May 23, 2023 • 62 mins
Once considered deadly by some Europeans, this vegetable (fruit? berry??) has a fascinating history as a tax evader, protest device, and potential agent of lycanthropy. Anney and Lauren take another look at the science, history, and great nicknames of the tomato.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reso and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we have a Redux episode
for you because we are going to be talking once
again about the tomato.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yes, yessous. And then I think this is only the
second Redex we've done, Pineapple being the first, uh.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Huh yeah, and we we wanted to do this because
when we first recorded the Tomato episode, I don't have
the date in front of me, but it was early
early on, yeah, for first year or first year of recording,
and we didn't really have like our pattern down yet,
you know. And so I was kind of I was
(00:50):
listening to the old episode thinking maybe we could do
a classic and then I was like, oh, I'd like to.
I'd like to give it another chance, like now that
we've you know.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah. And one of the reasons this one came
up as a redex was obviously we've missed it. We've
had some travel lately. You might have seen some life
like a movie, yes, yes, but it was originally when
(01:23):
you were asking me about like Mother's Day, I said,
my mom she loves tomatoes. She loves tomatoes, and for
like every type of gift giving holiday that I have
with her. I either give her some kind of new
(01:45):
bloody Mary mix or I give her a marinera or
some type of tomato based pasta sauce. Because she loves
like fresh tomatoes. So if I can find one that
is made in Georgia or something like that, and that that's.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Like, oh cool, yeah, totally, yes.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So for me, And I know that's kind of specific
and unique to me and my mom, but that is
what I think about a lot when I think about
Mother's Day, is what kind of tomato based product I
can get her. And we both love tomatoes. Like when
I introduced her to a caupraisee salad, it was amazing.
(02:25):
She had never heard of it. You love tomatoes and
you love mozz reality put them together. They're the best.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah. Yeah, yes, I feel that way about a capresee
literally every time I eat it, so I'm always so good. Yeah,
it's just like, wow, this is ideal. Why Why do
I not eat this every day? Yeah? Because tomatoes aren't
good every day, you know, like I will hold out
for a really good fresh tomato.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yes, And we did talk about that in the old
episode where we did and I know we'll talk about
that in this, but there has been a lot of
kind of like pontification, pontification about grocery store tomatoes essentially, yeah,
and not having kind of the flavor that you want.
(03:13):
And that's kind of based in wanting to make of
a tomato that will travel well and will last longer
and all that stuff. But a lot of times the
flavor ended up getting lost in that. But yes, that's
another thing when we do these redexes, I feel like
a lot in the early days, I was so excited
(03:33):
to talk about all of my favorite foods. So I
feel like a lot of my favorite foods are the
ones that need the redocks because I was.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like it was immediately, yeah, let's go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, but tomatoes are definitely one of my very favorite,
very favorite foods.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Oh me too, Me too. Yeah. I have such good
childhood memories of we had gardens when we could when
I was a kid, and like one of my early
formative memories is just like toddling out into the garden
and just being like, oh, food grows here, great, and
just eating tomatoes like right off the vine. Like if
you left me I supervised, I would be in that
(04:09):
tomato plant and and my my mom's family had a
had a bigger garden and they grew this one specific
kind of tomato called an ox heart that I haven't
been been able to track down outside of like their
garden that I it was. It was big and like
(04:30):
botanical heart shaped, like like organ heart shaped and so good,
so like savory and lovely and oh yeah, good memories.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah yeah, And I I feel like the tomato we
could do there's so many offshoes. Oh yeah, that we
could do that. It has been incorporated and so and
so so many things. But yes, speaking of the ox art,
(05:05):
like when we when I was looking back at over
this episode, I can see why. There's so many fun
things about it, so many fun things about it. And
one is that it has gone via these various names
over history, like the poisonous apple, the love apple, the
wolf peach, the tax evader. I can't wait to talk
(05:26):
about that. I can't wait to talk about that pimp.
And there are a lot of myths about tomatoes, many
of them tied up in racism, sexism, and classism, which
we'll discuss, but like it's just this very storied I
want to say vegetable.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's culinarily used as a vegetable. You can. I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna police you on that. You can, Okay,
thank you?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But yeah, yeah, and I know, well, I'm pretty sure
I mentioned this in the first time we did it.
But your story reminds me of I don't know why.
Every now and then, some scene in the movie just
sticks with me for life, and I can't tell you
the reason. But one is the movie Phenomena Unravolta. John
Travolta's character has like these magic powers. Sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I was not expecting you in a thousand years to
bring up the film. Please continue.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, he's got these powers and for some reason, at
one point, he like because Kira Sedgewick is in it,
and he says something about like why do we eat
apples like this, like with you know, you hold it
in your hand, you bite into it and not tomatoes,
and he hands for the tomato she bites into it
like an apple. It's like a romantic scene, I guess,
(06:52):
but I always it stuck with me clearly. I was like, yeah,
why don't I eat to me.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Right, Yes, there's a there's a juiciness juiciness issue. I
think but yes, but I mean, but we peaches like that,
so why not anyway, I don't know, I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yes, No, Like I got to revisit that movie. I
don't think I've seen it so I was like very
young anyway, Okay, you can see our past episodes on
the Bloody Mary Pizza. I feel like we did a
sauce that was some type of tomato sauce, but I
couldn't remember what it was.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Maybe tka masala maybe maybe. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I feel like it's come up a lot of times
in something that maybe you wouldn't you wouldn't think of
it first, but it's there. Yeah, our Campbell's episode Ketchup.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Sharon talked about it controversially jambalaya.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Oh yes, just even remembering that, Yes, And I'm pretty
sure it's come up in a lot more things, but
those are some of the big ones. Okay, But I
guess this brings us to our question. Sure, yes, tomatoes,
(08:19):
what are they?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well? The tomato is a type of, yes, juicy and
savory fruit with a thin, edible skin and tiny seeds
that's grown in a lot of varieties for a lot
of purposes. They can be roundish to oblongish, grape sized
to fist sized, tart to sweet, green to yellow to
(08:41):
orange to red to like purple so deep that it's
nearly black. They're eaten fresh or cooked, and are especially
popular in sauces and stews because they do contain a
lot of moisture and although they can be fairly firm
when they're fresh, especially before they ripen, they do cook
down just so soft they sort of like integrate except
for those seeds and skin. They're like a fleshy water
(09:04):
balloon of flavor.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
There.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
They're like they're like a summer sunset at the end
of like a long hot day that's just bright and
deep and just an edge of like refreshment.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah. Yeah, once again, wonderful done. Yeah. It's like because
they are they got a lot of that moisture, so
they do feel refreshing a lot of times to me
when I have them, like, yeah, kind of revitalizing or something.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Right, Yeah, and I got that little hint at tart. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Botanical name solanum like a persicum. Sure, let's go with that.
