I've never eaten them just as stewed tomatoes but I have used them in other things. Do you add anything to them if they're just out of the can. How could anything "tomato" be bad! lol I like just about anything you can do with tomatoes..Uh oh, now I'm thinking about tomato sandwiches, also bacon, scrambled eggs and sliced tomatoes for breakfast, or any meal,with the first tomatoes of the season.

jude

Chase, both my Mom & older sister (I lived with her) made stewed tomatoes frequently as a side dish. Both put homemade croutons, onion, celery, and maybe something else in them & they were a favorite of mine. We usually ate them warm, IIRC. Living in the San Joaquin Valley we ate, I'm sure, literally tons of tomatoes in about every way imagineable.

DH won't eat them. His Mom also made stewed tomatoes but never seasoned them & his memories are of mushy, bland, soupy, & gloppy tomatoes. sigh

/tricia

My grandparents use to eat stewed tomatoes as a side. My grandmother also put sugar on her sliced tomatoes and cucumbers rather than salt and pepper. Not something I enjoy.

Ann

I love a touch of suger on sliced tomatoes and on sliced cukes too....sugar, salt pepper and a few drops of vinegar...yum!
We had stewed tomatoes a lot when I was a kid...my mother put bread in them and onion etc....and called them scalloped tomatoes. Sounds awful but with a nice firm bread it was wonderful!
Linda C

My mom also used to serve small bowls of cold stewed tomatoes as a side dish when I was small.

SharonCb

My EX MIL used to make sickeningly sweet stewed tomatoes.
Bread and sugar in them. Blech!

I'd probably like them savory, but not her way!!

Deanna

Scalloped tomatoes, sometimes called breaded tomatoes...I love!! No sugar on sliced tomatoes for me.

jude

I use them in different things but have never had them by themselves as a side dish.

David

I think Sharon is right that stewed tomatoes are out of fashion. We all seem to have childhood memories of stewed tomatoes (mine are pleasant enough) but I don't see them mentioned in foodie discussions.

Like many who have already commented, I use them in combination with other vegetables such as okra, zucchini or beans. With these I invariably include onions and, now that it has been mentioned, I will include celery sometimes.

Jim

I remember that my DM served us stewed tomatoes that had been home canned with celery and onion. She heated them and put them in a side dish with a pat of butter...yum! I haven't had any in years. I can most of my tomatoes plain so that I can use them anyway I want.

Sharon...I could eat your chili sauce right out of the jar and enjoy that more than stewed tomatoes.

Nancy

Oh gads--the dreaded breaded tomatoes. Mom made them & it's the only food that I absolutely refused to eat. We had bread & butter w/ almost every meal & I always had to carefully protect my bread from vegetable juices--no soggy bread for this kid!

I love the Del Monte Cajun stewed tomatoes. Eat them over rice. But they're good enough to eat cold & out of the can.

"...they're good enough to eat cold & out of the can."

Do you sit at the table or eat them while standing over the kitchen sink? Just how good are they?

Jim

My husband always keeps a can of stewed tomatoes in the fridge and he'll eat the whole can with his dinner a couple of times a week.

You won't catch me eating a cold tomato! (bleh...shiver) :)

Warm, with crispy bacon on toast for breakfast!

Nope - the very thought makes me shudder. Of course, the only stewed tomatoes I ever encountered were in the school cafeteria when I was little, so that may have had a lot to do with it.

Alexa

I'll eat a few spoonfuls when I'm making spaguetti sauce so I understand you.

I love stewed tomatoes over white rice with a pat of butter. Good!

LOL, Jim. I confess to eating a few spoonfuls standing over the sink before warming them a bit to spoon over rice.

But nuthin' says you couldn't serve them cold & call it Cajun Gazpacho, right?

Wish I could deconstruct the recipe for them. Bought them all the time when I lived in OK. Searched for them for years after moving to WI. Finally found them just last year at Woodman's. Two problems--they're kinda pricey for just tomatoes w/ a few tweaks and the nearest Woodman's is sixty miles away. There is some unique flavor in them that I don't have a name for. Otherwise, since I grow tomatoes & can them, I could save some $$ and have a steady supply.

