Were tomatoes really considered poisonous long ago?

[Hermann_Cheruscan]

There I was at work today, munching on a tomato at breaktime. And then my co-worker comes up to me and tells me that tomatoes were considered poisonous up until around 200 years ago. I find this hard to believe. Is it true?

[Ice_Wolf]

Apparently, it is indeed true that tomatoes were considered poisonous, due to their relationship or ressemblance to deadly nightshade. From this site

The mistaken idea that tomatoes were poisonous probably arose because the plant belongs to the Nightshade family, of which some species are truly poisonous. The strong, unpleasant odor of the leaves and stems also contributed to the idea that the fruits were unfit for food.

[Achernar]

Snopes does not cover this topic directly, but they seem to confirm it peripherally in one article (about 65% of the way down the page):

By the way, tomatoes were not all that popular in America until the 19th century because they’re of the nightshade family, and many assumed this foodstuff must also be poisonous.

[Speaker_for_the_Dead]

IIRC, since the leaves of potato plants aren’t exactly palatable, the roots (i.e. potatoes) were considered inedible for a while, too.

[susan]

They were thought to cause lust, insanity, and death.

[JRootabega]

Then they found out that was actually caused by being born!

</Norm Macdonald>

[GIGObuster]

How the tomato in North America was saved from this nasty rumor was a great work of defeating ignorance:

Higher Education Support | McGraw Hill Higher Education

Although the tomato is commonly associated with Italian food, the plant is native to the western coast of South America and was not introduced in Europe until the early 1500s when returning Spanish colonists brought it from the New World. However, North Americans believed tomatoes were poisonous until 1820 (1822?), when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson disproved that myth during a public demonstration on the courthouse steps in Salem.

Gibbon Johnson was then the president of the Salem County Horticultural Society in New Jersey. He ate the tomatoes in front of a horrified crowd of people that believed he was going to die! Of course after this public demonstration few doubters remained and the tomato was exonerated.

[An_Arky]

Thomas Jefferson was known to enjoy tomatoes and grew them. I would think that would have done more to dispel the myth than a Mr. Johnson eating one in a public demonstration in Salem.

[cw]

I don’t know if this is folklore or fact, but I recall hearing about this in elementary school. The story was that a man in Colonial America stood before a town meeting and ate a basket full of tomatoes. The crowd was shocked and expected the guy to collapse in a convulsive, violent death covered in his own vomit. After a few days they noticed he was still alive and someone else tried a tomatoe. After that I don’t know, I guess they took it to other parts of the world and that’s how we got salsa and spagetti sauce. I don’t know if it’s true, don’t really care, just glad that tomatoes became something better than a hand fruit.

[istara]

My French teacher told us some story (UL?) about how as potatos and tomatoes are related, the Chinese thought it would be great idea to grow a hybrid - tats on the bottom, tommytoes on the top.

Only thanks to the black sheep of the family - Dame Nightshade - the result triffids were poisionous all through.

[cw]

…and I thought my story was bad…

[Ice_Wolf]

About halfway down this page, Istara, is another version of that tale, it would seem:

I read something that sounds preposterous on one of those trivia calendars. It said that 50 or a 100 years ago, scientists tried and succeeded in creating a tomato-potato hybrid which they dubbed the “pomato.” The calendar said that these scientists were confident it would alleviate any world food shortages and quickly become a staple. The trouble was, according to the calendar, that the “pomato” they had created turned out to be poisonous.

According to the answer to that query, the “pomato” existed, wasn’t poisonous, but it also wasn’t the answer to world hunger.

[Ice_Wolf]

*Originally posted by cw *
**…and I thought my story was bad… **

Take a look at GIGObuster’s post above, cw. I think that validates your recollection.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

Covered as an aside in:
Straight Dope Staff Report: Who invented pizza?

And on the potato, ditto in: Straight Dope Staff Report: What’s the origin of French fries?

[Squink]

I read something that sounds preposterous on one of those trivia calendars. It said that 50 or a 100 years ago, scientists tried and succeeded in creating a tomato-potato hybrid which they dubbed the “pomato.”

The pomato isn’t 50-100 years old. It was a created by protoplast (cell) fusion in 1978:

production of novel interspecific and intergenetic crosses between plants impossible to hybridise conventionally. e.g. pp of potato and tomato have been fused to give a “pomato” [Melchers et al (1978) Carlsberg Research Communications 43 203-218]. However, these types of combinations are rarely fertile and seldom produce viable seed.

-Notes on plant tissue culture

[nogginhead]

There’s a true story, I think in the collection “Eleven Blue Men” of a man who was able to grow tomotoes really late into fall by grafting them onto Jimson weed. The results were not pretty.

I have a new-agy friend who will eat neither ‘batatis’ (as we say here in Boston) nor tomatoes because of their relation to the nightshade.

[LilShieste]

I remember this one explanation that suggested tomatoes were thought to be poisonous because of the plates they were eaten off of.

Apparently, back in the day, people used to eat things off of plates, etc made of lead. I heard that when tomatoes were eaten off these plates, they picked up traces of lead due to the acidity of the tomato.

I will see if I can find the cite for this… it makes sense to me.

LilShieste

[MadScientistMatt]

I have seen tomato - potato plants in garden catalogs before. I’d always assumed they were made by simple grafts - take the roots of a potato plant and graft on a tomato stem.

[Dr_Paprika]

I have heard that tomatoes (or love apples) were considered poisonous in the past, until bravely eaten publically. But it seems to me to be far more believable that some people thought tomatoes were poisonous and did not eat them, and that some people did. I see no reason that such a story, if true, need apply to everyone.

But people are not adventerous eaters. Even now, our foods only contain a mere handful of available plants.

[Hari_Seldon]

Although tomatoes are obviously not poisonous, all the other parts of the tomato plant are. They are in the nightshade family and contain an alkaloid related to the nightshade poison. I believe that most of the potato plant is also poisonous and you are warned not eat any part of the tuber that has turned green. A friend who grew up on a farm in Romania said that occasionally the potato plant produced a fruit but that was poisonous too.

My wife grew up in Salem, NJ, and that story is certainly part of the local lore. Whether true or not I do not know, but Salem county must be one of the largest sources of tomatoes in the east.