I love tomatoes … all kinds.
I have family and friends who detest tomatoes ... all kinds! So has been the reputation of the tomato
forever! When and how did the tomato
ever find its way to the United States?
That too is a big ‘forever’ question!
It is believed that tomatoes were cultivated in South and Central
America as early as 7000 BCE.
Mesoamericans can be attributed with the domestication of beans, squash,
cocoa, chili peppers, avocados, corn, tomatoes and … turkeys! The big question is how those foods traveled
from Central America to many other places!
It is possible that the tomato’s
trip was routed through the Caribbean Islands into what we now know as Florida
and the Carolinas. It is possible that
the Spanish carried the tomatoes back to Spain … then on through Europe and
Asia. Some European pioneers to the
Americas brought tomatoes with them.
Before that time, however, tomatoes were considered poison
in Europe. The first known written
record of the tomato dates to 1554. Italians
were growing them and eating them. A
couple decades later, the English and Spanish grew them, but primarily for
looks and not as a food. Tomatoes were thought to be poison, but we know now that it
was the acid from the tomato interacting with a pewter plate that actually
caused lead poisoning. Poor folks who
didn’t have pewter plates, could eat them!
The rich folks were the ones being poisoned!
By the mid-1700s, tomatoes were being grown and eaten in
many European countries, but especially in Italy! We know that Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes
in his Virginia gardens in 1781. A
French refugee from Santo Domingo introduced them to Philadelphia in 1789. In 1802, an immigrant Italian painter
introduced them to Salem, Massachusetts. By the mid-1800s, tomatoes were commonly grown in the the northeastern
part of the United States.
As I was searching for articles about tomatoes in pioneer
times, I found an article written by Iva Dingwall. Iva was born in 1877 on her grandparents’
farm in Minnesota, a place where she lived her whole life. The stories she tells are about her
Grandmother and how she prepared food during that later part of the 19th
Century. She mentions tomatoes many
times. She tells how much she and her
siblings enjoyed eating them right out of the garden. She tells
about her grandmother’s use of vinegar on fresh vegetables, including
tomatoes. She writes of tomato pies,
both red and green. Historic documents
tell us that not all those German settlers in Minnesota appreciated tomatoes as
much as their French and Italian counterparts in other parts of the country,
but clearly this family did!
Tomatoes are among the first vegetables to have been canned
commercially. The American Civil War was
a turning point for commercial canneries.
Both armies needed canned foods.
After the War, tomatoes were among the most commonly requested so from
that point on, Americans began eating tomatoes … fresh and canned.
Tomato recipes fill the cookbooks of my favorite vintage
period … the 1950s and 60s! My memories
of those times are of thick slices of tomatoes on a white platter with a green
rim around it. That platter graced our
dinner table … which was our supper table … every evening. I also remember Mother’s big kettles
simmering away with stewed tomatoes that she canned. If we were lucky all of the big jars sealed,
otherwise we’d hear an explosion in the middle of the night! We made lots of ‘Fire and Ice’ salad of
tomatoes, onions and cucumbers in a vinaigrette. What we never did, however, was fry a green
or a red tomato! Those delicious things
were never on our menu.
Late one afternoon, I walked into my Aunt’s kitchen to help
her fix food for her card club that was coming for supper and games! Her little tiny living room was filled with a
couple card tables and chairs. There was
hardly room to move between the tables, but it was going to be my job to help
serve food!
Sissy (my daddy’s little sister, so we
called her Sissy) was making something she’d seen in a magazine and something
that I had never seen. She was hollowing
out whole tomatoes and filling them with tuna salad! That was … and still is … a pretty common
thing, but certainly was not in my childhood home! Tuna salad was meant to be eaten between two
pieces of soft white bread! I went home
determined to make that for my Dad’s lunch.
Mother laughed at me, but Daddy ate it and bragged about it! Daddy was a carpenter who came home for
lunch, and he was treated on that day with ‘girl food’!!!!!
In one of my vintage cookbooks, I found a recipe for
something I’d never thought about doing.
I fixed it for my lunch the other day and it will now be a regular
dish. The recipe called for canned milk,
and that is what I used! I hope you’ll
try this.
Breaded Tomatoes in Cream Sauce
Mix together ¾ cup corn meal with ¼ cup flour. Add a generous dash of salt and pepper to the
mixture. Cut bright red tomatoes in ¾
inch slices and dip them in corn meal coating both sides well. Gently fry the tomato slices in bacon grease
until crispy brown on each side.
I actually fried some bacon in order to have it with this
dish, but I also keep a jar of bacon grease in the fridge. After all the tomato slices are fried and
removed to a serving platter, make a cream sauce. You need to have at least 2 Tablespoons of
bacon grease in the skillet. If you
don’t, add a little butter or oil. Blend
in 2 Tablespoons of flour to make a roux, then gently pour in a 15 ounce can have
evaporated milk. Add lots of pepper to
the sauce and pour it over the tomato slices.
This is delicious!
I'll be sharing this with a couple blog parties, so make sure you check my list on my sidebar. This is a post that is part of my 2020 Vintage Vegetables project. If you'd like to see similar posts, just click the menu button.