Tomatoes are part of the night shade family. They're a
warm too like temperate weather crop and grow on tender
stems that can be either bushy or vine like, but
that are not edible. Those stems and leaves don't don't
do that. The plants will produce small white to yellow flowers, which,
(10:07):
if pollinated, will develop into a fruit that's pale to
deep green and tart and sort of crisp while it's
still growing, and then will ripen to any warm shade
from light yellow to dark purple, and will get softer
and sweeter and develop these savory flavors as well as
they ripe in and Yes, according to scientific taxonomy, it
(10:28):
is a fruit. It grows from the ovary of a flower,
and it contains seeds. Technically it's a berry, I know,
I know, along with a banana. A banana is also
a berry, but according to the law, that can be
a totally different story. More on that later on. The
(10:51):
tomato is a perennial plant, which means that they will
live more than one year. If you like protect them
from winter frost. They will not tolerate that, but there
They are usually grown as an annual, that is, for
a single season, and then replaced with new seeds or
new plants. The bushy varieties are usually what's called determinate tomatoes,
which means that they fruit all at once, like over
(11:12):
the course of a couple weeks at one point in
their growing season. The viny ones are usually indeterminate, which
means that they will bloom and fruit in these individual
little clusters of tomatoes over the course of a season.
And throughout history, most of the tomatoes that people ate
were what we now call heirloom tomatoes, meaning that they
fruit via open pollination and their seeds will generally produce
(11:37):
the same fruit as their parents. But lots of the
tomatoes that we have in grocery stores today are known
as hybrid tomatoes, and they were developed in such a
way that they must be carefully pollinated in order to
produce standardized fruit or to fruit at all, meaning that
if you plant seeds from those, they're not guaranteed to
(11:57):
grow any fruit, let alone fruit that resembles their parent plant.
The word comes from the Aztec to model, which we
did mention in our Bloody Merry episode, and that is
said to come from a root for like to swell
or to plump, so it means something like the swelling fruit,
(12:22):
you know. And the English spelling of tomato is thought
to have been influenced by the word potato, which originated
in our language a little bit earlier, but like around
the same time, because both were being brought to Europe
from the Americas by early colonizers. And yeah, they're sometimes
harvested when they're still green and firm, especially for dishes
(12:44):
like fried green tomatoes, which are slices that are breaded
and then deep fried.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So good.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But more often, yeah, they're harvested ripe and softer, and
upon which they can be eaten out of hand or
raw chopped into salads or fresh sauces, or as a
topping for sandwiches or various dishes. You can blend them
into juice of varying thickness and drink it straight or
seasoned or in cocktails. They're also cooked into all kinds
(13:13):
of sauces and soups and stews and casseroles, sometimes having
been skinned and seeded first. And because they can fruit
like prolifically and a little bit overwhelmingly, in fact, they
are a popular canned good. They can also be processed
down into like a thick, flavorful paste, which is absolutely
(13:33):
a like secret and heavy scare quotes ingredient to making
like everything tastier. Splurge on the good stuff that comes
in the tubes that's usually imported. That a little goes
a long way. It's worth it, I promise you. But yeah,
the world is your tomato.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Good tip by recently, time has no meaning. I think
a year ago I talked about it on this podcast
that I was having a trouble using all my tomato.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but okay noted.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah yeah, the stuff in the tubes, right, it'll last
in your fridge for a good long while, and it's
so much better than the stuffing cans. It's so nice.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, all right, good tip. Oh well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
On their own? Tomatoes are pretty good for you. You know,
some fiber, lots of micronutrients. They'll help fill you up.
But to keep you going, pair with protein and fat,
you know. Yeah, so capraisee a salad pretty much perfect,
I will say. One of the pigments that's also a
nutrient in tomatoes, a red orange colored carotenoid called lycopene,
(14:46):
is named after tomatoes botanical name, and licopene is interesting
because it doesn't break down during cooking. It rather becomes
more bioavailable, which is cool. A lot a lot of things,
a lot of things that are good for us will
break down a little bit during cooking. So that's rad.
And licopene is also what makes things like like watermelon
(15:07):
and like pink grapefruit or pink wava those colors. Yeah, okay, yeah,
but saber motto. But I mean before ingesting a medicinal
quantity of anything. Maybe don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
There you go shortening it up today. Yeah, yeah, it's
There was definitely a big health pushed around tomatoes when
I was in college, so that would have been like
twenty eleven on but I remember it, imber. I remember
it very clearly, and they were like, get your lycopene.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I think that way to get it. That that was
right when some of the research about lycopene and bioavailability
in cooking was all coming out. So that tracks.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Hey, well, what about the numbers. We do have some
for you.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We do have some numbers because tomatoes are hecking popular.
