[Sca-cooks] Medieval and/or Middle Eastern Recipies containingTomatoes

[Johnna Holloway]

I don't have the time to dig into this at the moment. I have another 
medical appointment
this am and I have to leave for that.

There has always been this nagging bother that certain reference books
have listed that they had pomidoros (the tomato) in Italy in like the 
12th century.
Sources like Theodora Fitzgibbon's The Foods of the Western World.
An Encyclopedia of Food from North America and Europe.
New York: Quadrangle/the New York Times Book Company, 1976 say this.
Some monks are credited with its introduction; I think Fitzgibbon said that
it came from China. I don't have this book out at the moment so perhaps
someone else can pull it off their shelf and  repeat the entries. Of 
course if one looks
up the entry under tomoto, it says New World!
My best guess is that it was another plant with a name that came to be given
to the tomato later. We see this done with various of the beans and 
pumpkins.

There are of course 16th century references in Gerald to the tomato 
where it is
said that they ate them in warm places like Spain.

Johnnae


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