Mix in some garlic, onion, peppers and zucchini, and your stewed tomatoes just became giambotta!!

Lisa

sharon, Grandma always canned stewed tomatoes and like others here she served them with cubes of bread. They weren't bad if the bread was toasted but if it wasn't it got all nasty and soggy.

I don't care much for them but Dad would sit and eat them right out of the jar so I always canned some for him. Amanda likes to use them in chili too, instead of plain canned tomatoes.

If I'm eating fresh tomatoes it's salt and pepper, no sugar for me, although Grandma used to tell me that a little bit of sugar took the "acid" edge off tomato products.

Annie

im a lurker who rarely posts, but this brought back memories of my nana...stewed tomatoes cold (home canned) with homemade bread mixed in..omg so good. thanks for the memory her bd wouldve been tomorrow..came just at the right time!!! smiles

CFers,

We MUST figure out the elusive flavor ingredient in those Del Monte Cajun tomatoes so ci_lantro can add it to her home grown, home canned tomatoes. I won't be of much help because I lost a lot of my olfactory sense years ago.

Some of you, I'm sure, are expert at discerning flavors and identifying ingredients. Wouldn't it be a fun and challenging project for those with that ability to buy a can of Del Monte Cajun tomatoes and perform a taste test?

Jim

Funny the different recollections we have of this dish!

I never had "stewed tomatoes" with sugar, bread cubes or butter, always just plain chilled, straight out of the can, with a bit of salt and pepper. Sometimes Mom would heat them but almost always she served them chilled.

Do they still make canned stewed tomatoes?

Thinking about chilled stewed tomatoes made me think of two other long gone special dinner treats.

If it was a special dinner Mom would serve chilled tomato juice to start. If it was a really special dinner she would serve shrimp cocktails but they were tiny, tiny shrimp that came in a small cocktail glass, already in the cocktail sauce. Only for very soecial occasions !!! LOL

Brings back bad memories of my childhood. I'd rather go a couple days with no food then eat stewed tomatoes.

: )
lyra

I love stewed tomatoes. My Mom always used them to cook with. I can't remember ever eating them just as a side dish, but she did use them with green beans a lot.
I couldn't do that now because the kids would pick out the chunks of tomatoes, but I love them that way.
Lisa

The only time I've eaten stewed tomatoes is when I've accidentally bought them instead of real canned tomatoes. Stewed tomatoes are ruined by all that sugar they add to them. As someone said earlier, Blech! lol

I do, however, eat cold tomato soup. I made some semi-home made tomato soup the other day, using canned tomato soup and canned tomatoes, with a little parm and garlic. The next day I took the left overs, chilled, for my lunch. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but it turned out very good.

Sally

Jim:
I had a minute and peeped in.
You two should be ashamed. Eating tomatoes standing at the sink.

I put a can of them in Tomato Sauce.
Also,put some in a salad, with onions and a whole tomato cut up.
Along with Garlic Powder and EVVO.
Great for dippin Garlic Bread.
Lou

It seems as though I remember my GM serving a side dish of stewed tomatoes. Not something I can eat unless it has mostly okra in it and is hot.

My Mom never served us stewed tomatoes, she'd buy a can and eat it all herself with a pinch of sugar added while cooking with big chunks of day old French bread...

Yep, they still sell canned stewed tomatoes but the brand I buy doesn't contain sugar, just dehydrated onions, celery, green peppers and salt.

Rita O'Tay

In our area, you can walk into most diners on a Friday and stewed tomatoes will still one of the vegetables of the day and one of the Friday dinner specials is bound to be fried fish, stewed tomatoes and mac & cheese. They're usually thickened with cornstarch instead of bread.

We sometimes had stewed tomatoes as a side dish when I was a girl but always hot. I don't remember my mom ever serving them cold.

However, she used to make what she called Pizza Tomatoes in the wintertime when ones from our garden were not available. She'd use the plain whole canned tomatoes and cut them in cubes as she was transferring the tomatoes and their juice into a bowl. She'd add a little bit of finely chopped onion, dried basil, oregano and garlic powder, some red wine vinegar and oil and serve them in custard cups or small bowls as a cold side dish with our dinner.