They are one of the largest most lucrative vegetable crops
in the world, second only to potatoes and like right
up there with like onions and lettuce. As of twenty twenty,
nearly one hundred and eighty seven million metric tons of
(16:22):
tomatoes we're being produced globally. That's like three hundred and
fifty billion pounds, which is an amount of I can't
that's more. I can imagine quite a lot, and that's
more than I have a really good concept of what
that is.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Every now and then, Lauren, you quote Star Wars and
I don't mean, I don't know that you mean to,
but I've just seen Star Wars so much that I'm like, Ay,
that was definitely a hand so quote. Right, though I
can imagine quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I wonder, I wonder if I got that from him? Actually,
I yeah, huh, you do?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
You also do everything is fine here a lot? Oh.
I try not to like let this intrude on our podcasting,
but I guess I'm just gonna do it now. Yeah. Yeah.
Occasionally you say a quote and I'm like, is it
a quote? Or has she just just as within it?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Have I just subsumed it into my being?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That one I did not, No, not neither of Yeah. Yeah,
I didn't intend that one either for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Ah well, I.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Think I'm thinking about that that that dog in the
house that's on fire.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, it's yeah, that's more.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's that's that's what I'm thinking about. But but again, yeah,
I watched I watched the original trilogy a lot when
I was a kid, so it.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Might be back in there.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It also could just be me. Yeah, both could be true.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Any and all of you above. Yeah, sure sure tomatoes. Yes,
a full third of that ridiculous amount of production happens
in China. Other top producers are India, Turkey, and the US.
As of twenty seventeen, though Mexico was the largest exporter.
I suspect partially because they export to US and we
(18:24):
like tomatoes, followed by the Netherlands and Spain. That same
year twenty seventeen, the global industry was worth over five
billion dollars, and it is generally an industry that sees
increases in value year over year, or has for at
least the past like twenty ish years. Here in the States,
(18:46):
Florida and California produced two thirds of our fresh tomatoes.
California produces ninety five percent of our tomatoes for processing.
There are also a lot of tomato festivals around the world.
If you have one locally that you have been to
and enjoyed, please write in and let us know. Here
in Atlanta, we have one called the Attack of the
(19:07):
Killer Tomato Festival. It features a lot of local farms
and chefs and bartenders. That one's coming up in July.
You're smiling, like you've been to it, Annie, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I have, Yeah, I have. I've been to that. And
then there's one in oh gosh, way up north, but
it happens whenever that that eclipse happens where we had
the office events. Oh yeah, they had like a big
tomato festival at this winery up north and like you
(19:38):
could get you could pick your own tomatoes, and that's
where my mom fell in love with like fresh Mari
and Narsa, so that we have a couple of them
for sure. I think that the Killer Tomato one. We
try to use our name to get free tickets and
they're like, no, nah, it was great.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I go, yeah, yeah. Podcasting is not the press, that's fair,
fair not a journalist it is. However, perhaps the most
famous tomato based festival in the world is Lato Matina,
which is a tomato food fight that hits the streets
(20:24):
of Bugnel, Spain every August. It's been running since like
about nineteen forty five. Although it was banned under Franco's
regime because it had no religious significance, which I think
you could argue with if you wanted to. But since
twenty thirteen, it got so big, like forty thousand to
fifty thousand people were showing up that they started limiting
(20:46):
it to just twenty thousand.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
They were like, wow, we got to get this under control.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
As of twenty fifteen, they brought in some one hundred
and thirty tons of tomatoes to throw. The battle only
lasts an hour. It is marked at the beginning and
the end by the firing of a water cannon. Participants
are told to squish the tomatoes before they throw them
(21:16):
to like to like, lessen the impact, Keep it friendly,
Keep it friendly. Also, they are advised to wear goggles. Also,
and I quote from their website, do not miss the
polo bomb a greased pole with a Spanish ham at
the top. Whoever can climb the pole and get to
the ham can keep it.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yay. It's like Bulan but with.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Ham and the pole is greased.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Afterwards, they clean out the streets with fire hoses and
reportedly the whole town is like real squeaky clean afterwards,
because like the acidity of the really does a number
on surfaces.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Well, if anyone's been, that sounds.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Like a delight, yes, I oh my goodness, it sounds
like like chaos, like absolute complete chaos. They're like, please,
don't try to injure people. Look where you're throwing, like,
don't wear any clothing that you don't want destroyed. Please,
don't rip anyone else's clothing. That's really rude. Be safe,
(22:29):
have fun. I'm just like, wow, it's I. Yes, if
you have been, let us know.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Oh please, oh please. Okay. So we've made the case
that currently tomatoes are quite popular, but they have not
always been popular.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, no, and we are going to talk so much
about that in the history section, which we are going
to get into after a quick break forward from our sponsors,
and we're back.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, yes, and and bear
with us because this is gonna be a fun yeah.
Which of us wrote yes, yes, which we did update
it and change some things around, but in the early
days it was much less. Uh. Lauren does kind of
(23:29):
the science and like what is it? And I do
the history sort of like a free.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
For all, which like that Tomentina like like it was
too much chaos, Like I was.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes. And also there
is a lot of history with the tomato, and this
is already a lot, so again, a lot of side
quests we will go down for sure, but okay. The
(24:01):
earliest ancestor of the tomato most likely originated in South
and Central America, where it descended and evolved from the
deadly night shade plant over millions of years. In these
kind of early days, it was small and probably more
yellow than red, and the leaves were slightly poisonous donate those.
