Fried Green Tomatoes

[wotavidone]

Despite the incredibly savage temperatures here in the north of South Oz, I've actually managed a crop of tomatoes.
This year I'm growing them under a shade sail, full sun around here kills everything, and I've gone for a minimal work approach.
This means:
Roma variety (bush tomato that looks a bit like a San Marzano), no staking or pruning required.
We put some basil pants among the tomatoes, and just alongside the tomatoes some chilli plants.
Then we just let the lot grow, no weeding after the first couple of weeks.
The weeds, tomatoes, chillis and basil have grown in a sort of low lying hedge, loaded with tomatoes.
The tomatoes invaded the chilli bed and climbed the picket fence around the garden bed.
The basil is growing well. I think the chillis are still in there.
The weeds aren't thriving (too much competition I guess) but they help shade the soil, so the whole lot is doing very well.
Smells great when I pick them, can't help brushing against the basil.

Anyway - what's the story with fried green tomatoes?
Are the green tomatoes just tomatoes that haven't ripened to red, or is it a particular variety that is green even when ripe?

[Gulf]

Anyway - what's the story with fried green tomatoes?
Are the green tomatoes just tomatoes that haven't ripened to red, or is it a particular variety that is green even when ripe?

I'm not really sure about that. I will say this. From my experience (where I'm from) Marion tomatoes are what we use. They are the most disease resistant tomatoe for the Southern US. And are probably what most of the recipees that you will see on the net are made with. But, as you asked, unripe tomatoes are a must. I'm sure that any unripe tomatoe that grow well in your area will be just as good. Fried green tomatoes in bacon fat or lard are great. We serve them with rice and gravey. The gravey (brown gravey) is made from the left over grease after the tomatoes are fried. Fried green tomatoes, rice and gravey are great for for any meal (breakfast, dinner, or supper). Though, fresh cathead biscuits are better with (ripe) tomatoe gravey for breakfast .

[TropicalCoasting]

I would imagine the recipes came about to use up the last of the crops that werent going to ripen when it got too cold or to stop a glut of to many ripe tomatoes
From what I ve seen on the net they look similar to Rouge De Marmande tomatoes flatish and ridged

https://foodandword.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/20131028-145922.jpg

http://tomato.com.au/tomato-varieties/rouge-de-marmande/

My mum used to pickle the green tomatoes I loved them

[cobblerdave]

G'day
Green tomatoe pickle. My wife still makes it. The houses are taking the small farms from the Local area "our tomatoe lady" of 20 years has sold up for housing. So no green tomatoes or Bruised fruit this year.
Regards dave

[cobblerdave]

G'day Gulf
What are "cathead biscuits" ?
Long time since I've been state side. My favorite tucker Popeyes.. True
Love the sides. Much better than KFC and I recon better chicken not to salty.
The biscuits, the beans and rice and greens. Are the biscuits the same?
Had a little think it's been 25 years since I've been state side,
Regards dave

[UtahBeehiver]

Gulf has all these Southern slangs for his regional food. Cathead biscuits are what I think are buttermilk biscuits, don't get him started on swamp rats or chitlins. LOL.

[Gulf]

Hey Dave,

I imagine ya'll have something similar down there. Russell is right about the "cathead" buscuit . I would call Popeye's buscuits a mass produced, small cousin, to the southern buttemilk buscuit. A "cathead" buscuit is just a very large buttermilk buscuit (as big as a cat's head). The true southern buttermilk buscuit is made with all purpose flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and pig lard (I've read where the pioneers used oven ash before baking soda was available). My mother switched to self rising flour and skipped the baking soda, but she never quit using the lard. Todays health conserns have caused the food industry and most home bakers to substitute the lard for vegetable shortening and/or margarine. Sadly, the taste and fluffiness of the buscuits with the substitutes just ain't the same.

[cobblerdave]

G'day
I've recently cooked a duck. Saved back the fat. Christmas were going to have the tastiest roast "tatters " with that...... Just don't tell anyone that im cooking with fat and I'll be right
Regards Dave

[wotavidone]

So, I just googled "cathead biscuit" and ended up on a wiki page entitled "Biscuit (bread)"
First picture is definitely what we in Oz would simply call a scone, baked on a tray in the oven..
The second picture is biscuits and gravy. The "biscuit" looks a bit like that thing the fast food shops over here call a "hash brown" fried in fat or oil. What the heck is that white chunky gravy?
Do be honest, it still looks rather appetising.
Third picture is a "sausage biscuit".This looks like a "burger" made with a scone instead of a bun.
Over here, a "biscuit" is the name we give to what the US calls a cookie.

