The Journey of Fried Green Tomatoes.

Like a lot of women, I happen to enjoy the occasional “chick flick”, and one such movie is Fried Green Tomatoes.    It came out in 1991, based on a novel by Fannie Flagg, about the women at the Whistle Stop Café.   Starring Mary Louise Parker, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy, this is feel-good story of female friendship and empowerment in Alabama.  This is also the first time many Americans heard of “fried green tomatoes”, and it was assumed the recipe originated in the Southern United States.

Actually, fried green tomatoes was not a dish served, in the South, before 1991, but were well known in the Northeast and Midwest.  According to Robert F. Moss, a food historian and writer in South Carolina, "they entered the American culinary scene in the Northeast and Midwest, perhaps with a link to Jewish immigrants, and from there moved onto the menu of the home-economics school of cooking teachers who flourished in the United States in the early-to-mid 20th century."  (https://alforno.blogspot.com/2007/08/fried-green-tomato-swindle.html)

While Moss found recipes in several Jewish and Midwestern cookbooks of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were none in Southern cookbooks or newspapers.  Due to the movie, the origin of fried green tomatoes became lost, and re-designated to a whole new region of the United States.  See, a good example why history should not be messed with!

A recipe for "Fried Green Tomatoes" appears in the International Jewish Cookbook (1919), recommended as "an excellent breakfast dish," (Of course I have a copy, did you really have to ask?)   The recipe also appears in Aunt Babette's Cookbook (1889), another kosher Jewish recipe book. Recipes for "fried tomatoes" (though not necessarily green ones) appear in several Midwestern cookbooks from the late 19th Century, including the Buckeye Cookbook (1877) and The Presbyterian Cookbook (1873) from the First Presbyterian Church of Dayton, OH.  (Ok, no, I do not have any of these others named.)

Basically, we have fried green tomatoes beginning the journey in the Northeast, primarily New York.  It then begins traveling towards the Midwest, but only ends up in the Southern states due to a movie.   Which now ties into Good Things to Eat – From Old Nauvoo -, and a copy of this little cookbook can be obtained at the Restoration Bookstore (https://restorationbookstore.org/collections/cookbooks/products/90209000).   What does this recipe journey tie into, you wonder?  For those not entirely familiar with the Mormon religion, Mormonism originated in the 1820s, in western New York, during a reform period known as the Second Great Awakening.

Most of the population were none too happy with this new religion (so much for reform), so the members moved towards the Midwest. Settling in Kirtland, Ohio, there was hope to establish a permanent New Jerusalem, or City of Zion, in Jackson County, Missouri. However, they were pushed out of Jackson County in 1833 and forced to settle in other parts of Missouri in 1838.

What has this all to do with the Temple at Nauvoo, and a cookbook?  The Church's first temple was in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1836, and the only one completed in the lifetime of Joseph Smith. Another Temple was built in Nauvoo, Illinois, but in the winter of 1846, the Mormons were forced out once again.  This Temple received a double insult, in 1848, by being damaged by fire, and a tornado, before finally being demolished.

Now what I really want you all to see, is the correlation of the traveling of Jewish immigrants, from New York, to the Midwest; and the Mormon journey.  Was there perhaps interaction going on, a sharing between two separately distinct religions?  Maybe not in religious doctrines, but when it comes to cooking and recipes, you know all the ladies were sharing and comparing!  So, there is no wonder that a Jewish culinary recipe would find its way into a cookbook, related to Nauvoo.

On page 62, appears "Fried Tomatoes", and the batter for this recipe is versatile.  It is thin enough to make crepes (take out the black pepper if not desired), or add more flour for deliciously, fluffy pancakes.  Oh, and there is also a recipe for "Summer Squash Pancakes" on the same page; and here is a great lead in to harvesting. 

So many tomatoes, so little time to get them red enough to create sauce or salsa.  There they sit, all those green tomatoes, on the window sill.  Hoping daily that the sun will ripen them up quickly.  I have the patience, I can wait, but...but...what do those green tomatoes taste like.  They are firm (almost hard), moist, but not juicy, and sour (pucker up!).  No one wants to eat that, well, except those who love sour.  Now is the time to make yourself, your family, even friends, a real taste treat, Fried Green Tomatoes.  In the Nauvoo recipe, sugar is added to combat the sour of the green tomato.  However, we enjoy dipping our slices into a mildly spiced Ranch dressing which enhances, not only the tomato, but the fried batter around it.   For added crunch, after putting the batter on the tomato slices, press Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) on, before frying up.

Now this recipe seems to be for firm red tomatoes, but I have personally found them to still be too juicy for a good fry-up.  …and the way I am constantly making sauce, there are hardly ever enough around to be fried up anyway.

