[Sca-cooks] OT - A little history

[Decker, Terry D.]

Snopes is debunking some "historical facts."  When debunking, failing to
have the details correct is a failure to properly make the case.

One of the things that did not get posted was the title of the collection,
"Life in the 1500's," so Pre-Columbian is not really and issue.  All of the
original "facts" may presumed to be Post-Columbian.

The tomato was originally described in 1544 by Pier Andrea Mattioli as "Mala
aurea" or "golden apples."  He later changed this description to "Mala
insana" or "unhealthy apples."  I suspect that it is Mattioli, who made
tomatoes unpopular in Europe.  One source states that there is a reference
to "Poma amoris" (love apples) in Rembert Dodoens' Cruydeboeck (1554) where
he connects them and Mala insana and states they are poisonous.   Since the
source is questionable and I haven't verfied the reference, I'll take it
with a grain of salt.

Jefferson grew tomatoes at Monticello which he brought back from Europe on
one of his trips there (I suspect 1785 when he was minister to France,
although some sources place it earlier).  He presumably ate some picked from
the vine publicly in Lynchburg, Viginia while he was President.  As for
serving them to his guests, I haven't seen any definitive proof.

In any event, they didn't come into general use in the U.S. until the 19th
Century (advice on preparing tomatoes appears in Godey's Lady's Book around
1860).

Bear

> 
> They, nonetheless, were American foodstuffs, and a relative 
> of the deadly
> nightshade, and the green parts can make you sick or kill you. Even
> Gerard's Herbal mention their use as an infrequent thing, 
> IIRC, saying that
> in one area the fruit is eaten fruied in oil with a little salt.
> 
> A lot of interesting new world plants and animals were brough back to
> Spain, and though Spain to Itlay, in the 15th and 16th 
> ceturies. Not all of
> them became popular with the Europeans.
> 
> What does appear clear, though, is that until the early 19th 
> Century, when
> Jefferson "proved" their safety and made a big deal of 
> feeding them to his
> ambassadorial guests, the Tomato did not appear as a common European
> foodstuff, even in Italy.
> 
> So Snopes may have the detail incorrect, they have the spirit 
> of things.
> Certainly the presence of the tomato in preColumbian europe was not
> possible. and the avoiding of them had nothing to do with the 
> lead acid
> reactions in the pewter. Lead oxide was a comon enough 
> whitening agent in
> cosmetics, and pipes and drinking vessels were made of lead 
> with regularity
> throughout period, so a connection to lead poisoniong form 
> one foodstuff
> would have been unlikely to have been drawn.
> 
> 
> Brandu