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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> People (Europeans) in medieval times never saw a tomato to decide
> whether it was poisonous or not.  Tomatoes are native to America.

>From the below it looks like the Tomato did not enter Europe until after
1521.  The first cook book mention was in 1692.  The Tomato plant looks like
the nightshade plant and the resemblance scared many away from this
delectable berry.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~samcox/Tomato.html

"The Spanish explorer Cortez conquered the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, later
to be renamed Mexico City, in 1521. It is presumed that the tomato found
its' way across the Atlantic shortly after. The earliest mention of the
tomato in European literature is found in an herbal written by Matthiolus in
1544 [3]. He described tomatoes, or as they were called in Italy, pomi d'oro
(golden apple), and wrote that they were "eaten in Italy with oil, salt and
pepper". This provides evidence that the first tomatoes to reach the Old
World were a yellow variety, and that they were introduced via the
Mediterranean. Red tomatoes were said to be introduced to Italy by two
Catholic priests many years later [9]. Although not specifically documented,
early tomatoes were probably small fruited, since they most likely were of
the small-fruited cerasiforme variety cultivated by the Aztecs.
Additionally, later emphasis on breeding for smooth-skinned cultivars [3]
suggests that early cultivars had a rough skin."

"Undoubtedly it was initially received in Spain, and the name pome dei Moro
(Moor's apple), was probably among the first [1]. Cultivation of perhaps
several varieties became widespread in the ensuing decades in Spain, Italy,
and in France, where it was called pomme d'amour (love apple) [9], perhaps
because of suspected aphrodisiac properties, but more likely the result of a
corruption of the early Spanish name, pome dei Moro. Although used in a
limited manner as a food in Mediterranean countries, northern European
countries regarded the tomato as a curiosity for over a century [6]. English
authors referred to the tomato as a horticultural ornamental as early as
1578 [3]. One such English cultivator wrote in 1596, "these love apples are
eaten abroad", but went on to describe them "of rank and stinking savour"
[1]. By 1623, four types of tomatoes were known: red, yellow, orange and
golden [3], with the distinction between yellow and golden perhaps only in
the mind of different authors. The first cookbook to mention tomatoes was
published in Naples in 1692 [1]. By 1700, seven types are mentioned in one
article, including a large red type [3]. In 1752, English cooks used
tomatoes sparingly in the flavoring of soups [1]. In 1758, a tomato recipe
allegedly showed up in the popular British cookbook, The Art of Cookery by
Hannah Glass [1]. Earliest records of marketing tomatoes are from the early
1800's in Europe [3]."
 
"The introduction of the tomato did not proceed peacefully in all areas of
Europe. Northern cultures associated the tomato plant with poisonous members
of the Solanceae family, specifically henbane, mandrake and deadly
nightshade, which bore morphological resemblance. Deadly nightshade, Atropus
belladonna, in particular bears good resemblance to a tomato plant (Fig 3).
It is a poisonous plant which has been used as both a hallucinogenic drug
and a beauty aid in different parts of Europe. The Latin name "belladonna"
literally means beautiful woman, in reference to the practice of ladies in
medieval courts who would apply a few drops of nightshade extract to their
eyes to dilate their pupils, a look considered most fashionable at the time.
The hallucinogenic properties of the plant, comprised of visions and the
sense of flying, most likely led to the association of nightshade with
witchcraft. Old German folklore has it that witches used plants of the
nightshade family to evoke werewolves, a practice known as lycanthropy (Fig
4). The common German name for tomatoes translates to "wolf peach", and was
avoided for obvious reasons. In the 18th century Carl Linnaeus conjured up
binomial nomenclature to name species, and took note of this legend when he
named the tomato Lycopersicon esculentum, which literally means, "edible
wolf peach" [1]."

Don Bowen  KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html