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The tomato was feared in Europe for more than 200 years (2013)
- Croftengea 5y agoAlso, "The Poisonous History of Tomatoes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beBQgxdu2eY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beBQgxdu2eY
- xg15 5y ago> Like similar fruits and vegetables in the solanaceae family—the eggplant for example, the tomato garnered a shady reputation for being both poisonous and a source of temptation. Wait what? So the infamous modern-day eggplant emoji really has a milennia-old history?
- BTCOG 5y agoOld world tomatoes prior to early 1800's breeding projects and wild tomatoes look like currants, and being Solanaceae were considered a Nightshade. Not only in Europe, but as some have pointed out here well into the 1800s in America as well. George Washington grew tomatoes in his personal garden only for looks and thought they were poisonous. The vine of the plant itself as with all the solanaceae actually is at least mildly toxic but the dose makes the poison. So is eggplant. Potatoes are fine to eat raw when they're ripe so long as they're fully ripe, and not green. Green potatoes still contain solanine which will make you fairly sick if you eat enough of it. Potatoes also contain small amounts of nicotine, as do tomatoes and eggplants. For the longest time, tomato vines were considered to be completely toxic even very recently. They do contain tomatine and nicotine but only very recently in the last couple decades have some chefs ventured into cooking with a small bit of tomato leaf for an added rich tomato flavor. For decades of large tomato growing, Ive gotten myself completely covered in tomato vine terpenes and juices from the vines to no ill effect. I was taught by my grandfather since I was really young that the tomatoes are ok to eat and that the vines are poisonous. This was mostly anecdotal and passed down from the time of the 1800s and earlier when people thought the entire tomato was a nightshade variety and then eventually thought only the fruit was edible. Only in the past 10 years or so among us tomato breeders and absolute tomato fanatics in the culinary world has the toxicity of the tomato vine really been being called into question. Some Michelin type chefs have been cooking dishes with tomato leaves and this was pretty much completely unheard of and thought to be poisonous just a couple decades ago. And all that being said, plants are the closest thing that I believe we have on this planet to magic. They're perfect little chemical plants, flavonoid and terpene producers. Just in tomatoes alone I've got beefsteaks that taste like mild pineapple, rich, meaty, heavy, and acidic to mild, sweet, and light. Peach tomatoes that actually grow peach fuzz and have a mildly tangy citrus profile to them. With small cherry and currant varieties you have a quick sweet and tart snack that has no flesh. With a giant 2 pound heirloom beefsteak like a Sudduth strain Brandywine, the tomato is all flesh and is the absolute peak of bursting and rich "meaty" tomato flavor. I grow at least 10-15 different varieties a season and at times 40+. I can tell by the smell of touching the vines if the tomato plant is an heirloom indeterminate or a hybrid. Now I'm rambling, but I __really__ love tomatoes. Huge passion of mine. In the next few years I plan to start an entire acre dedicated to tomatoes and a focus on keeping some of the oldest heirlooms alive. Ben Quisenberry is a huge hero of mine.
- dingsbumps 5y agoDo you grow these commercially or as a hobby? Your descriptions of the varieties are very evocative, I wish I could have some in front of me right now to taste!
- BTCOG 5y agoAlways been a hobby of passion for me. I have sold them from time to time to chefs and do intend to purchase land soon which will include a bunch more space for larger number of plants. Culminating in more seed saving projects and breeding.
- TheGigaChad 5y agoI wonder how many were touting The Science in order not to eat the tomato and have it banned.
- netizen-936824 5y agoSounds similar to the fear about drugs. Many people who use or abuse drugs have mental health issues and they are using the drug in an attempt to self medicate. People see this and think that drugs cause mental health issues, which is not true at all.
- ruforrel 5y agoSounds like something a drug addicted mental patient would say.
- Sebb767 5y agoWell, I'd argue that overconsumption of hard drugs is a mental health issue, so there's definitely some relation.
- supperburg 5y agoOverconsumption is the symptom of mental health problems, not the cause. The only major class of drug induced mental disorder has to do with people who have a pre-existing condition. But when people can’t stop using drugs, it’s because they have an emotional problem. Most of the Vietnam vets who used heroin overseas stopped using without issue when they came back.
- yakubin 5y ago
- darkerside 5y agoMuch better analogy than drugs seems like our fear of things like fats in our diet. Regardless, this is pretty fluffy.
- ruforrel 5y agoOr salt and high blood pressure.
- assbuttbuttass 5y agoI have heard not to feed tomatoes to your feeder insects because tomatoes are poisonous and could kill your reptile. Is that a myth as well?
