# Italian food before the tomato

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-food-before-the-tomato/5857>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 5, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-food-before-the-tomato/5857 "2000-01-05T19:29:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Highclass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b19c9b/32.png) [@Highclass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Highclass)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-food-before-the-tomato/5857/1 "2000-01-05T19:29:00Z")

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Before Europeans were willing to eat plants from the nightshade family, what did the Italians eat?

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**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2000, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-food-before-the-tomato/5857/2 "2000-01-07T06:08:00Z")

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I believe the question should be, “Before Columbus, what did Italians eat?”

Lots of things. If you look around, you can find Roman and Medieval cookbooks in modern editions.

I do know that white pizza was street food going back to Roman times.

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John W. Kennedy  
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”  
– Charles Williams

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**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2000, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-food-before-the-tomato/5857/3 "2000-01-07T06:58:00Z")

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Roman recipes (courtesy of MFK Fisher) might imply… lot’s o fish, breads, vegetables (not “greens” though - that was considered a Celtic weirdness) some occassional beef, chicken, and various game - red wine, eggs, cheese.

Definately no:  
corn,  
tomatoes,  
chilis,  
potatoes,  
cantelope (before the middle ages),  
oranges (before the middle ages)  
yoghurt (before modern times)

Oats and rice are rare in Italy before modern times.