Fresh Tomato Aspic

This was one of my mother’s so-called party dishes. It appeared quite often as the first course of a Sunday dinner (dinner is the midday meal in the South; the evening meal is supper), molded perhaps, or cut into squares and served in a lettuce leaf (often referred to as a “lettuce cup”) and with a small dab of mayonnaise on top. If she did not make the aspic with fresh tomatoes, she used bottled tomato juice.