(24:24):
Around five hundred BCE, the aztect domesticated the tomato and
began using it in their cooking and also medicinally, including
as say it with me now and for ye yes,
or in ceremonies stuff like that. From there, other South
(24:45):
and Central American civilizations integrated the tomato into their cuisine.
And I feel like we've talked about that quite a bit.
And then Christopher Columbus, Yes, that guy probably ran across
tomatoes in fourteen ninety three and possibly took them back
to Europe depending on the source. Spanish conquistador Hernand Cortes
(25:09):
took seeds he retrieved from the fallen Aztec city of
tunosh To. Then I've heard a couple of different pronunciations.
I'm very sorry, I find butcheringerts are to Europe in
fifteen twenty one. Another thing I read said it was
Cortes who brought seeds back to Europe after discovering them
in Montezuma's garden in fifteen nineteen. Mysteries history, as we say,
(25:35):
and there is, there are a lot of mysteries in
the early history of the tomato. Ull say that, whatever
the case, by the fifteen forties Spain was producing tomatoes
and they began spreading them across Europe. They took to
Italy particularly well. And then a fifteen forty four Nepalese
(25:55):
cookbook contained the first known written reference to the tomato.
Author Pietro Andre Mattioli classified the tomato as a man
drake and a night shade, which has been this source
of confusion, since this was not the best thing to
be classified as. Italian nobility used the plant as a
(26:17):
table top decoration because they thought it was poisonous. Yeah,
because and of this classification.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Uh huh, and you know, being kind of metal, they
were just like, yeah, like, it's really it's really lulls
if we put this poisonous thing on our tables.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, yes, that is one of the most fascinating aspects
of humanity in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Oh yeah, poisonous.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I'll put it right here on my table where I eat.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah yeah. The English also largely believed that the tomato
was poisonous after the introduction of it in fifteen ninety seven.
The word tomato first appeared two years earlier, in fifteen
ninety five, from the Spanish word tomat from the Aztec
word tomadel. It wasn't the most flattering mention though, because
(27:09):
again people were kind of there was a lot of
as I said, racism and classism tied up into tomato
when it came to Europe and how people were describing it,
and then it was thought to be poisonous. So it
was sort of this strange intersection of Oh I'm I'm
rich and I will put it ornamentally on my table
and oh you eat that? Yeah yeah yeah. John Gerard's
(27:33):
popular English herbal I always want to say or Well
Herbal described the tomato as poisonous and quote of rank
and stinking savor doubt. Yeah, and this is how the
tomato got one of its nicknames, the poison apple, which
I think sounds pretty cool, but whatever, right, right, Yes,
(28:00):
But now we must expand upon why the Europeans thought
the tomato was poisonous other than the naming shrestem, because
there were a couple of reasons, although I will say
most of them are sort of in the realm of speculation. Yes,
so one of the popular stories you'll hear is wealthy
Europeans liked to eat off pewter plates, which had a
(28:25):
lot of lead, and tomatoes have a lot of acid,
and acid leads to lead leakages, and that leads to
lead poisoning, which can lead to death sometimes sometimes. However,
this would have impacted only a pretty small group of people.
The people who could afford to eat offew they did
(28:45):
it regularly and had tomatoes. The impoverished or less well
off would not have had that problem, and people did,
they did eat tomatoes, particularly in Italy. So it's like,
maybe that was a piece of it, but that can't
be the whole.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
It cannot be the whole story.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
No, No, Then there's also a French botanist, Joseph piton
de four. Okay, so previous botanists had recognized the relationship
of this tomato to the night Shade family, but in
the sixteen hundreds Pitton disputed this subclass, instead saying that
they belonged in a new grouping of plants called leco
(29:26):
purse sicon. You said it earlier, that thing, sure, yeah, yes,
which is Greek for wolf.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Peach, wolf peach.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I mean the tomato has nicknames like in no other
is amazing. The term is similar to the old German
term meaning the same thing. And this whole thing kind
of stemmed from a belief that people held that members
of this family, like say wolf Spain or Nightshade, could
(29:56):
be used to summon noir wolves.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Oh okay, to summon them, not keep them, not keep
them away.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I know, it was kind of it was kind of
tied up in they were also people thought they were
used in witchcraft, so it was sort of like tied
up with summoning werewolves. Aka, maybe witches are able to
use them to become wolves. So I don't think it's
quite how we think of were wolves today. Sure, but
(30:30):
they had a lot of suspicions about about tomatoes and
wolves and were wolves and witches, because yeah, they were.
Some of these plants are not the tomato, but some
of them in that family are hallucinogenic, and so some
people thought tomatoes were okay, and therefore they got wrapped
up in the height of witch hunting in Europe when
(30:53):
many hunters believe that the tomato may be an ingredient
that witches used for spells and transformation. And it's all
largely down to that night shade aspect. And yes, uh,
I don't know how I never put together lycopene likecanthropy.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It seems obvious when you say wolf peach like that.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, it seems obvious when you say wolfach clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Uh. But but like interestingly, like edible, night shades were
not entirely unknown because eggplants had been brought to Asia
by birds.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I mean not like on purpose, you know, like they
ate them and then pooped the seeds. But uh but yeah,
but but but people in multiple multiple places, uh had
domesticated eggplants long before the Colombian Exchange ever started, and
so eggplants were already part of Italian cuisine by the
time tomatoes arrived, right, But yeah, there was still this
(32:00):
kind of confusion, and certainly all the way up in
seventeen fifty three. Linnaeus, who's the guy who invented like
the sixth level taxonomy system, did not help because even
though he reversed Baton's classification, he still kept the name
the species name leco persecon when he classified tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
It's so confusing. And then I just wanted to throw
out there there is a whole website called tomatoes are Evil.
