I’ve never heard of Tomato Pudding. Is it like bread pudding with tomatoes? Custard like banana pudding? Like a quiche?

I went to a bridesmaids luncheon once when I was in that age group. The main course was a plate with various scoops of salads. In the middle was a scoop of something that looked like raspberry sherbet only not exactly. It was salty. None of the bridesmaids around me knew what it was. Finally, I asked a waitress. “Oh, that is our famous tomato sherbet. Everyone loves it. We were so pleased we could get good fresh tomatoes to have it today.” I ate a few more bites to be polite, but they could have kept mine.

I want tomato pudding now! Never had it but I love ALL THINGS tomato! I googled it. Lots of recipes online. I'm going to try one. I am in love with tomato pie now so I am thinking that tomato pudding will be up my alley as well!

Would need to state what type of tomato pudding you are looking for. There is the stewed tomato/bread pudding. A thick molded type that is held together with a thickening. A sweet cake like thing. Those are three different types I can remember from my cookbook reading and there are probably more.

Interesting...gotta look at some recipes for the pudding. Like Anniegriet, I do like tomato pie/tart.

I remember when I was a kid a friend's mom made Tomato Soup Cupcakes. Sounded horrible but tasted pretty much like spice cake.

Condensed tomato soup has a lot of sugar - well, now HFCS - I remember my mother making a similar spice cake.

My mom used to make tomato soup cake with raisins and I loved it

"I ate a few more bites to be polite, but they could have kept mine."

bbstx, it doesn't sound appealing to me, either.

As the one who made and adored (and will do it again!) green bean popsicles, I'll say that I could get behind the idea of a tomato sorbet. In fact, my basil plant is very happy right now, and I have some tomatoes that need using, so that may be the next popsicle. But shserbet? Milk and tomatoes isn't a common dish. All I can think of is tomato bisque, which I don't think sounds good frozen. It's barely good warm. Acid and milk aren't friends. They're a household remedy for if you don't have ipecac. Done with a deft hand, the soup can be good, but I can't imagine it as sherbet.

I don't have a tomato pudding recipe to share, but if you're going to use a classic Southern recipe go easy on the sugar and adjust to taste. Tomatoes aren't nearly as acid as they used to be (though not sweet enough to make me want to try the sherbet).

Not a tomato pudding per se, but I've seen a tomato dish where the tomatoes were chunked about 1" pieces, mixed with s&p, fresh herbs and olive oil, put in a baking dish and covered in buttered panko crumbs & parm. cheese then baked. I keep wanting to try it but every time I suggest it DH makes a face. Sigh.

I’m not sure if this is what you mean by Tomato Pudding but that’s what our family has always called it. It is a ‘must have’ for Thanksgiving dinner and we often serve it with fish.

TOMATO PUDDING

2 (1 lb.) cans stewed tomatoes
1 medium onion, halved and slivered
2 to 3 tsp. dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine, divided
2 Tbsp. water
1 cup Pepperidge Farm herb-seasoned stuffing mix

In saucepan, cook tomatoes, onion, sugar, and 1 Tbsp. butter over medium-high heat until liquid is reduced by half 10 to 15 minutes. Pour into shallow 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Melt other tablespoon of butter with water; stir in stuffing mix. Spread topping over tomatoes and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes or until tomatoes are heated and topping is golden. Note: Dry bread cubes can be substituted for the stuffing mix. The tomato-onion mixture can be prepared ahead of time. Just don’t add the topping until ready to bake.

"Chloe, the tomato sherbet was especially vile when it started to melt and run all over the plate."

LOL...that sure wouldn't help! :-/

@plllog, you were correct. It wasn’t sherbet, it was sorbet regardless of the fact that the restaurant called it sherbet. I appreciate your kitchen knowledge!

This is not what Marilyn Sue was asking for but I thought some of you with bumper crops of tomatoes might enjoy it. It is one of my favs at this time of year,

bbstx, we have a nice tomato crop this year, and I do love a good tomato tart. Thx!

Well, that's better, Bbstx! I've had tomato sorbet that was actually very good, but I sure wouldn't put it on a salad plate. I remember those. Usually a scoop of egg salad, a scoop of tuna salad and a scoop of cottage cheese, though one or all might be stuffed into a tomato or pepper or something. The tomato sorbet was two small scoops (1") as an intermezzo, and tomatoy, rather than sweet

In the tomato pudding recipes I've seen (never eaten), the bread is there to give structure to the tomato goop or it's a crunchy topping.

