anxiety about iron and tin is the most historically revealing part of the recipe. A cook advising "tin or porcelain" was steering the cook away from a skillet that would visibly discolor an acid vegetable.