SC - Tomatoes

[Philippa Alderton]

>From my trivia List.....

The tomato was the subject of controversy for hundreds of years after it was
introduced to Europe from South America in the 16th century. Early botanists
thought it was poisonous, and it was even said to cause cancer. Not only was
there uncertainty about the safety of the tomato, there was even uncertainty
about its legal definition.

    In Nix v. Hedden (1893), the US Supreme Court considered whether
tomatoes should be classified as fruits or vegetables under the Tariff Act
of 1883. The Court ruled "that because in the common language of the people
[tomatoes] are vegetables," they should be so considered under the Act, even
though botanically they are defined as fruits.

    Uncertainty surrounding the toxicity of the tomato took longer to
settle. The plant itself belongs to the family of poisonous plants that
includes belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade, and black henbane.
Though the fruit is safe to eat, the leaves and stems of the tomato plant
are in fact poisonous, and cattle that graze on tomato plants have been
known to die.

    It was thought that lengthy cooking of tomatoes took away or neutralized
their supposedly venomous content, so for many years tomatoes were consumed
as a sauce. However, raw tomato was approached with caution until the 20th
century. The first record of a human eating a raw tomato in the US dates to
1840, when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson stood on the courthouse steps in
Salem, New Jersey and publicly devoured one. He lived to tell the story, but
did little to change public opinion. Food historian Waverly Root reports
that no Frenchman dared to bite into a raw tomato until 1912.



Phlip

Nolo disputare, volo somniare et contendere, et iterum somniare.

phlip at morganco.net

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

"All things are poisons.  It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a
poison and a remedy." -Paracelsus

"Oats -- a grain which in England sustains the horses, and in
Scotland, the men." -- Johnson

"It was pleasant to me to find that 'oats,' the 'food of horses,' were
so much used as the food of the people in Johnson's own town." --
Boswell

"And where will you find such horses, and such men?" -- Anonymous