Okay it was. I looked over it to make sure
it's still there, but I didn't get to do a
deep uy. But when I remember looking into it when
we first did this, and it was very funny. Also,
I forgot to mention, I know I mentioned it in
(32:48):
our Strawberry episode, but I have a friend who won't
eat tomatoes because she has a fear of eating anything
with seeds. Oh sure, they're like grow oh within her,
And I feel like that whole I mean, it's not
that the tomatoes would be evil in that case, but
it is kind of creepy that something would grow out
(33:10):
of you like that. I get it.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
I get Meanwhile, during all of this, there might have
been some pushback against tomatoes coming down from Christian religious
leaders because tomatoes are not mentioned in the Bible, so
they were like, ah, yeah, none of that. Okay. However,
(33:32):
the French might not have had all of these same
hang ups because they referred to the tomato as a
palm d'amour or love apples, and brief aside about the
etymology of this term in particular, because all right, like
it's so lovely and it is very debated, and the
(33:56):
debate is delightful because it hinges on the origins of
the Italian word for tomato, which is pomodoro.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
So there are two popular stories about how this name
came about. First, the first one is that it derives
from palm to oro or the golden apple. As as
we said right at the top, I think a lot
of the tomatoes of this time were more yellow than
red when they were ripe. And adding to that, a
(34:28):
popular opera in the sixteen hundreds in Italy was called
Il palmd' oro. It was a story about Eris's golden apple,
which is inscribed to the most beautiful goddess and causes
again a lot of chaos, lots of chaos in this
tomato episode. I love it anyway, So yeah, so the
phrase palm to' oro was definitely in the public in
(34:48):
the public's consciousness at this time, but less romantic. Perhaps
more likely, the name pomadoro might have derived from palmo
de moro, or the fruit of the Moors, meaning Muslims
who were kind of known for introducing exotic foods to
(35:09):
the rest of Europe. Pomeo de moro was also a
term for eggplants around that time. Believers in each legend
explain the other one that they don't believe in by
saying that English historians later mistranslated the entomology, and furthermore,
believers in both sometimes say that the French mistranslated palmadoro
(35:34):
to get palm's damour. The story there, which is almost
certainly apocryphal, goes that a French traveler once asked an
Italian chef about like a particularly excellent dinner, and when
the chef started talking about palmod'oro, the French guy like
misheard and subbed in words from his own language, creating
(35:56):
palm d'amour.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Wow, some mistranslations and blame going on.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
God, I love it.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Either way, the tomato did grow really well and in
southern France. It was introduced there by a cultural trade
with northern Italy, though supposedly the tomato was grown in
France for like a whole generation as an anti mosquito
repellent in gardens before anyone was willing to try to
eat them.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I can't imagine imagine having such a beautiful mosquito rebellent,
but right, yeah it yes, also quick marineris side. This
is kind of where yeah, yeah, this redux the idea
first started. I'm sure we'll come back to it. But
there wasn't quite enough for a full episode, it seemed.
(36:51):
But I bet we could do one on like Tobaino
based sauces or something like that. So as usual, people
love to argue about who can claim to be Mari
and Aara's birthplace, but it's generally believed to have been
created in southern Italy, though again to me, it just
makes sense that multiple people's probably came up with this
around the same time in sixteenth century. Is generally when
(37:12):
people say it happened. The name translates to seafaring in Italian,
and historians think that it's because Mari and Eara traveled
well and went longer without spoiling as compared to something
like meat, so sailors would mix it with the starch
like noodles for a filling mill. Oh. I went really
southern are for a second, but yeah, I mean, that's
(37:34):
that makes sense to me. But when I read it,
I was like, oh yeah, Mari and Ara, Yeah yeah,
So many sailors again coming up in these things.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, m hm.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Slowly, as all of this is going on, Europe as
a whole started accepting the tomato as a thing that
could be eaten without killing you. And I guess I
should specify Europe who weren't people who already had been
a tomatoes They were poor. It started appearing in the
eighteenth century British soups and more widely on French men us.
(38:12):
It made its way to Asia, and it's around this
time that tomatoes started making some headway in the US,
thanks in Part two one Thomas Jefferson. Yes, that guy
has a whole thing about tomatoes and growing tomatoes and
all this stuff about tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
In seventeen ten, the first known written mention of the
tomato in North America popped up in William Salmon's Biologica.
It appeared in a few periodicals in the years following,
but was still viewed with suspicion. People were still not sure,
which is interesting again in that way of like colonization globalization,
(38:51):
people were still not sure about tomatoes, and I guess
people are like Europeans who came and settled there. As
as tomatoes green more accepted, a new menace appeared, the
green tomato worms. Yes, here's the quote. The tomato in
(39:14):
all of our gardens is infested with a very large,
thick bodied green worm with oblique white sterrolls along its
sides and a curved, thorn like horn at the end
of its back. Mm a menace. Indeed, Ralph Waldo Emerson
described these worms as quote an object of much terror. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Hate those things, hate them, no use for them, don't
like them.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
So you you this is resonating with you.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, oh yeah, they're actually really pretty. I was like,
I'm I was like, oh, I like, wow, we get
out of it stopping to my tomatoes because they will
they will eat all of your tomatoes. And it's like,
my guy, you're the size of my finger. How did
you do that? And it's like burp, I'm sorry. Uh no,
tomatoes for you.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Got good taste, I guess. Well. Another account by a
man who went by okay, so this is one of
those like hearsay hearsay things. So it was. Another account
about this worm claimed that a man who was named
doctor Fuller decried the worm was quote as poisonous as
(40:24):
a rattlesnake, and that the thing would spit it to
you and cause immediate swelling. So I mean I wouldn't
mess with it. No, no, no, no, and then yes.