- Tagbert 5y agoTomato leaves contain a number of toxic terpenes that are taken on by the tomato hornworm. I’ve heard that dogs will usually spit them our but can become ill if they eat too many. Hard to know the effect of these terpenes on your reptile, but I would not use them as a feed stock.
- eliasmacpherson 5y agoWould be interested to hear anything from people who have experienced a food allergy or intolerance towards tomatoes, something the NHS seems very skeptical on.
- jjcon 5y agoI can’t eat tomatoes at all - not sure why - I love their flavor but shortly after eating them my entire digestive system hits the panic button. It doesn’t happen with other foods (at least those I eat). I tend to just avoid them now. Edit: Thought I would add, my doc suspects it is an acid-reflux response but wasn't sure why it would be isolated to tomatoes.
- eliasmacpherson 5y agoHave you any allergies? Are there other foods that cause you problems?
- jjcon 5y agoNo other foods really, no food allergies to my knowledge. I do have minor seasonal allergies to ragweed pollen though.
- kingkawn 5y agoDo you get similar reactions to other nightshades?
- jjcon 5y agoNot really, I eat a lots of potatoes and enjoy eggplant now and again without issue
- treeman79 5y agoNightshades can be a trigger for autoimmune issues. I had to give up tomatoes and potatoes
- ksec 5y ago>Around 1880, with the invention of the pizza in Naples, the tomato grew widespread in popularity in Europe. The most interesting part for me, was that Pizza was invented in ~1900? That is relatively new.
- phonypc 5y agoEh, the modern-ish notion (tomato sauce and cheese topping) of pizza maybe. Topped flatbreads called pizza are much older, and topped flatbreads in general are again much older than that.
- silisili 5y agoIf you draw comparisons to say, tortillas(i do), they go way, way back, at least 12k years if wiki is to be believed.
- Mikeb85 5y agoGrain that's ground, mixed with water and cooked is definitely one of the earliest processed foods humans created. Easily 10's of thousands of years old. The entire agricultural revolution occurred because humans wanted to farm grains; some historians say to make beer, but whether beer or bread came first both are connected (both are basically just water + grain + yeast + heat).
- irrational 5y agoDon’t forget the salt!
- zeroimpl 5y agoSeems like salt was only invented 8000 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt
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- silverpepsi 5y agoIMHO the best song to accompany reading this article is my favorite Paleo diet song: Megadeth - "Deadly Nightshade"
- DonHopkins 5y agoNo wonder, those things are vicious! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txfdGlxEsG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txfdGlxEsG8
- Kosirich 5y agoMy dads grandma would still refer to tomato as "food for pigs".
- Kosirich 5y agojust to point out, this wasn't a dig at veggies. My dads grandma still used tomatoes and ate them, but probably the "food for pigs" was still a "strong meme" at the end of 19th century in central Istria. The part of Istria, todays Croatia, I'm taking about was then owned by Austrian dukes and not Italy like coastline, which might explain later adoption of "New World" based cousine.
- Ma8ee 5y agoMy grandfather considered all green vegetables cow feed.
- Gibbon1 5y agoYour grandfather only ate grains and things that eat grains.
- Ma8ee 5y agoYes, meat, but not so much grains as potatoes.
- magicalhippo 5y agoI'll never forget when I was 6 or so and visiting my grandparents. My grandma had decided to do something wild and new and had made one of those newfangled frozen pizzas for dinner, kids loved those she'd read. So we sat down, each getting a slice, and then she serves my grandfather a small plate with three cooked potatoes on it... I ask what's the potatoes are for. "It's not dinner if there's no potatoes". And with that, he ate pizza with potatoes.
- thom 5y ago
- vmception 5y agoHa people thought of them the same as deadly nightshades because of how it become poison while reacting with their plates! Makes me wonder if we can similarly make deadly nightshades become edible by neutralizing their toxin before or during digestion
- adminscoffee 5y agoi wonder what other plants are that we fear or overlook that are edible/medical
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- betwixthewires 5y agoI wouldn't say fear, but I'd be willing to bet you could go to any meadow nearby and find enough wild edible plants to make dinner. Most of the plants treated as weeds in north america were imported as food crops or were at one time or another used for food.
- netizen-936824 5y agoAll you have to do is look at the drug scheduling system in the US for your answers
- echelon_musk 5y agoIn One River by Wade Davis, Tim Plowman is talking about the tropane alkaloids present in some of the Solanaceae family and relates: "My grandmother would never eat tomatoes. She said they were the devil’s fruit, that we only thought they could be eaten, and that eventually everyone who ate them would be cursed.”
