SC - nightshades

[david friedman]

At 10:31 AM -0600 2/15/98, Decker, Terry D. wrote:

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

Except that it was described, in period, as eaten in Italy fried.

>The bad press about being
>nightshades, probably comes later and is probably limited to various
>localities with vocal proponents of the "deadly tomato".

Maybe. My suspicion is that the nightshade story was invented to explain
why people in the past didn't eat tomatoes, by someone who thought it
sounded plausible.

>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.

Of course, the Johnson story might also be an urban legend. Or do you have
a contemporary source on that one?

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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