Going back to Thomas Jefferson, he really didn't seem to
fear this worm. He like wrote about it, and apparently
(40:47):
his daughters and granddaughters liked to use tomatoes and things
like mbocha. I know it is controversial, and in eighteen
twenty four speech, Jefferson's son in law said that despite
being an unknown in for ten years, tomatoes were by
the time of speech all the rage. Again, this is
also like a very specific I would assume class and
(41:09):
bubble of people.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Subset of society. Yeah sure, yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
A good like peek at what was going on. Here's
another fun story. Uh, okay, So there is this widely
spread story that in eighteen twenty a guy named Colonel
Robert Gibbon Johnson decided he was going to eat a
basket of tomatoes on the courthouse steps in New Jersey,
(41:38):
and a crowd gathered to watch him slowly die because
they assumed that's what would happen to him. Yeah, if
he did so, And when nothing happened, people were like, oh,
maybe we can eat this thing.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
And that's how tomatoes became a popular food item.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, exactly. But apparently he was like known for stunts
like that, which is sort of like one of the
reasons this is probably not true, because it is it's widely,
widely spread, but it's one of those things that got
presented as historical fact much later, like in the nineteen hundreds,
(42:15):
I think, but there's no real evidence of it. And
according to some things I read, the tomato industry wasn't
even really going in New Jersey at the time, but
it is. It is really funny and fun Yeah, grain
of salt like on your tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
You go absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Bill Yacht Savarin wrote in his eighteen twenty five book
The Physiology of Taste that the tomato was a newly
popular thing in Paris at the time. He said that
it had been almost entirely unknown fifteen years previous, and
that it was at first very expensive but now common
in markets. He claimed it was introduced by Paris by
(42:58):
the influx of people from the south of France during
the Revolution, and that quote, tomatoes are a great blessing
to good cookery. They make excellent sausage which go well
with every kind of meat.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah agreed, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, definitely. Thanks in part to canning and to the
Civil Wars need for canned foods, tomatoes, which were particularly
suited for being canned, grew in popularity, and this culminated
until eighteen ninety seven when Joseph Campbell yep that one,
introduced canned tomato soup. You can see our episode of
(43:32):
Campbell for more on that. Yep, yep, but yes. A
couple of years before this, in eighteen eighty seven, a
US tearff placed a ten percent tax increase on vegetables
but not fruit, but tomato importer John Nix was not
having it any suit a port in New York, claiming
that since tomatoes really were fruit, they should be exempt. Yeah.
(43:54):
The justice overseeing the case disagreed, writing that vegetables quote
usually served at in with or after the soup, fish
or meats, which constitute the principal part of the rapast
and not like fruits generally as dessert. So he was
basically like, it's a vegetable.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Man, No, no, he was yeah, yeah, yeah. The judge
was like, no, it's a vegetable. This case vegetable acts vegetable.
It's functionally a vegetable. It's not a fruit. U O
US taxes. This case went to the Supreme Court, by
the way, and has influenced a bunch of other cases,
like a bunch of other tariff cases, specifically like this
(44:33):
one from twenty thirteen, where an importer of pillows shaped
like animals argued that they didn't have to pay a
pillow tariff because the product was a stuffed animal and
not a pillow.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Oh wow, but yes.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
This canning technology led to a dramatic increase in the
use of and demand for tomatoes, which were really too
delicate to travel at this time. And speaking of the
United States, in the nineteen hundreds saw breeders like like
(45:16):
Alexander W. Livingstone, who developed many of the surviving strains
of what we today call heirloom tomatoes. These folks were
part of like a larger scientific and agricultural movement to
categorize and perfect plants and animals for food of all kinds.
(45:38):
And this is part of where we get like like
competitive fairs and growing competitions that you know still in
mostly rural areas today. That that's where a lot of
those came about. There was this whole to do about
competitive pigeon breeding in Vienna. Anyway. Yeah, a lot of
(46:01):
the strains of tomatoes that were developed during this time
to be the tastiest or biggest, or weirdest, or sturdiest
or like otherwise superlative. A lot of them have been lost,
but others were kept and passed down through generations.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Pretty good use of anyway, I gotta say. Anyway, anyway,
kind of going back to some of the etymology notes
you mentioned at the beginning, or by nineteen twenty, hot
tomato was saying for an attractive lady.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Circa the nineteen thirties, refrigeration and shipping technologies were improving
to the point that large scale farms could provide produce
to wider regions, but most heirloom tomatoes being grown were
too finicky for that, so agriculture researchers set to the
task of making sturdier and more uniform tomatoes, and that's
(47:07):
where our hybrids come from. These strains were developed to
be more resistant to disease and to have thicker skins
and brighter colors, making sure that they don't burst during shipping,
and that they look pretty on store shelves. You know.
