SC - Has anyone every canned persimmons?

[Susan Fox-Davis]

At 12:36 PM -0500 11/27/00, Jenne Heise wrote:
>  > Pierandrea Mattioli in 1544 is supposed to provide the first European
>>  reference to the tomato, and several people claim that he identified
>>  the relationship to nightshade and said tomatoes were poisonous.
>>  According to Longone (I think) the quote about eating tomatoes fried
>>  in oil is also from 1544, which suggests that it is probably from the
>>  same source.
>
>That's like saying that anything mentioning sage from 1597 must be from
>Gerard.

I didn't say "must be from." I said "suggests that it is probably 
from." What makes it "probably" is that Mattioli is supposed to be 
the first European reference to the tomato, according to a variety of 
sources. While it is possible that the first European reference was 
published in January of 1544 and the second reference in a different 
book later in the same year, it doesn't strike me as very likely.

>
>>  a. Identified a relationship to nightshade (which eggplant is also 
>>related to)
>>  b. Knew perfectly well that people were eating them and not dying
>>  c. But for some reason concluded that they weren't good for you--just
>>  as Platina asserted that some of the things he gave recipes for were
>>  bad for you.
>>  Out of that modern writers spun the "tomatoes were considered
>>  poisonous because they were related to the deadly nightshade" story.
>
>Logical fallacy: You assume here that it was 'modern writers' and not
>simply postperiod readers of Mattioli that said that tomatoes were
>poisonous.

What I wrote, and you clipped, was:

"So my current guess is that Mattioli:"

Having identified that as my current guess, it is not an assumption 
but a conjecture.

In support of that conjecture, note that at least one bogus story 
about beliefs in poisonous tomatoes (the courthouse steps story) 
places it in the early 19th century. Note also that many versions of 
the story put it in terms of the linnaean classification, which 
postdates the introduction of the tomato by quite a while. Further 
note that Matteoli identified a connection to the eggplant, which is 
also related to Nightshade, and which had been eaten for a good many 
centuries by that time.

>There's an interesting quote in the OED:
>"1753 CHAMBERS Cycl. Suppl., Tomato, the Portuguese [error] name for the
>fruit of the lycopersicon or love-apple; a fruit..eaten
>either stewed or raw by the Spaniards and Italians and by the Jew families
>in England."
>
>So it was not universally eaten.

I never suggested that it was. But the quote (the relevant part of 
which I provided in an earlier post, as it happens) implies that 
whoever wrote it knew that tomatoes were not poisonous.

>The Britannica says: "In France and northern Europe the tomato was at
>first grown as an ornamental plant. Since botanists recognized it as a
>relative of the poisons belladonna and deadly
>  nightshade, it was regarded with suspicion as a food. (The roots and
>leaves of the tomato plant are in fact poisonous; they contain the
>neurotoxin solanine.)"

To begin with, that quote provides no supporting evidence. Further, 
"regarded with suspicion" is a far cry from "not eaten because it was 
believed to be poisonous." I think we have already seen at least one 
quote implying that someone thought it was bad for you.

>My suspicion is that the belief that tomatoes were poisonous may well have
>been a superstition common in Northern europe, but not reflected in
>scholarly treatises.

Certainly possible. Do you have any evidence for that suspicion?
- -- 
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/