SC - nightshades

[Decker, Terry D.]

> > Does anyone have any period evidence for the "tomatoes and potatoes were
> > not eaten because they were in the nightshade family" story? I suspect
> it
> > is an urban legend, but don't actually know.
> > 
> 
> I need a day or two to hunt up the notes from that class, I may abtually
> have to email the professor, but I think I can find it.
> 
> Bogdan
> 
Tomatoes and potatoes were eaten in period in the New World.  And there is
some evidence potatoes were eaten at the end of the SCA period.  Since the
potato has been discussed in detail and that discussion is in Stefan's
Florilegium, I won't try to repeat it.

Columbus found the tomato being used as food and brought them back in 1493.
In 1583, the Portuguese introduced then into China and into Japan in 1543.
Apparently they were used as an ornamental plant rather than food.

Gerard's Herball describes the tomato and he comments on their taste, so
apparently, he tried one. (1597)

Doubts about eating the tomato first appear in The Gardener's Dictionary by
Philip Miller, Gardener to the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries at their
Botanick Garden in Chelsea.  (1752)

In 1812, James Mease, a Tory who relocated to Nova Scotia at the end of the
Revolutionary War, published the first recipe for tomato ketchup, which he
had originally developed in NJ prior to 1782.  He also commented on the
French use of tomatoes.

Apicius Redivivus; or, the Cook's Oracle (1816) has a version of Mease's
recipe.

In 1820, Michel Felice Corne, a Neapolitan painter, introduces the tomato to
Newport, R.I.  In the same year, Robert Gibbon Johnson, president of the
Horticultural Society in Salem County, N.J. eats a raw tomato in front of
the Salem courthouse.

My opinions:

The tomato was available within the SCA period, but was not used as a food
at that time.  

Since the potato and the tomato were not described as members of the
nightshade family until near the end of the SCA period.  Being a member of
the nightshade family is probably not the reason they were not eaten.
(Remember, the people who introduced them to Europe knew they could be eaten
safely.  They were probably not eaten because there was a limited supply and
people did not particularly care for the taste.)  The bad press about being
nightshades, probably comes later and is probably limited to various
localities with vocal proponents of the "deadly tomato".

If memory serves me, Jefferson was introduced to tomatoes in France while he
was the Ambassador and transplanted some plants to Monticello.  The tale of
his eating the tomato is probably an urban legend created by someone
replacing R.G. Johnson with Thomas Jefferson when telling the tale of the
tomato eating.

Bear   
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