This is an interesting article about it but the recipe has vanilla, which sounds foul to me! https://www.ourstate.com/bertie-countys-secret-dish-tomato-pudding/

Caramelized tomatoes are amazing, but making a whole batch of tomatoes that reduced would take an awful lot of tomatoes. Helping it along with sugar, bread and butter sounds good to me. :) Thank-you for bringing it up! (I haven't seen a recipe I like, so I'll probably make up my own at some point.)

I don't make tomato pudding, I don't even know what that is, but I do make tomato dumplings and I love them. Not very healthy, of course, but I like them a lot.

Unfortunately, my tomatoes are probably a month away, but they are looking good so I'm optimistic.

Now, I'm off to google tomato pudding...

Annie

Whoa, back up there Annie. What is a tomato dumpling? I can’t even imagine.

Ditto.

Google is your friend

They're just dumplings, like chicken and dumplings or stew and dumplings, except they have a tomato based sauce. I use this recipe:

Tomato Dumplings

• 3 whole Large Ripe Garden Tomatoes Peeled, Seeded, And Diced

• 1/4 cup finely chopped Onion

• 1/4 cup finely chopped celery

• ½ teaspoons Salt

• ¼ teaspoons Freshly Ground Black Pepper

• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

• 1 cup Flour

• 1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder

• ½ teaspoons Salt

• 2 Tablespoons Butter

• ⅔ cups Milk

• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley

• Place tomatoes and onion in a medium size saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the tomatoes start to release their juices. Take a little taste of the juice and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Add sugar. When the tomatoes begin to boil, cover pan and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about 30 minutes or until the tomatoes have broken down and the onion is very tender. Near the end of the cooking time for the tomatoes, begin to make your dumpling dough.

  In a medium size mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt with a whisk. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or two butter knives until it resembles coarse meal. Add milk and parsley. Stir with a fork just until all the flour mixture is moistened. Don’t overwork or your dumplings will be tough. It will look like a super thick batter.

  Drop the dough into the simmering tomatoes about 1 1/2″ apart. When all the dumplings are dropped in, cover pan with the lid and cook over low heat for 15 minutes. Do not lift the lid. Remove pan from the heat and allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes with the lid still in place.

  To serve, gently lift the dumplings out of the tomatoes. Spoon the tomatoes over the top.

  Makes 8 dumplings

  I usually serve this as a side dish with something like grilled chicken or baked salmon, but sometimes it's supper all by itself. I've also been known to "cheat" in the wintertime and use a quart of my home canned tomatoes in place of the fresh tomatoes.

  Annie

Tomato dumpling recipes look good!

My Mother made tomato dumplings and macaroni and tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and corn and tomatoes. I like them all. I ended up making a small recipe of tomatoes and corn with a little brown sugar and butter, pepper and some bread. I think I like it better without the bread. The rest I liked and will make again. I used canned.

Sue

Our recipe for tomato dumplings included small pieces of potato in it and our dumplings were the flat kind, I don't think they had any sugar in them. All good though.

Sue

Thanks, Annie.

Oh! Annie, the recipe sounds delicious, but I thought you meant the tomatoes were in the dumpling dough. Dumplings in tomato liquid is easier to imagine. :). Thanks for the recipe. One to try, for sure.

I sorta had the same vision plllog did...I thought maybe it was like an apple dumpling.

I have a recipe for tomato aspic, but that is likely not what you are seeking ... it does use gelatin ...

Dave, if you don't have any neats, I've read that pork necks are cheap and good for aspics. Really, any assemblage of bones and cartilage will do. OTOH, gelatin is one of the better 20th C. shortcuts. Why you'd belabor a helpless tomato by making an aspic out of it is something I can't fathom, however. ;)

LOL, now I'm imagining a tomato, wrapped in crust, like an apple dumpling. Sounds terrible...

Grandma used to make a lot of things with dumplings, my favorite was blackberry dumplings which were just sweetened dumplings in blackberry sauce.

Tomato jello, though? Um, no Dave, just no. (grin)

Marilyn Sue, Grandma often made macaroni and tomatoes, just a quart of home canned tomatoes and some elbow macaroni. Dad loved it, my brother ate it with a LOT of sugar on it. Oddly enough, we had that but never spaghetti.

Annie

Bbstx, I cannot even imagine a sorbet or sherbet made from tomatoes. Nope, nope, nope.

Quite frankly I can’t really imagine any pudding made with tomatoes either. I will take a pass.

Outside, on the tomato sorbet/sherbet issue, my advice to you would be to keep your record clean. Just say no.

