Stuffed Tomatoes

Tomatoes in North America... "English herbalist William Salmon...In 1687...he left for the New World...He traveled to New England and the Caribbean and practiced medicione in South Carolina...During the early years of the eighteenth century, he began working on his major work, Botanologia; he completed it in 1710. In an early section of the herbal, Salmon revealed that he had seen tomatoes growing in Carolina, which was in 'the South-East part of Florida.'

 

As strange as this may seem today, his geography was accurate because the term Florida then referred to what is now the eastern part of the United States. This is the first known reference to the tomato in the British North American colonies. Several different theories have been espoused to account for the presence of tomatoes in the Carolinas. The most likely explanation is that there were multiple introductions by different peoples at different times for different purposes. The Spanish, who had probably cultivated and consumed tomatoes in their settlements in Florida earlier in the seventeenth century, had established colonies and missions...It is probable that the Spanish introduced tomatoes into what is today Georgia and the Carolinas. Alternatively, as gardeners grew tomatoes in Europe, French Huguenot refugees and British colonists may have brought seeds directly from the Caribbean...Whatever the initial source, tomatoes were cultivated in the Carolinas by the mid-eighteenth century...Only one colonial cookery manuscript is known to have contained a tomato recipe...author Harriott Pinckney Horry...From the southern states, tomatoes spread northward...Beginning in the late eighteenth century, cookbooks and agricultural books published in Philadelphia contained references to tomatoes...the earliest primary source pinpointing the tomato in New Jersey was George Perot Macculloch's farm journal, which noted the planting of tomatoes from 1829 onward in Morristown...In Massachusetts, tomatoes were introduced in the late eighteenth century."The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery, Andrew F. Smith [University of South Carolina Press:Columbia] 1994(p. 25-32)

By http://foodtimeline.org/foodsauces.html#tomato

Stuffed Tomatoes

Copyright 2012 Christine's Pantry. All rights reserved.

Ingredients:

4 large tomatoes

2 cups cooked chicken, chopped

1/2 cup green bell pepper, seeds removed and chopped

1/2 cup red onion, chopped

1/2 cup corn

1 tablespoon light mayo

salt and pepper, to taste

green onions, garnish

Directions:

Cut 1/2 inch off top of tomatoes. Remove pulp from tomatoes. Turn tomatoes upside down on paper towel to drain.

In a bowl, combine remaining ingredients except green onions. Spoon salad into tomatoes.

Chill until ready to serve or serve immediately. Just before serving garnish with green onions. Enjoy!

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