Stuffed Tomatoes

From Katharine Whitehorn's original Kitchen in the Corner, that became Cooking in a Bedsitter. The early editions contain much fascinating social history about bedsitter life. This was the 50s and early 60s, before they invented flat-sharing. Yes, really, flat-sharing was radical - especially if the flat was "mixed". Whitehorn later wrote about the "gas-fire, brown-lino loneliness" of bedsitter life. There was also no takeaway food back in them days.

2 large tomatoes
2 dessertspoons sausage meat (2 oz)
1 onion
cooked rice

Fry onion for 5 mins. Meanwhile cut off tops of tomatoes and scoop out pulp. Add sausage meat and rice to onions, brown for a minute or two only; remove and add all this to the tomato pulp, with herbs and salt, but no pepper. Stuff the tomatoes with mixture; return to pan and cook 10-15 mins. in oil on medium flame.

For the sausage meat, buy some good sausages and take the skins off. I think I'd want to cook it for longer - maybe in a deep pan with a lid. Another book we loved in the early 70s was the Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes, who went on to become famous for persuading us all to rag-roll our walls in the 80s. She has a lot to answer for! (Sourcing Pauper's now...)