[Sca-cooks] Spanish tomato sauce, late 16th c.? -- from Gerarde's Herball 1597

[Johnna Holloway]

We have about two feet of snow yet in drifts across the lawn, so  
tomatoes are about as far from the mind as they can possibly be… But  
the question has been asked:

What are we to make of Gerard? What I make of Gerard is that sometime  
in the 1590’s he obtained seeds for the tomato from the continent and  
grew some in his garden at Holburn. Poma Amoris are listed in the 1596  
Catalogus arborum [fructium ac plantarum tam indigenarum, quam  
exoticarum, in horto Iohannis Gerardi nascentium] or his published  
plant list. From what we know of his life, he never traveled to either  
Spain or Italy.

  His statement from the 1597 edition where he writes:  "The vertues.  
In Spaine and those hot regions they vse to eate the apples prepared  
and boilded with pepper, salt, and oile: but they yeelde very little  
nourishment to the bodie, and the same naught and corrupt. Likewise  
they do eate the apples with oile, vineger and pepper mixed togither  
for sauce to their meate, even as we in these cold countries do  
mustarde" (p.276).

In the 1633 according to EEBO TCP it reads:  In Spaine and those hot  
Regions they vse to eat the Apples prepared and boiled with, [ A]  
salt, and oile: but they yeeld very little nourishment to the bodie,  
and the same nought and. Likewise they doe eat the Apples with oile,  
vineger and pepper mixed together for sauce to [ B] their meat, euen  
as we in these cold Countries doe Mustard.

  Is it a recipe? Is it truthful? Or is it hearsay? After all even as  
late as the 1633 corrected and improved edition it is still being  
reported in the same entry:

Howbeit there be other golden Apples whereof the Poets doe fable,  
growing in the Gardens of the daughters of Hesperus, which a Dragon  
was appointed to keepe, who, as they fable, was killed by Hercules.
-----

We do know that in The naturall and morall historie of the East and  
West Indies. Intreating of the remarkable things of heaven, of the  
elements, mettalls, plants and beasts which are proper to that  
country: together with the manners, ceremonies, lawes, governments,  
and warres of the Indians. Written in Spanish by the R.F. Ioseph  
Acosta, and translated into English by E.G. which was published in  
England in 1604 it was reported:

pp. 295 and 296

They vse also Tomates, which are colde and very wholesome. It is a  
kinde of graine great and full of iuyce, the which gives a good taste  
to  sawce, and they are good to eate. They have generally throughout  
the Indies of this Indian pepper, at the Ilands, new Spaine, Peru, and  
all the rest that is discovered. And as mays is the generall graine  
for bread, so Axi is the most common spice for sawces.

and on page 519

  there was also Indian pepper, beetes, Tomates, which is a great  
sappy and savourie graine,

---

This same information was repeated exactly in other books, inc in the  
1625 Purchas his pilgrimes In fiue bookes.

--

Working with the English sources, I also found information in   
Dodoens, Rembert, 1517-1585. A nievve herball, or historie of plantes.  
1578 which was noted as "First set foorth in the Doutche or Almaigne  
tongue, by that learned D. Rembert Dodoens, physition to the Emperour:  
and nowe first translated out of French into English, by Henry Lyte  
Esquyer."

  Of Amorus Apples or Golden Apples. Chap. Lxxxvi   Page 439

  These strange Apples be also of two sortes, one red, and the other  
yellowe, but in all other poyntes they be lyke as in stalkes, leaues,  
and growing.

  [Illustration: Poma Amoris]

  This strange plante, is nowe called Latine Pomum Amoris, Poma  
Amoris, and of some Pomumaureum: in frenche Pommes dorees, and of some  
also Pommes D’amours: in high Douche Golt offel: in bafe (base?)  
Almaigne Guiden applen; in English Apples of love, or Golden Apples.

  The Nature and Vertue.

The complexion, nature, and working of this plante, is not yet knowen,  
but by that I can gather of the taste, it should be colde of nature,  
especially the leaves, somewhat like unto Mandrake, and therefore also  
it is dangerousd to be vsed.

  Johnnae