 Fried Tomatoes

(Good Things to Eat – From Old Nauvoo – page 62)

 

Ingredients:

6-8 tomatoes  

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. sugar

¼ tsp. pepper

2 eggs, beaten

1 Tbsp. butter

 

Preparation:

Wash tomatoes and cut them into ½ inch slices.  Melt butter slowly in a skillet. 

Mix other ingredients together.  Dip the tomatoes in the batter, covering both sides.  Sauté’ 2 or 3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. 

You may also use green tomatoes (Yes, do this!!!).  Add extra sugar (No, you don’t have to!)

Even food has its own historical background, and I do hope you enjoyed this culinary journey.

Mary Cokenour

 

 

 

Cheese, Raisins, Cattle and Cowboys.

San Juan County Road 228 aka South Cottonwood Road, there is a main reason why I specifically wanted to come to this area; my dentist, Dr. Brian Goodwine of San Juan Dental in Monticello (part of the Utah Navajo Health System, Inc).  He is the great grandson of Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr., active in the development of the San Juan Mission in Mexico.  While at my 6 month checkup, Dr. Goodwine asked if I'd ever been to the Cheese and Raisins Hills; "The what?" I asked, and "Where are they?"  He told me the story of Lemuel who had cattle up on those hills; one day his ranch hands asked him if he would like to share their lunch of cheese and raisins with them.  "All you boys ever eat is cheese and raisins, cheese and raisins"; and that is how the hills in the area became so named.  I was able to also verify this story through the book, Utah's Canyon Country Place Names by Steve Allen, as told by Albert R. Lyman.  On the Internet, someone's vacation blog, didn't note the name down though, was a second story on how the hills were named.  There were several mines in the area; the miners often had cheese and raisins in their lunches.  Since the mines were not started till around the early 1930s, the first version of the story is closer to the truth.  A photo of Lemuel and his wives, Eliza and Lucy, and their story can be found in the book, They Came to Grayson put out by the Ridgeway Art Gallery in Blanding.

Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr with wives, Eliza and Lucy

Talking about mining, the ruins of the old Cottonwood Millsite is along this county road which got me to thinking about typical miners’ meals which got me thinking about Cornish Pasties.  Oh my, isn’t that a nice run-on sentence; but that story will be for another article as I’m concentrating on cheese and raisins right now.

Raisins are simply dried grapes, which would stand up well during the long journeys the pioneers traveled to win over the Wild West.  Cheese, however, now where did they get cheese from and how did it keep without refrigeration?  Time to research cattle within San Juan County and I certainly did find a moo-full of information! 

Briefly, when the Hole in the Rockers came to Bluff, they did have cattle along for the trek.  Dunham aka Short Horn which were great milkers, but also provided meat to the settlers.  However, there had already been established, within San Juan County, cattle companies from Colorado and Texas; competition for grazing land became an issue.  Excuse me while I digress a little more; eventually Peters of Peters Hill fame sold his cattle; Howard Carlisle, a British patriot, eventually sold his cattle.  The remaining cattle company was the LC, which remained in the Blanding area…. poor ranch cook Harry Hopkins, may he in rest in peace.  Digging around, I was able to find out that Peters and Carlisle began a new cattle company in Kansas City, MO.  While Peters, whose given name was Quincy, became the company’s accountant; Howard Carlisle got in huge trouble selling stolen cattle. 

Where did I get my information on Peters and Carlisle after they left San Juan County?  Scholars Archive of BYU: The Cattle Industry of San Juan County, Utah, 1875 – 1900 by Franklin D. Day, and United States. Courts; Circuit Court of Appeals, volume 47.

Emma Smith 1884 

Now back to cheese and raisins, and were they only eaten separately, or did those resilient pioneer women combine them into a recipe?   Emma Smith, wife of prophet Joseph Smith baked up biscuits nicknamed “politicians” due to their being so light and full of hot air.  I didn’t make this up; the story appears in Good Things to Eat From Old Nauvoo by Theo E. Boyd.  These biscuits were normally used to make strawberry shortcake, but other variations were: cherry, peaches, warm applesauce, raisins plus cinnamon and honey, chopped dates and nuts, or grated or cubed cheese with raisins.  There you go, cheese and raisins in biscuits; but you can use this combination in scones as well and it is delicious!

Hope you enjoyed my convoluted journey through San Juan County pioneer history, and here is Emma Smith’s Biscuit recipe.

Biscuits

(Good Things to Eat From Old Nauvoo by Theo E. Boyd)

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. shortening

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preparation:

Sift dry ingredients. Add shortening and cut in with a pastry blender or two knives until dough resembles coarse cornmeal. Add buttermilk and mix lightly.

Turn out on floured board.  Pat out to 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick.  Cut, sprinkle with sugar and place on well-greased pan and bake at 425 degrees until golden brown.

Mary Cokenour