The History of Tomatoes
from poison to condiment
Tomatoes are my everything - I could eat them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is unsurprising considering one of the most popular condiments in the entire world is ketchup and that one of the most profitable condiments is salsa.
Even if you don’t know me well, you know that I love tomatoes. I love them so much to the point that my dog’s name is literally Tomate. My instagram feed is a shrine to my tomato plants in my garden and my for you page on TikTok is filled with farmers around the world giving their tips and tricks on how to grow the most flavorful tomatoes. And yes, I have followed them all.
Back to the point - many of us know and love them, but do we really know where tomatoes came from? Even if you know the brief history, there are so many fun anecdotes to learn along the way. While you can read about the history of ketchup in my upcoming book, The Condiment Book, why don’t we dive into the specific history of the vegetable itself? Yes, it’s botanically a fruit but I refuse to call it that, sue me.
The Brief History Begins
As with all juicy hot topics, there are debates as to where exactly the tomato plant originated. Here’s the thing, the first evidence of tomato domestication and cooking comes from Mesoamerica. The plant, however, most likely comes from the area where modern-day Peru and Ecuador are located at the foot of the Andes mountains!
The indigenous people there cultivated tomatoes and eventually brought the plant upwards into Central America and then into Mexico. At the time, the tomato was smaller than a standard cherry tomato! It wasn’t until this wild species became fully domesticated in pre-Columbian Mexico by the Aztecs around the year 700AD that it grew in size a bit.
The tomato was used in cooking as well as a gift for newlyweds and is was thought to promote fertility. The Aztecs called this little plant, the “tomatl”, in their language of Nahuatl. When the Spanish discovered this precious tomatl, they kept the name but gave it their own little twist calling it a tomate.
The Spanish Takeover
Once domesticated, different varietals appeared in distinct colors and shapes which were eaten both fresh and also cooked. Eventually, Spanish Conquistadors brought the fruit (ugh yes fine, fruit) to Europe in the middle of the 1500s after capturing the city of Tenochtitlan. Supposedly, Hernán Cortés himself brought a little yellow tomato back with him.
From there, the journey of the tomato went to the Caribbean to Europe to the Philippines to the rest of Asia, and then back to America during European colonization and then finally onto Africa and the Middle East in the 19th century. A real world tour!
Since tomatoes all came from the New World, their late arrival to the Old World just means that no Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and so forth had ever even seen a tomato before! This may seem like a simple fact but it really is so astonishing that this plant is so well known today and yet wasn’t introduced worldwide for such a long time.
Poison?
Upon arrival to Europe, while the Spanish employed the tomato in their cooking, the Italians and the French were more fearful… The seeds were used primarily for ornamental purposes! The novel plant resembled the poisonous belladonna, a deadly nightshade, and botanists were skeptical.
Further, there was evidence of many deaths and illnesses occurring after eating tomatoes. It wasn’t until much later that we discovered that many wealthy Europeans used pewter plates, high in lead content, to serve the acidic veggie. When on these plates, the tomato’s acid would leach lead from the plate and into the consumer’s mouth. Not cute, very deadly.
These two wary countries also changed its name, love apple, pomme d’amour in French or golden apple, pomodoro, in Italian, which is still used to this day!
Here is some juicy tomato speculation for you - it is possible that the first tomatoes were primarily orange (golden) which would explain the name golden apple in Italian.
The French, however, may have called it a love apple because it was thought to have aphrodisiacal properties.
Another fun theory is that as a relative to the eggplant, also called a pomme des Mours, apple of the Moors, because it was cherished by Arabs, the tomato got it’s appley name from that. Who knows, but I love any and all theories. This is the drama I live for.
Italy
A fact that I loved learning was that there’s even a record of the first ever Italian eye-witness account of the tomato in Italy which occurred in Tuscany in 1548… amazing? When Italians became less afraid of this new tomato nearly 300 years after its arrival in the 1800s, early evidence of dishes using the ingredient were called “alla spagnuola”, the Spanish way, since this country had implemented it in their cuisine right away.
Further, we can thank tomatoes for creating pizza in Naples! The tomato sauce placed upon it differentiated it from other flatbreads around the world and helped make its mark.
France
In France, the tomato was seen as “diabolically red" so it was considered a sin to eat it for its first few hundred years on the terriory. SMH… I’ll never fully understand my country??
Finally in the late 1700s, the fruit began being used in cooking in the South of France and then made its way up to Paris alongside the revolutionaries. As it was specifically served in inns around the Palais Royal, the tomato became quite popular in and around Paris rapidly!
Britain & The United States
The first tomato grown in Britain appeared in the 1590s. There, it wasn’t eaten but rather just appreciated as a beautiful plant! John Parkinson, the apothecary to King James I and botanist for King Charles, stated that the tomato was just to “coole and quench the heate and thirst of the hot stomaches”, claiming that the plant was only eaten by people in hot countries.
The tomato eventually made its way back, inefficiently, to America by way of England. In the United States, the tomato was feared for a long time due to its categorization as a poisonous, deadly nightshade. It honestly did not gain mass popularity until the 20th century in the US!
There is evidence of it first appearing in the Carolinas which may explain by it became deemed acceptable to eat in the South starting 1812, but was still feared as food in the North up until around 1835. There was also an unfortunate, quite disgusting might I add, epidemic of giant green poisonous worms that happened to love tomatoes… This did not help the US get on board with them.
When agricultural societies began emerging across the country, farmers became more interested in the tomatoes, growing new varieties, and experimenting with their uses in the kitchen. By 1976, Henry J Heinz created tomato ketchup which popularized the fruit and in 1897, Joseph Campbell discovered how to can tomatoes and sell them as condensed tomato soup… Iconic.
In the 19th century in the US, there was a big drama in the Supreme Court revolving around tomatoes being a fruit or vegetable… Yes, tomatoes. Then, tomatoes were deemed vegetables — and all vegetables were taxed and the importer had to pay a the tariff under The Tariff Act of 1883.. Fruit, on the other hand, was not taxed.
Veggie or Fruit?
In the US, a tomato is legally a vegetable but botanically a fruit. A fruit is a part of the natural life cycle of a flowering plant whereas a vegetable is a part of the plant that you eat - root, stem, leaves, bulbs etc.
Since a tomato comes from the flower of the plant, it is botanically classified as berry, a type of fruit. However, we often think of them as a vegetable since they aren’t necessarily sweet like a strawberry.
If we were strict with our definition of fruit, a cucumber would be a fruit, so would an avocado, pepper, chili, peas…
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
Miles Kington
Did you enjoy this history? Let me know what fruit, veg, or condiment you’d like to learn about next in the comments!
Gentle reminder about all of my upcoming goodies!
The Condiment Book out Sept 26th in the UK (and free worldwide delivery via Blackwell’s). Preorder here!
Any UK preorder will entitle you to a free sticker sheet how FUN?! Just sign up here.
Cinnamon Date Tea out in the UK on DELLI and via Tea Huggers in the US/worldwide
Cinnamon Vanilla Salt via Josu
The Condiment Box of chocolates via Grá Chocolates
London collab… can you guess what’s coming?!
Welsh collab… can you guess what’s coming?!
Tomatoes are my favorite, and when they are extra good, the memory of that moment stays with me forever. I really liked this deep dive - I had no idea people thought they were poisonous ! - and I would have loved to read more in detail on some of the topics. Is it possible to include more source links in future posts ?
Love the tomato history lesson! There’s only one thing missing… a picture of lovely Tomate ❤️🐶