[Sca-cooks] Tomato References

[Terry Decker]

Tannahill covers the subject, but not very thoroughly.  Toussaint-Samat has
a little less information.  Root covers the subject better in "Food" by at
least referencing Pierandrea Mattioli (but not his "Commentaries on the Six
Books of Dioscorides" (1544)).

IIRC, Leonard Fuch's Herbal of 1545  also contains a botanical description
of the tomato.

The best known reference is a recipe in Gerard's Herball, " In Spaine and
those hot regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and boiled with
pepper, salt and oyle; but they yeeld very little mourishment to the body,
and the same naught and corrupt."  Of course, Gerard was a staunch
Protestant Englishman laying it on the Papists.

Probably, the Spanish introduced the tomato into Naples where it caught on,
then spread north into Central Europe.  French use of the tomato is
primarily 18th Century and according to Brillat-Savarin, the tomato was a
new arrival in Paris in the 19th Century.

Bear




>Tannahill's "Food In History" covers the spread of tomatoes throughout
>Europe quite well.  I'm on the road this week and don't have access to my
>copy otherwise I'd post the details.  IIRC, some of the more temperate
lands
>like France were the first to grow and use tomatoes in Europe.  They didn't
>spread south into the Mediterranean areas until well after Period.
>
>-Lorenz