- shrimpx 5y agoAlso feared by Europeans around the same time: bathing.
- cgh 5y agoThis is a common fallacy. Public bathhouses were common in medieval Europe, a legacy of Rome, and by the 18th century, “therapeutic bathing” was a thing.
- ivnshrv 5y agoPeople feared lots of regular food and things that we use today so tomato is only one example :)
- mrfusion 5y agoI always found it interesting that squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons in my yard avoid eating the tomato’s. You’d think it would be an easy snack.
- coolspot 5y agoTomatoes are red, obviously poisonous.
- catlikesshrimp 5y agoI don't know if you are serious. But they do look poisonous anyways. Where I live there are poisonous berries that can be mistaken with cherry tomatoes.
- jeddy3 5y agoTomato are closely related to tobacco IIRC (as well as potato). There might be traces of nicotine in the plant, which is a pesticide. This actually also might give some fuel as to why people considered it dangerous. EDIT after googling: Yes tomato contains nicotine, in particular before ripening.
- markdown 5y ago200 years later, not much has changed. Kava is a food consumed for thousands of years across the Pacific Islands. It's the national drink of Fiji. Kava is banned in Europe today.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoanything change from the last time you posted this? Here's some discussion from 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13052405
- bobthepanda 5y agoHN allows reposts with enough time separation; presumably not everyone on HN was also on it 5 years ago.
- raldi 5y agoYes, the HN mods reached out to me and asked me to post it again.
- Agoreddah 5y agoIn 18th century in Astria-Hungary, there were several conspiracies about the potatoes as a weapon of rich to poison and kill the poor. Funny fact, our ancestors were fighting againts potatoes 300years ago and now we celebrate this ingredient in national dishes as a cultural heritage. Btw similar revolts could be found in many government/kingdom actions f.e. to fight cholera or plagues of that time. Peasants didn't understand the actions and expected bad things to come instead.
- dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 5y agoPotatoes and Tomatoes are very similar plants. You can graft them together and have a living plant that grows tomatoes on top and potatoes in the roots. Potatoes also produce fruits that are similar to cherry tomatoes. They taste like gross tomatoes and are indeed poisonous in relatively small quantities.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> Potatoes and Tomatoes are very similar plants. You can graft them together and have a living plant that grows tomatoes on top and potatoes in the roots. It's true that they're similar plants, but that's not a requirement of grafting.
- Jedd 5y agoIt kind of is, though. Grafting specimens of the same species is fairly easy - grafting onto a different species but staying in the same genus is a little less reliable but the basis of most grafted orchard trees. Grafting to a different genus, but within the same family, is much more challenging. Not impossible, of course, but less likely to succeed, so less commonly done.
- throwawaycities 5y agoYou can do something similar with hops and marijuana…so I’ve heard
- cm2012 5y ago
- DougN7 5y agoMy friends in Switzerland 30 years ago thought corn was only for animals. It took some convincing for them to try American-style corn on the cob (which is delicious!)
- MengerSponge 5y agoDent corn vs. sweet corn. One of these is good for animals, while the other is great with butter.
- beebeepka 5y agoBoth are fine. I resent the idea that one of them is simply animal feed.
- MengerSponge 5y agoIf you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to luck into tasty sweet corn. If you don't (read: Europeans, historically) you're likely to give your peasants pellagra. As a taco/tamale/posole/hominy fan, I agree with you and am ashamed of my insinuation. I'll strive to do better.
- ekianjo 5y agoThere is not just one type of corn on Earth
- a9h74j 5y agoFact check needed, but doesn't 'corn' mean '[primary]staple', officially? So what Americans call 'corn' is technically Maize, according to that view. Somewhere else the 'corn' could be rice -- again on that view. Edit: [1].definition#3> a cereal grass that is the primary crop of a region (such as wheat in Britain and oats in Scotland and Ireland) [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corn https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corn
- el-salvador 5y ago
- ingenieros 5y agoItalians will still fear pineapple 200 years from now.
- contingencies 5y agoCamorra closes ranks on pineapple panuozzo ...
- BenjaminW4257 5y agoXFM - Ricky Gervais Show - Karl Pilkington heads knew about this donkeys years ago.
- m0zg 5y agoRelated: when Peter The Great introduced potatoes to Russia (from Holland IIRC), he forgot to tell the peasants what parts were edible, and the peasants ate the poisonous above-ground bits. Looking at the comments, seems like he wasn't the only one to do this. :-)
- Thorrez 5y ago>In Genesis, the mandrake is used as a love potion Is this directly in Genesis, or is this a theory? I don't see anything in Genesis directly saying the mandrakes were used for a love potion.