Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1876 — How to Prepare Tomatoes. [ARTICLE]

How to Prepare Tomatoes.

There is an ignorance which is far too wide concerning the Dreparation of vegetables for the table. They ought to have cooking very simple ana very perfect, and they do not always get it. One of the most delicious aud healthful of summer foods is the tomato, and it is also one of the most abused. Raw, it is often brought to the table cut up into unshapely lumps with the skin still adhering to them. Cooked, it generally appears merely a watery red mess, interspersed with pieces half done, hard and greenish in color. The ideal dish of raw tomatoes is thus prepared: Choose ouly those which are large, comparatively smooth, firm, and thoroughly red-ripe—it is an absurdity to offer small or immature specimens in a salad, and if you can’t fina such as are here recommended, you must not attempt to eat raw tomatoes. Put them in a tin pan and pour over them boiling water, pouring it off immediately. This so loosens the skins that they can usually be pulled off easily, without any violent application of the knife. Then with a very sharp knife slice them across, discarding the first piece, which has the hard base of the stem, and the last piece, which Is too small. Make the slices thin rather 1 than thick, keep them large and whole, and pile them carefully in layers in a! pretty dish, delicately sprinkling salt and pepper over them. Then put them away to get thoroughly cold in your cellar or' refrigerator. Prepared thus they are simply ambrosial, and only a pagan could 1 scorn them. If anybody wants to add sugar and vinegar to, the seasoning, that can be done at table by the eater. Slices of the large yellow tomatoes scattered among the red, sometimes make the dish look very tempting. For stewed tomatoes, peel as above, hut cut in pieces, not in slices. Put these in a two-quart tin basin or a porcelain-lined saucepan, and add salt and jußt enough, water to keep them from burning. While they are simmering comfortably throw in a very little pepper, a good large piece of nice butter, aha enough fresh soda cracker broken into small bits to thicken the mixture, without making it like a pudding. It should be thin enough to run easily from the spoon, and yet not be watery. This dish is also exquisitely inviting. There are other methods of cooking tomatoes—stewing with rice, stuffing and baking, etc.—but in no guise are they so good as those described above.—Western Rural.