Killer Tomatoes

Feb 9

Did you know that people have feared tomatoes for 600 years? Since it’s Halloween, I think it’s time we understand the maligned history of tomatoes beginning in Europe in the 1500s.

Once deemed “flying ointment” for witches broomsticks by actual witch hunters (oh, yes!). Eating raw tomatoes was also believed to turn you into a werewolf (uh, huh). Also, considered poisonous since naturalists in Europe didn’t know a thing about them at the time (yup). Oh, it also didn’t help that there was a witchcraft panic going on in Europe when the mysterious New World fruit arrived (oh, yeah).

Pretty weird-creepy stuff but this is all a part of food history. Of course, tomatoes are not poisonous at all and they don’t actually turn you into a werewolf or help witches hunt down little children. Even scientists believed the hype surrounding the mysterious tomato.

Good thing the Saucery wasn’t around then. Amiright?

Tomatoes had a similarity to its botanical relative the mandrake fruit and went undetected to the untrained eye and there were quite a few untrained eyes throughout the 1500s. And although tomatoes were edible—I mean the Aztecs did eat them— it’s hard to tell the difference between yellow tomatoes and the hallucinogenic (and very creepy; have you seen their roots) mandrake fruit.

All this said, when you think about it, trying new foods back then really wasn’t all that different from how people respond to trying new food now. Intrigued at first, suspicious second and, depending on your diet, in love or absolutely hateful. Sounds the same to me except no one actually gets branded a witch because they eat tomatoes these days. Really grateful of course, cause we’d be out-of-business.