Y’all stop hating on tomato aspic. I love it, although I haven’t had it in eons. A hundred years ago there was a tea shop that served squares of tomato aspic topped with chicken salad but only during Lent. It was delicious. You had to get there early or it would be gone.

As with just about anything, a good cook can make good ingredients into good food. A poor cook can make outstanding ingredients into disgusting food.

Around here, it's called stewed tomatoes with bread. I enjoy it but not sweet.

Never like aspic, until grownup days. Mother always made it for her club gatherings.

Love it now.

I have her recipe and make it at times for potluck. Always a winner.

Glenda would you share your recipe?

Ruthanna! I LOVED your recipe. I made it tonight. OMG. It's now my new favorite comfort food. Wow. It was scrumptious. Thank you for sharing. I totally get why it is a family favorite.

if it is like English steamed pudding a basic

tomato soup cake recipe would work.

You might try mixing some blackberries into the tomato pudding.

Mom used to make tomato aspic back in the jello mold era. It was okay.... I ate it without regret, but it wasn't a dish I ever requested.

Fascinating about tomato dumplings, puddings, sorbets, and so forth. Never heard of any of these before.

The tomato aspic recipe I have is XH’s grandmother’s. She seasoned cream cheese, rolled it into little balls the size of a large-ish marble, and buried them in the aspic as it set. They were placed in a grid pattern so that each square of aspic had a cream cheese ball in the center. I can’t remember how she seasoned them and the recipe doesn’t specify.

Tomato Aspic

1 pkg lemon jello

1 cup hot water

1/2 envelope Knox Gelatin

1/4 cup cold water

1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce

1 Tblsp vinegar

1/2 Tblsp Lea & Perrins

salt

red pepper (or Tabasco)

1/2 cup celery chopped fine

1/4 cup onion chopped fine

Mix all together (“and chill” is implied)

I have no idea what the words are in parentheses on the bottom line. The last thing are her initials.

The 1/2 envelope of Knox Gelatin and 1/4 cup cold water may be in lieu of the lemon jello. I can’t tell and it has been more than 30 years since I made this.

Below is the recipe in her handwriting. I have it saved for DD although I can‘t ever see her making tomato aspic or the Spicy French Dressing that is on the reverse side.

I would like the aspic recipe. Once a veg or fruit is added to a 'jello' or gelatin it is not what we know as 'jello' sugar bombs. The texture changes.

What I really want is homemade French dressing. Can't stop thinking about that. So I just made it. And another is a good buttermilk/blue cheese dressing.

Spin that recipe card around. I want to see it!

Sharing my mom's aspic
4 cups V-8 juice **use tomato juice
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar **used white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated onion
1 tsp teaspoon salt
dash of Tabasco sauce
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup sliced stuffed green olives
8 romaine or leaf lettuce leaves
mayonnaise for garnish
In a large bowl combine cup of the V-8 juice and the gelatin and let soak to soften. In a saucepan, heat the remaining V-8 juice, add it to the gelatin and stir till the gelatin has dissolved. Add the Worcestershire, vinegar, lemon juice, onion, salt and Tabasco. Stir well. Place the bowl in the refrigerator and chill until the mixture is slightly thickened.
Add the celery and olives and stir until well blended. Transfer the mixture to a shallow baking dish or eight individual molds, cover with plastic wrap and chill until firm. Serve the aspic on lettuce leaves and top each portion with a dollop of mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise I sprinkled with dried basil

@sleevendog (5a NY 6aNYC NL CA)

Spicy French Dressing

3/4 cup salad oil

1/2 cup vinegar

1/4 cup Catsup

1 tsp salt

1 tsp mustard (prepared)

1/4 tsp Lea & Perrins

dash cayenne pep.

I’m sure the “salad oil” is what we call “vegetable oil.” I’m equally sure the”vinegar” was plain white vinegar. Notice how in both recipes to avoid having to spell “Worcestershire,” it is referred to as “Lea & Perrins”. 😉

If you make this, let me know how it works for you. I cannot remember ever having made it.

Until I read this recipe again, I had totally forgotten about the old fashioned way of making a cursive “t” at the end of a sentence [see “salt”]

is that salt or 'salsa'?

It is “salt.” When I was taught cursive, I was taught to make “t” and “r” like the ones circled in blue below. But I was also shown the variant like the ones in red. XH’s grandmother was probably born in the early 1900s. Looking at the recipe cards, she used the old-fashioned variant. This photo is from Ancestry as a guide for people trying to interpret old documents.

Did you see the meme that circulated in the midst of the lockdown: Want to keep your teens at home? Give them a car with manual transmission and the directions written in cursive.