SC - Poisonous Tomatoes?

[david friedman]

At 5:11 PM -0500 11/27/00, Jenne Heise wrote:
>  > 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.

At this point, the only evidence that has been presented for a 16th, 
17th, 18th or 19th c. belief that tomatoes were poisonous is the 
existence of late 20th century assertions to that effect. One way of 
trying to figure out where those assertions originate is by looking 
at internal evidence. I offered some internal evidence suggesting 
that they had originated a considerable time after the introduction 
of tomatoes.

It is, of course, possible that some people in the 16th or 17th c. 
thought tomatoes are poisonous. It is also possible that some people 
in the 13th c. thought eating meals within an hour after midnight 
would kill you. It is very hard to prove that nobody ever believed 
something. But as long as the only evidence offered for the claim 
that tomatoes were thought to be poisonous is the existence of modern 
accounts, evidence that those accounts are of recent origin reduces 
the grounds for believing the claim.

You propose a different sort of evidence--the fact that tomatoes did 
not come into common use in northern Europe for quite a long time. 
While that could mean that they were considered poisonous, one would 
think that if that were the explanation someone would have been able 
to come up with an assertion to that effect made at the time. And 
there are lots of other possible explanations. I gather that maize 
didn't get widely used as human food for a long time in 
Europe--indeed, still isn't very popular there--although nobody seems 
to think it is poisonous. Medlars are not normally seen in U.S. 
grocery stores.

>  >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?

It was the most common vegetable in medieval Islamic cuisine. Sicily 
was under Islamic rule before the Norman conquest, and Spain before 
the reconquista, so people in Spain, and probably in Italy, would 
have been familiar with it.

>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.

But so far, "the widespread belief that certain people thought they 
were poisonous" appears to be widespread only in the 20th century. 
Given how many historical errors are widespread--frequently, I 
suspect, because they make good stories--that isn't much evidence 
that the belief is based on historical fact.

>However, the idea
>that such a suspicion never existed, but was a hoax perpetrated by modern
>writers, is a bit more complicated.

I am suggesting an error, not a hoax. Someone made a guess, possibly 
based on Matteoli's linking of the tomato to the mandrake, and a few 
repetitions turned it into a fact.
- -- 
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/