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Music and Art at the Ukrainian Institute of America
Posted by Nightshade on September 10, 2005 at 17:47:00:
In Reply to: Re: You need beets! posted by Mother Teresa's Lawyer on September 10, 2005 at 15:31:54:
: Well there's all different kinds of borscht, I've had Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and they even have different colors, I personally don't care for any, I like gazpacho soup or just plain tomato soup, then afterwards I like to sing cowboy songs, "home, home on the range"...
Ah, history of the tomato - fascinating stuff -
"According to Andrew F. Smith's The Tomato in America, the tomato probably originated in the highlands on the west coast of South America. Smith notes that there is no evidence that the tomato was cultivated or even eaten before the Spanish arrived. Other researchers, however, have pointed out that this is not conclusive, as many other fruits in continuous cultivation in Peru are not present in the very limited historical record. Much horticultural knowledge was lost after the arrival of Europeans, as the Roman Catholic Church had a policy of burning all pre-Columbian information as pagan.
In any case, by some means the tomato migrated to Central America. Mayan and other peoples in the region used the fruit in their cooking, and it was being cultivated in southern Mexico, and probably in other areas, by the sixteenth century. The large, lumpy tomato, a mutation from a smoother, smaller fruit, originated and was encouraged in Central America. Smith states that this variant is the direct ancestor of some modern cultivated tomatoes.
Spanish distribution
After the Spanish conquest of Central America, the Spanish distributed the tomato throughout their colonies in South America, and also introduced it to the Caribbean. They also brought it to the Philippines, from which point it moved to southeast Asia and then the entire Asian continent.
The Spanish also brought the tomato to Europe. It grew easily in Mediterranean climates, and cultivation began in the 1540s. It was probably eaten shortly after it was introduced, though it was certainly being used as food by the early 1600s in Spain. The earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources.
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Tomatoes in Italy
Because the plant was clearly similar to its nightshade congeners, it was assumed for years to be poisonous, in Italy, where it was grown as a decorative plant. Eventually the peasant classes discovered that it could be eaten when more desirable food was scarce. This eventually developed into a whole cuisine of tomato dishes, as the wonders of the fruit became obvious. But this took several centuries, wide acceptance not happening until the 18th century.
Tomatoes in Britain
The tomato plant was not grown in England until the 1590s, according to Smith. One of the earliest cultivators was John Gerard, a barber-surgeon. Gerard's Herbal, published in 1597, and largely plagiarized from continental sources, is also one of the earliest discussions of the tomato in England. Gerard knew that the tomato was eaten in both Spain and Italy. Nonetheless, he believed that it was poisonous (tomato leaves and stems are indeed poisonous but the fruit is safe). Gerard's views were influential, and the tomato was considered unfit for eating (though not necessarily poisonous) for many years in Britain and its North American colonies. By the mid 1700s, however, tomatoes were widely eaten in Britain, and before the end of that century the Encyclopaedia Britannica stated that the tomato was "in daily use" in soups, broths, and as a garnish.
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North America
Young tomato plants in a garden
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Young tomato plants in a garden
Smith states that the earliest reference to tomatoes in British North America is from 1710, when herbalist William Salmon reported seeing them in what is today South Carolina. They may have been introduced from the Caribbean. By the mid-18th century they were cultivated on some Carolina plantations, and probably in other parts of the South as well. It is possible that some people continued to think tomatoes were poisonous at this time, and in general they were grown more as ornamental plants than as food. Cultured people like Thomas Jefferson, who ate tomatoes in Paris and sent some seeds home, knew the tomato was edible, but many of the less well-educated did not.
However, according to Smith, this changed in the early 19th century, first in the Southern states and then throughout the country, tomatoes began to be used regularly as food. In some regions this may have happened quite quickly; for example, in an 1824 speech before the Albemarle Agricultural Society, Jefferson's son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph discussed the transformation of Virginia farming due to the introduction of new crops. He mentioned how tomatoes were virtually unknown ten years earlier, but by 1824 everyone was eating them because it was believed they kept one's blood pure in the heat of summer [1].
As Randolph's speech shows, medicinal powers were sometimes attributed to tomatoes. The idea that tomatoes could be used as a curative was fully developed by Dr. John Cook Bennett, who believed that tomatoes could treat diarrhea, dyspepsia, and other stomach ailments. Bennett's claims were widely publicized in the 1830s, in part because they were fun to mock, and in part because the tomato was still a novelty. Soon tomato pills were being sold, and people began to testify to miracle cures caused by the healing powers of tomatoes. They were even recommended as a cure for cholera (since tomatoes are a healthy food, they may have actually been a better alternative than other, decidedly harmful medical practices of the day). It is possible that it really did "cure" ailments which were due to shortages of fresh fruit in the diet.
The tomato mania lasted only a few years, but it enormously boosted tomato consumption, and contributed to an increase in tomato sales throughout the 1830s and 1840s. By the end of this period, Smith demonstrates, tomatoes were an established part of the American diet."