Plant histories
The history behind a number of crop plants.
Looking at where they originated, their domestication, the introduction of these crops to Europe, how European attitudes to them changed over the centuries and ultimately how our changing demands have influenced the plants themselves.
Use of the tomato
The Aztecs grew the tomato for use as food. And, just after its arrival in Europe, in 1544, the Italian herbalist Matthioli noted that it was eaten in Italy, like mushrooms, fried and seasoned with salt and pepper.
However, the tomato had to jump two main hurdles before it was widely accepted in Europe as a food.
Firstly, there was a common belief that the tomato was poisonous. This is not as strange as it sounds as the tomato had been identified as belonging to the same family of plants as the infamous, and aptly named, Deadly Nightshade. Also, although they are not found in the ripe fruit, the leaves and stem of tomatoes contain alkaloids (a type of chemical) that are toxic to humans.
Deadly Nightshade is a relative of the tomato. It’s fruit are highly poisonous.
Author: Koehler. Copyright free
Secondly, its smell and taste seems to have put many people off. One French book on plants, published in 1600, described it like this: “This plant is more pleasant to the sight than either to the taste or smell, because the fruit being eaten, povoketh loathing and vomiting.” Whether the tomatoes available in the 1600s really tasted that bad or whether the European palate just wasn’t used to the taste is difficult to know.
By the 1600s, although it was not commonly eaten people had started to call the tomato ‘love apple’, which inspired, or was inspired by the tomatoes reputation in some quarters as an aphrodisiac, eaten to boost sexual desire.
A couple flirting. Their desire stoked by the ‘pomme d’amor’?
Author: H. Gerbault. Copyright free
Whilst it is safe to assume that most people did not view tomatoes as an aid to romance they were still considered a great novelty and it was fashionable in many countries to grow them as ornamental plants – just as we might grow roses today. In fact the first major use of tomatoes in Europe was not as food, but as a decorative plant for the gardens of the rich.
Gradually the tomato began to gain acceptance as food and by the beginning of the 1800s was widely eaten across Europe. It took a little longer (till the 1830s/40s) for it to become popular in North America but soon the continent was held in the grip of a ‘tomato mania’ and there are reports of whole dinners themed around this humble fruit.
Soon after the tomato had become popular eating people started to use it for making drinks. These included tomato wine, tomato beer, tomato whiskey, and even tomato champagne! Today we don’t drink much tomato bubbly but the tomato is still famous for its use in the gruesome sounding cocktail: a ‘Bloody Mary’.
A Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary is a cocktail made with tomato juice and named after Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary of England who was famous for burning large numbers of Protestants at the stake. For tomato recipes, including this cocktail, click here.
Photographer: H. Benard. Copyright: CC Attribution SA 2.0
At various times in its history, both before and after its general acceptance as a food, the tomato was used in medicine. One of its most enthusiastic, if not reliable, fans was the Englishman William Salmon. In 1710 he suggested using tomatoes to treat burns, itching, ulcers, running sores, back pain, headaches, gout, sciatica and the intriguingly named ‘fits of mother’.
Interestingly tomatoes are regarded today as beneficial for our health, if not in quite the same ways suggested by William Salmon. With our modern understanding of vitamins and compounds such as antioxidants the tomato has become valued not only as a delicious food but also as a valuable part of a healthy diet.
Examples of supplements available today which boast antioxidants (in this case lycopene) extracted from tomatoes.
