Southern Creole Tomatoes with Bacon (1951)

• 6 slices bacon
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 dozen large, firm tomatoes
• 8 hard-boiled eggs
• Bread crumbs
• 3/4 cup butter
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tbspns parsley, minced

Cook bacon until crisp. Drain chop, and set aside. I the pan, leave just enough bacon grease to tenderize the chopped onions. Add to this the pulp, scooped carefully with a teaspoon, from the tomatoes. Do not scrape tomato shells too thin.

To the above mixture add the mashed eggs, and enough bread crumbs to make a firm mixture. Season with butter, salt, pepper, and minced parsley; if necessary, add a little canned tomato juice. Add the bacon last, and stuff the tomato shells. Sprinkle tops with buttered bread crumbs.

Place the stuffed tomatoes in a pan and bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) until thoroughly heated and buttered bread crumbs on to are browned. Do not cook long enough for tomatoes to lose shape. Serve hot.

(Note - This recipe likely dates to the mid-1800s or earlier. "A descendent of General Francis Marion," an American Revolutionary War leader, gave this recipe "to Mrs. Eugene E. Gray of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This is the famous dish, given to me by Mrs. Gray's daughter, Mrs. Don E. Scott.")

More "Lost" Tomato Recipes

Old-Time Tomato Cookies (1926)

Tomato Quiche (1983)

(Origin - "Marion Brown's Southern Cook Book" published by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1951. Recipe by Mrs. Don E. Scott.)