Tomato Time
Throughout the Chesapeake Bay region, tomato packing was a way of life from the 19th century into the 20th.
From the 1986 Char-Wil Canning Cookbook
The small-town nature of tomato canneries comes across in “Love Those Tomatoes,” a collection of community tomato recipes created in 1986 for the Char-Wil Canning Company, which operated in Trappe, Maryland in the 1980’s. This summertime soup recipe is both delicious, local, and timeless, and perfect for the season when corn and tomatoes are in abundance.
Ingredients
SERVINGS: 4 Serving(s)
- 4 to 5 ears of corn
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1¼ teaspoons grated onion
- 3 large tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 stems celery, finely chopped
- Dash of pepper
- 1½ teaspoons sugar
- 1¼ cup milk
- ½ cup thin cream
Preparation
Use freshly-gathered ears of sweet corn with kernels in their thin milk stage. Remove shucks, silks, etc. and grate on a coarse grater to obtain a cream-like puree (should be about 1-¼ cups), discard cobs. Heat butter in a 3-quart saucepan. Add onion and cook for a minute or so. Add corn and set aside.
Wash tomatoes. Remove core and cut fine into another saucepan. Place over heat and boil gently until soft, 3 to 4 minutes. Rub tomatoes through food mill or sieve, should be 1-¾ cups puree.
Add to corn with seasonings and boil gently with a constant stirring for about 10 minutes or until corn has softened. Heat milk and cream and then stir corn/tomato mixture into milk. Serve at once.
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