So, based on three incredibly representative wikipedia photographs,
Your cookies look like biscuits to me
Some of your biscuits look like scones
Some look like burgers
Some look like fried grated spud.
And the gravy looks like an accidentally chunky version of the white sauce the missus makes to go with cauliflower when we have it.

It's all too complicated, think I'll go have a lie down........

I am kinda interested in the sausage though.
My family originally hails from the German speaking region of Silesia, now in Poland but still part of Prussia when my forbears packed up and moved to the Barossa here in South Oz. So sausages are an important part of the family lore. (I deeply regret to admit the mettwurst recipe died with my father. Mum has searched the house several times but has never found the written version.)
Anyhow, one of my office mates hails from Vermont, and says sausage is a sometimes used ingredient on pizza. Not pepperoni or salami, more like an uncured and unsmoked raw meat that we would call a butcher's sausage.
Any advice on that chaps? I've been using ordinary beef sausages from the butcher on pizza for a while now and I quite like it.

[wotavidone]

Hey Dave,

The true southern buttermilk buscuit is made with all purpose flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and pig lard (I've read where the pioneers used oven ash before baking soda was available). My mother switched to self rising flour and skipped the baking soda, but she never quit using the lard.

You know, this isn't far off an Aussie scone recipe.
For scones we use flour and baking soda, or self raising flour.
We use milk mostly, but I've had buttermilk scones before.
And usually we use butter rather than lard.

But the elements are pretty much there:
Flour
Raising agent
Milk of some sort for the moisture content
Animal fat of some sort whether it be butter or lard.

Scones are baked on a greased tray in an oven.
Are bscuits baked or fried?

[wotavidone]

I always associate scones with rural living. When I was a kid, bread was a lot of work, biscuits (of the cookie variety) were not quite as easy to make and required a few more ingredients like sugar or honey. However, out on the land where there wasn't a supermarket around the corner, any farmer's wife could knock up a fresh batch of scones from very simple ingredients that were easy to obtain on the farm.

[Gulf]

Yes, they appear to be very similar. I was googling scones, since I did not really know what they were. It is funny that I ran across this link Buttermilk Biscuits AKA Australian Scones. Biscuits are baked on a greased pan just like you described for "Aussie scones". We consider it a bread at meal times. But, we will also eat them as a desert or as a snack. Then, we cut the top off and fill them with jelly or honey. Over here, some use regular milk for baking biscuits. That is ok when using self rising flour. When using all purpose flour, it takes the acidic buttermilk reacting with baking soda for the biscuits to rise.

Some look like burgers

Nowadays, just about any "quick stop" over here (at least in the Southern US) will have (link, patty, or bacon) biscuits ready and wrapped when you gas up in the morning for a meal on the go. They come in just about every concoction. Link sausage, egg, and cheese, etc. etc. I was raised eating them with deer meat, mostly, for the quick out the door breakfast.

The sausage gravey that you described is probably white sausage gravey. It is pretty good with biscuits for breakfast. The first that I ever saw was while working in Texas (40 years ago). Nowadays, it is served quite regularly in Mississippi. But, I prefer tomatoe gravey and biscuits for breakfast. And, I like brown gravey with rice or mashed potaoes at dinner and supper.

I always associate scones with rural living. When I was a kid, bread was a lot of work, biscuits (of the cookie variety) were not quite as easy to make and required a few more ingredients like sugar or honey. However, out on the land where there wasn't a supermarket around the corner, any farmer's wife could knock up a fresh batch of scones from very simple ingredients that were easy to obtain on the farm.

It sounds like "rural living" (we call it "country life") has the same obstacles, no matter where you live . But, I would not fit in real good in town .

[Gulf]

G'day
I've recently cooked a duck. Saved back the fat. Christmas were going to have the tastiest roast "tatters " with that...... Just don't tell anyone that im cooking with fat and I'll be right
Regards Dave

Since we are confessing, I sometimes cook the giblets in with my chicken and dumplins. I don't tell my "yankee raised" wife. I pick them out and eat them before the dumplins are served. She likes my dumplins but, would not if she knew that .

[cobblerdave]

G'day gulf
Get those same chicken livers and blend them up with cream butter and a bit of gelatins( from cow hooves) and you got pate. Figure
Regards dave

[UtahBeehiver]

I am feeling left out, so here is my version of Cathead biscuits or Aussie scones Hawaiian style, this is a fav in the islands and you will find this at any Seven Eleven or quik stop store in the islands. It is formed rice wrapped with nori (sea weed) topped with a slab of SPAM, ummm, but my wife just wrinkles her nose LOL