Some even thought that this and not the apple was the fruit that Eve offered her Adam. And, like that famous pair, was cast out of Eden but to the farthest stretches of the earth far, far away from the first prototypes of humanity. Yet outside of South America, it is relatively new to the rest of the world. (info)

Innocent tomatoes.

I can imagine (food) life without some ingredients. But ask me to cook for a month without using tomato in some form, would be very, very tricky indeed. From enhancing the jus of a braised or roasted meat, to livening up a soup added in varying quantities from just a touch to quite a lot, no tomato is unthinkable. Especially for me, who so dearly loves the wide horizons of Mediterranean cooking that so exalts the tomato.

It would be difficult to imagine Italian food without the tomato, or Mexican food without salsa - a wonderful condiment first enjoyed by the Aztecs. The tomato, though first thought to be purely decorative before being tried - with trepidation - for culinary purposes, was later banned by the Church of Rome for being 'the devils fruit' and a sinful indulgence. It's seductive harlot red colour, the sensuous, slightly sweet flesh bursting with juicy splendor - proved far too much for the Church Fathers who called it scandalous. Some even thought that this and not the apple was the fruit that Eve offered her Adam. And, like that famous pair, was cast out of Eden but to the farthest stretches of the earth far, far away from the first prototypes of humanity.

Still others suggested that since this was such a tempting, obviously forbidden fruit that the lost Eden could only be in South America. Yes, it upset the Church of Rome to its foundations. More unsettling to the patriarchal church, was that it was deemed the very symbol of woman - tempting, bewitching, and a threat to male dominance. Worse yet, the plant is hermaphrodite, or is a perfect plant containing all it needs to self pollinate. The cautious fervent avoided the tomato for almost 150 years but it began to emerge in old culinary texts as a garnish or decorative puree by mostly the Spanish and Italians.

It is thanks to the poor of Naples caring less for religious (food) nonsense and more for filling hungry stomachs that its use gradually spread more and more throughout the Mediterranean. After all, the Spanish had long incorporated it into their own cuisine, did not go mad, drop dead nor loose all their teeth.

But what is it?
The tomato is a member of the nightshade family and is not a vegetable at all but the berry fruit of a vine native to South America and was known to the Aztecs who called it xitomatl, a generic word for any globulous fruit such as berries. Eventually it made its way further north into the Central Americas who dubbed it tomati and to the Yucatan where the early European explorers first encountered it. From there (later Mexico), Spanish conquistadors sent it back to Spain where it was not accepted as edible but viewed with great suspicion as poisonous, as were various other members of the nightshade family such as the mandrake, potato and aubergine (eggplant).

However, there were those who believed this enticing, bright red fruit had aphrodisiac powers, as did the French, who called it pomme d'amour or love apple though this is believed to be an alteration from the Spanish pome dei moro or apple of the moors. Naples in the 16th century was a still a Spanish possession and it was they of course who introduced the tomato to Italy, who soon called it pomodoro or golden apple referring most likely to the earliest specimens that were yellow or bright orange. The Spanish, by the way, also introduced other New World products such as chocolate, tobacco, potatoes and maize, from which polenta is made.

Many years later red tomatoes were taken to Italy from the Americas by two priests. In the early 1700's in America, a Jewish-Portuguese doctor introduced tomatoes unsuccessfully claiming they were from the original Garden of Eden's Tree of Eternal Life and if eaten in sufficient quantities, would give immortality.

Americans and Northern Europeans remained skeptical of the strange fruit and it took until the late 1700's - early 1800's for the fruit to gain popularity in both England and America. In 1820 in New Jersey, Robert Johnson announced he would disprove all fears and publicly eat tomatoes. He survived to the astonishment of the crowd, of whom several ladies had fainted. (Perhaps it was the ruby red spurting juice and seeds?) Could he have set up the first tomato canning factory? No one knows.

In 1883, the Congress of America levied a 10% tax on all imported vegetables and decided to reclassify the tomato as a vegetable. Contested in 1893 by a botanist who lost his case, arguing that it is in reality a berry fruit. Since then the tomato has been legally classified a vegetable.

Considering that the tomato has been enjoyed since pre-Columbian times (+ - 900 BC) in Mesoamerica, it has taken only a few hundred years for the tomato to become accepted worldwide since that first early encounter with it by the Spanish conquistadors in the 15th century. From South America to southern Europe, then further north to England, then back to the Americas in the USA, it continued to spread throughout Northern Africa. It reached still further eastwards to Turkey, Iran, India, Asia and beyond to space when in 2000* the Chinese developed a new breed of tomato from tomato seeds sent up in a satellite.

So, what would be so scandalous about tomatoes today?

If we didn't have any.

*Interesting resource:

People's Daily - http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200004/07/eng20000407_38513.html