And legend has it that labs instructed their scientists to
(47:28):
think of what would make a tomato a good projectile
and then work on developing out traits from there.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Well, you've set me up perfectly born, because I was
really curious why in pop culture people throw tomatoes rotten
tomatoes at performances they don't like.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Huh huh.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
The website of that name turns out people have never
really thrown tomatoes, or not in mass anyway, but they
have thrown peanuts, eggs, jelly beans much later, even at
a Beatles concert. Okay, And in the in the case
of this emperor who I don't recognize, venomous snakes, no, no,
(48:12):
he How do you get the bit of a steak
and then you got to throw the bit of a snake?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
It seems impractical to me.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Personally, people are very again, putting something they think is
poisonous on the table that they eat at. I just
I don't know, and I guess that story, which just
reading it, I feel like it's probably not true. But
apparently it was more at the crowd. They're the snakes
of the crowd. Oh oh, no, for the Emperor's amusements.
(48:40):
Oh no, or to clear people out. Wow, yeah, that
will clear me out right quick. Yeah no, that's the
second a snake gets thrown at me. I'm gone. I'm good.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
And I like snakes, I'm I do too.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I just don't want a venomous snake thrown at my face.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Because the snake isn't going to be happy about being
airborne anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah no, no, no, okay, I just told you I
finally watched snakes on a plane. I no, thanks. So
there is one known documented case of tomatoes being thrown
at a performer in the US, where the crowds were
known as quote the rowdiest of all, and audience members
(49:24):
showed up with armfuls of food fit for hurling, and
that included tomatoes. Not just tomatoes, but included tomatoes which
were cheap, smelly. According to this article, which I guess
throwing size and made a nice splat on impact. Okay,
here's a snippet from the eighteen eighty three New York
(49:45):
Times article detailing performer John Ritchie's harrwing experience. A large
tomato thrown from the gallery struck him square between the eyes.
Then the tomatoes flew thick and fast, and Richie fled
for the stage or the door was locked, and he
ran the gauntlet for the ticket office through a perfect
(50:05):
shower of tomatoes. I mean, I'm not encouraging anybody to
throw things at a performer unless it's requested. But that's
pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
It is as long as is funny, and as long
as no permanent harm was done. I don't know I
would be even if even if no physical harm was done,
I would be permanently scarred by such a such an experience. Yeah,
oh man, if we, if we ever do live performances,
please don't throw tomatoes at us.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
No, you can gift us with the tomatoes, YEA happy,
But don't no throwing the yeah or snakes? Yeah no, no,
I will say Peta p E. T A did encourage
the throwing of tomatoes at people wearing fur due to
their kind of splat factor in the color. And here's
(50:58):
a quote from them. Fur wearers be warned, vigilante vegetables
are ready to paint the town red. Okay, speaking of
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the movie came out in
nineteen seventy eight, and that song has a fun place
in my heart because we played it every Halloween.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Oh aw, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
I did not remember this, But in nineteen ninety there
was a mild panic about space tomato mutations when NASA
sent some tomato seeds to space. The point of that
article was to prove that, like, we've sent other things
to space, but the tomato was the one.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
We were like, oh no, yeah, when those cosmic rays
get ahold of our tomatoes, what's going to happen. Maybe
it's because of the Killer Tomatoes. Maybe it's because of
Attack think I think so, yeah, honestly together, yeah it is. Meanwhile, okay,
So there's been a bunch of genetic research into tomatoes,
(52:04):
and it turns out that the wild ancestor of all
of the varieties of tomato that we know and love
today is a species by the name of Solanum pimpanellafolium,
known to botanists today as the pimp. It's a fruit
the size of a pea. It still grows wild in
(52:26):
Peru and Ecuador. Back in like the forties, Ish the
pimp was one of the species that researchers drew from
in developing these hardier strains of tomatoes. There there was
a widespread push to genetically map the tomato at the time,
(52:46):
led by one Charles Madera Rick, a biologist who was
once referred to as a cross between Charles Darwin and
Indiana Jones right His seed collecting expeditions to South America
in the forties and fifties, along with advances in genetics
in the sixties and seventies, led to our current understanding
(53:07):
of the tomato on like a scientific level, and there
is still a tomato genetics research center in his name
at UC Davis. Part of their work has been in
mapping tomatoes species, various tomato varieties genomes to find out
(53:29):
what kind of genetic diversity we're dealing with in modern
wild and cultivated plants. The first full genome for the
tomato was a Hins variety published. It was published in
twenty twelve, and as of twenty fourteen, this group had
sequenced three hundred and sixty varieties of tomatoes and found
(53:51):
that domestication has depleted the gene pool in a few areas,
including size, with larger fruit being preferred and with resistance
to disease with as frequently happens. So, like, what does
this mean practically, Well, you know, like, genetic diversity is good.
(54:12):
It allows for happenstance that can create new and excellent traits.
So so another part of this group's work is they're
they're trying to to basically like undo some of the
work that was done in creating and propagating these supermarket hybrids. Yeah, yep. Meanwhile,
(54:34):
that tough skin that was bred into these modern mass
marketed tomatoes might be good for something else. Tires, Okay, okay. So,
so one of the ingredients in rubber tires is this
type of filler called carbon black that's petroleum based, and
(54:55):
it makes the rubber more durable. It's about like a
third of the makeup of your pickle rubber tire. But
since it's made from crude oil, it's not great for
the environment, and the price is at the whim of
the global oil industry, which is whimsical indeed, And since
We've got more vehicles on the road now more than ever.
(55:16):
You know, the industry is looking for replacement sources. Research
team led by Ohio State University published a paper in
early twenty seventeen about how a mixture of tomato peels
for stability and eggshells for microstructure like like strength on
a micro level can replace a portion of carbon black
(55:37):
in rubber tires. So yeah, I don't know if this
catches on. It could also help reduce food waste. You know, shells,
shells from eggs cracked before delivery, tomato skins that go
unused in the making of processed sauces. They could be
collected and put to work.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Yeah, get to work.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Right, and eggshells earn your keep here and obligatory down notode.
