SC - Poisonous Tomatoes?

[Decker, Terry D.]

> > 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.
> 
> If this story was accurate, it would be a statement about one 
> community in
> North America in the 1820's. If it was not accurate, it means 
> that there
> was a legend about that incident that was propagated after 1820.
> Whether or not the legend was accurate, it says nothing about 
> tomatoes in
> any part of Europe in the middles ages and what they may or 
> may not have
> believed about tomatoes.

Waverly Root places the modern source for this story with James Trager
(probably meaning The Food Book which was published in the '70s).  Trager is
a collector of interesting food stories; true, false, partially correct,
apocryphal, etc.  He does not provide original sources and does not do a lot
of reasearch to determine the veracity of his tales.

> >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.
> 
> In waht cultures was eggplant eaten?

Eggplant was eaten in Indian, Arabic and European cultures long before this
time.

Matteoli originally referred to the tomato as Mala aurum, but later changed
the name to Mala insana, which suggests a change of opinion about the plant.

Root also makes the comment that a botanist named Dalechamps makes the
connection between the tomato and the mandrake, but does not provide enough
data to determine if this was his opinion or a rehash of Matteoli.

> The strongest evidence for this is that tomatoes were apparently not
> widely cultivated in Northern Europe and America, and the widespread
> belief that certain people thought they were poisonous, thus 
> accounting
> for the lack of enthusiasm. That people might hesitate to eat 
> the fruit of
> an ornamental so conspiciously similar to the deadly 
> nightshade, feeling
> that it was probably poisonous, is certainly reasonable. 
> However, the idea
> that such a suspicion never existed, but was a hoax 
> perpetrated by modern
> writers, is a bit more complicated.
> 
> -- 
> Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      

Not so much a hoax, but an expanding error, where someone misquotes or
misunderstands the original work and is later cited by others as
authoritative.  It is the reason original sources are so important.

BTW, Root cites several 18th Century seed catalogs to show a change from use
as ornamentals to food plants.

Bear