Woah Nellie!

Baked tomatoes? Instinct may say ‘yuck,’ but taste buds can be pleasantly surprised

by Mary Jo David

When getting ready to travel, one of my goals is to use up perishable food in our kitchen before the trip. As I contemplated this month’s 100-year-old recipe remake within a day of leaving for our trip out West, I was determined to use up the lovely homegrown tomatoes we had received from our neighbors.

With this in mind, I started looking through the October 1924 editions of the Stockbridge Brief-Sun. I skipped right over “Escalloped Celery,” “Mock Venison,” “Mush and Milk,” and “Terrapin” (which, it turns out, is cooked turtle). As in previous months, I found myself wondering about Nellie’s infatuation with oyster recipes—there were two in the October editions of the newspaper, but I’m not an oyster fan so those were a no-go. And much to the dismay of my squirrel-hunting neighbor Al, I passed right over “Brunswick Stew with Squirrel”!

My patience paid off when I found the Oct. 2, 1924, recipe for “Ritz Tomatoes,” which sounded like something one would serve at a ladies’ luncheon or tea in the 1920s. This recipe is a bit more involved than typical tea sandwiches of that time, which often were served cold. So if “Ritz Tomatoes” were served for a tea, it was most likely for a high tea, which in its day was intended to be more filling than a typical tea gathering. NOTE: Ritz crackers were not invented until almost 10 years after Nellie’s recipe was published, so think “Ritz” as in “fancy,” not “Ritz” as in “crackers” for this recipe.

Everything about the recipe appealed to me—the basic ingredients, the ease of putting it together, and its attractiveness. There was only one problem: I don’t like warm tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes in a tomato sandwich—yum! Tomatoes made into a sauce for lasagna or spaghetti—double yum! But you won’t see me ordering a pizza with tomato slices baked on top—not so yum!

However, lately I’ve been preaching to my better half and a few of my friends that we need to expand our palates. Personally, I’m finding that foods I previously detested are actually tolerable, and sometimes delicious. I’ve never been a fish eater, but in the last few years, I’ve learned to appreciate lake perch and some of the milder fish used in fish tacos. I turned my nose up at eggs most of my life, but more recently, I’ve given scrambles and quiches a chance, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how good they can be. The biggest surprise to my taste buds was when my friend Annette’s pea soup converted me after a lifetime of despising this popular green mush.

Armed with my own experiences with changing taste buds, I set out to prepare a batch of “Ritz Tomatoes.” Prior to assembling the recipe, I finely chopped the onion and green pepper and grated the cheese (I used colby jack) for the tops. I typically buy multi-packs of bacon and cook it all at once so I can keep cooked bacon strips in the freezer. That made it easy for me to pull out a few strips to thaw and sprinkle over the tomatoes when they came out of the oven.

All of this prep work made the recipe assembly quite simple. And while Nellie’s instructions are always sparse, most everything was there for how to “put on the Ritz.” She didn’t leave anything out except the oven temperature and the baking time. But I’ve learned that when Nellie called for a “hot oven,” I should set the temperature to 400 degrees. And after about 12 minutes, I kept a pretty close eye on the contents of the oven to make sure they didn’t burn. I took the “Ritz Tomatoes” out of the oven after about 20 minutes and then garnished them with the bacon and parsley before serving.

My resident taste tester doesn’t have the same reservations I do about eating hot tomatoes. So when he tried his first bite, I was heartened to hear, “This is pretty darn good.” I let them cool a bit more before I tried one, and I must say, my taste buds did not complain. And after sharing the last two with my next-door neighbor, I got her stamp of approval and a “Mmmm. I like them!”

So if you’re looking for something different to serve for a light meal—especially if you have tomatoes to use up in a pinch—I can safely recommend “Ritz Tomatoes.” And before you turn up your nose like I did, initially, at the thought of warm tomatoes, don’t just take my word for it. The Cleveland Clinic reminds us that taste buds regenerate every 10 days or so and they also decrease as we age. So, according to the clinic, “Your perception of taste changes at different stages of life. The foods you love as an adult may differ from those you love as a child.”

Source: Cleveland Clinic Health Library, Body Systems and Organs, Taste Buds (my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24684-taste-buds)

All photos by Mary Jo David