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Tomatoes, Bock
Wipe and cut in halves six fine, good-sized, ripe, fresh tomatoes. Place in a baking dish, cut side up. Season with half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon sugar, two saltspoons white pepper and half teaspoon chopped parsley, squeeze over juice of half a sound lemon. Arrange a few little bits butter over them. Sprinkle a tablespoon of bread crumbs, evenly divided, over, then set in oven to bake fifteen minutes. Remove and serve on the same dish.
A plain baked tomato half, seasoned and crumbed. The original assumes a cook who knows her stove, so the two things it omits are the oven temperature and the yield.
- SaltspoonAn old measure equal to a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons is half a teaspoon of white pepper, which is assertive but correct for the dish.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A hot oven, in the region of 400-425F, is the usual modern reading of a fifteen-minute bake; slower heat risks the tomatoes slumping before the crumbs take colour.
- Fifteen minutes is the pointThese are meant to hold their shape and stay juicy, not collapse into sauce. Pull them while the halves are still standing and the cut faces have just begun to blister.
- Bread crumbsA tablespoon across twelve halves is barely a dusting, and that is deliberate. Use dry, fine crumbs from stale bread rather than coarse panko, which will not brown in the time given.
- TomatoesChoose firm, meaty fruit. Very ripe modern slicing tomatoes shed a great deal of water and will flood the dish; halve them crosswise and let them drain cut side down for a few minutes first.
- Dish and serviceBake in something you are willing to bring to the table, as instructed. A shallow gratin dish or a metal-handled skillet suits it; the tomatoes will not transfer intact.
- YieldTwelve halves, serving six as a side with roast or grilled meat.
The International Cook Book belongs to the era when hotel and restaurant cooks catalogued their repertoire dish by dish, and a great many of the entries carry a surname the way this one does: Tomatoes, Bock. Such names are generally said to commemorate a patron, a colleague or a house speciality rather than any place or technique. The dish itself is a straightforward tomate au gratin from the French service tradition, adapted to American kitchens where fresh tomatoes had gone from suspect novelty to summer staple over the course of the nineteenth century. The half teaspoon of sugar and the squeeze of lemon are the tell: this cook was correcting field tomatoes in both directions at once, sweetening what was sharp and brightening what was flat.