SC - Poisonous Tomatoes?

[david friedman]

At 4:03 AM -0500 11/26/00, Trierarch at aol.com wrote:


>"Initially they were grown in Europe as ornamental plants because
>the fruit was considered poisonous as the tomato belongs to the plant family
>Solonaceae and included in this family is the Deadly Nightshade. In fact the
>tomato was named Mala Insana or the unwholesome fruit by Europeans. It was
>also called the Love Apple. We should thank the Italians for first embracing
>the tomato and introducing it into their culture."


Thanks.


There are three problems with this:

1. It assumes tha Europeans in the 16th century were using the 
Linnaean system of classification, which hadn't yet been invented, or 
(more plausibly) that earlier botanists had correctly identified the 
relationship among these plants. I have so far seen no support for 
the latter claim. The one early herbal we have seen quoted does not 
describe the tomato as poisonous.

2. Eggplant, which is an old world vegetable that had been eaten long 
before Columbus, is a member of the same family.

3. The Italians were eating Tomatoes by the mid-sixteenth century, 
which doesn't give us much time in which they were believed to be 
poisionous.

While it is possible that the fruit was considered poisonous at some 
times and places, I strongly suspect that the link with deadly 
nightshade is a later invention.
- -- 
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/