SC - period thoughts on the tomato

[Stefan li Rous]

Those interested in the current thread on whether tomatoes were thought
to be poisonous by Europeans will probably want to take a look at this
article in the FOOD-VEGETABLES section of the Florilegium:
tomato-hist-art   (18K)  2/ 1/99    "You say tomato I say Xitomatl" by Lord
                                       Xaviar the Eccentric.

There are several period and just-out-of-period referances given in this
article including at least on herbal. There is a fairly long bibliography
of primary and secondary material listed at the end of the article.

Here are a few quotes from this article:
> Tomatoes were
> utilized by Native  Central Americans at every stage of growth;
> thin shavings of the green and unripe fruit were incorporated in
> many dishes, while the ripe fruits were mixed with chillis to
> make a strong-tasting sauce (Salsa?) to go with cooked beans. 
> This sauce is documented by Bernardino Sahagu'n, a Franciscan
> Priest, He wrote (around 1530) that the Natives served it with
> seafood, fowl, and other meats.

>      The first tomatoes to appear in Europe (in the 1520's) were,
> so far as can be determined were lumpy reddish ones.  Though
> Pietro Andrae Matthioli (Italian herbalist) wrote (in 1544) about
> mala aurea (golden apples), describing them as "flattened like
> the melrose apple and segmented, green at first and when ripe of
> a golden color."  This is considered the first known European
> reference to the tomato.  The Problem with this is all explorers
> notes and herbalist who were in the New World at this time all
> mention the Natives using red tomatoes exclusively.  Melchioris
> Guilandini (Guilandinus), the second prefect of the Padua
> Botanical Garden, gives us documentation for the arrival of the
> red tomato in the 1520's.(1)  This source conflicts with the name
> given to them by a number of different sources.

>      The use of the tomato in and as a sauce is documented in
> 1590, by Jose de Acosta in his Historia natural y moral de las
> Indias (published in Seville).  Acosta does not give recipes as
> such but gives his observations on Native South American usage. 
> He is quoted as stating that tomatoes were "cold and very
> wholesome"  and "full of juice, which gives a good taste to
> sauce, and they are good to eat."(Smith, 15).  

>      The cookbooks (of Spain), written at this time have no
> mention of the tomato as use as cooked food.  It is not until
> some time around 1608 that we can find tomatoes being listed in a
> salad recipe with cucumbers from Seville.  

>      This information does tend to cast doubt on the myth that
> tomatoes were not eaten "because they are members of the
> NIGHTSHADE FAMILY."  Even though they were classified (by
> Matthioli) as being related to the Mandrake. 

> The tomato was not grown in England until the 1590, even though
> they were in Continental Europe since the 1540's.  John Gerard
> (Herball) wrote that he considered the entire plant to be "of
> ranke and stinking savour."  

> John Parkinson, the apothecary to King James I and
> botanist for King Charles I, proclaimed that, while love apples
> were eaten by the people in the hot contries to "coole and quench
> the heate and thirst of the hot stomaches," British gardeners
> grew them only for curiositnd for the amorous aspect or beauty
> of the fruit. (Jackson, 14)(Gerard, 275-6).

I hope this proves useful in this current inquiry.
- -- 
THL  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****