Projected increases in temperature from global warming has the industry
concerned that specialty producers like Italy and California might not
(56:20):
be able to grow as much in the coming decades
due to restrictions on water use. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yeah, I feel like I've heard a lot of stories
about the tomato because I do love the tomato, and
all some end with kind of like we've lost so
much of this flavor and also yeah, climate change, but
I mean you have to talk about those things. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's I mean, and it's cool that, right, It's really
cool that those genetics departments are like, Okay, how can
(56:48):
we like unbork what we have borked? Like like what
can we what can we do?
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (56:52):
So's it's really cool. Yeah, there's a lot of cool
stuff going on with tomato. And as we said, there's
a million different pathways we could take on this. Yeah,
I'm sure we'll be we'll be back.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Oh yes, oh yes, yeah that I I realized that
I didn't even google tomato world record, so.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Oh well, now I'm gonna lie away because I can't
google it myself. I only trust you, Lauren. Well, that's
that's a fun It's a bright note for us to
look forward to in the future because I will talk
about tomatoes all the time. Yes, yes, yes, but that
brings us to the end of this arito for now. Yes.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Yes, we do have a tiny bit of a listener
mail for you though, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
Thank you, som Yes, thank you, and we're back with
that one. We should have recorded video one. That's that
was a shame that no one will see that.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Yeah, there's a lot of genuine flapping panic.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
It was if tomatoes are flying at me. Oh yeah,
I'd be out, I'd be out of town. So today,
because this episode has gone a bit long, we're just
going to read one actual physical letter that I have.
So we got a note from a listener named Ethan Fidida,
(58:40):
and I hope I'm not bettering your name. Feel free
to send me a strongly worded correct but please be
kind because I really like you, in part because you
sent us some receas after Lauren had mentioned that you
never had any, and it just so just so happened
to coincide with Ethan opening up a Herisa business. And
(59:04):
I promise we have not seen each other since I
received the shipment Lauren, but I have not eaten your portion,
nor will it.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Okay, I'm keeping an eye one.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
Yeah, I could take a picture and send it to you,
but it would feel kind of like a hostage picture,
so it probably won't.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Say thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:23):
Yes, but we did want to shout out Ethan for
I've tried it. I've tried the spicy one because he
sent us spicy and regular non spicy, and I haven't
tried the nine spicy one. But the spicy one is
very great. It is spicy, but we love spicy. Yeah, yeah, yes,
I put it in my polinsa. I did a nice
(59:43):
little squirrel. It was very very good. But here is
Ethan's letter that he sent. Hope you and Lauren enjoy
my Harisa. It's a more modern take on the North
African classic, inspired by my now ninety eight year old
grandma's mcgreby cooking. I love using it in a bunch
of ways, as a condiment on a breakfast sandwich or
(01:00:04):
on some eggs, as a marinade for a variety of proteins,
roasted with root vegetables, or to kick up soups and stews.
The sky is the limit. Please let me know what
you think and let me know what recipes you use
it with or on. I'm interested to see how it resonates.
As I mentioned, I'm days away from finally launching via
(01:00:24):
e comm store, so your feedback and hopefully a shout
out it would be awesome, and so yes, happy to
shout it out. It was very good. And also Ethan
sent a link to because the grandmother he mentioned, her
image is on the logo of these products, is like
her story is printed on it. And he did a
(01:00:46):
whole story about like grandmother's hands. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it was a really good It was a really
good read and with excellent photography. So I recommend that.
And so the store is el Fassi E l f
A s s y Lfossefoods dot com. And yeah, we
(01:01:06):
he sent his product, but this is not a sponsor.
Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Not an app, just just a human who we like.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yeah, yes, and it was very good and I can't
wait to share it with you, Lauren, the jar that
I will not eat. That is reserved for you.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
And you alone, all right, looking forward to it. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Yes, yes, so thank you, thank you, Thank you very much, Ethan.
And we'll get back to more listener mail in the
next episode when our redex doesn't go long. Yes, absolutely, yes, yes, yes,
and you can send that listener mail to us. We
would love to hear from you. Our email is Hello
at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saber pod. And we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reso and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we have a Redux episode
for you because we are going to be talking once
again about the tomato.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yes, yessous. And then I think this is only the
second Redex we've done, Pineapple being the first, uh.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Huh yeah, and we we wanted to do this because
when we first recorded the Tomato episode, I don't have
the date in front of me, but it was early
early on, yeah, for first year or first year of recording,
and we didn't really have like our pattern down yet,
you know. And so I was kind of I was
(00:50):
listening to the old episode thinking maybe we could do
a classic and then I was like, oh, I'd like to.
I'd like to give it another chance, like now that
we've you know.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah. And one of the reasons this one came
up as a redex was obviously we've missed it. We've
had some travel lately. You might have seen some life
like a movie, yes, yes, but it was originally when
(01:23):
you were asking me about like Mother's Day, I said,
my mom she loves tomatoes. She loves tomatoes, and for
like every type of gift giving holiday that I have
with her. I either give her some kind of new
(01:45):
bloody Mary mix or I give her a marinera or
some type of tomato based pasta sauce. Because she loves
like fresh tomatoes. So if I can find one that
is made in Georgia or something like that, and that that's.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Like, oh cool, yeah, totally, yes.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So for me, And I know that's kind of specific
and unique to me and my mom, but that is
what I think about a lot when I think about
Mother's Day, is what kind of tomato based product I
can get her. And we both love tomatoes. Like when
I introduced her to a caupraisee salad, it was amazing.
(02:25):
She had never heard of it. You love tomatoes and
you love mozz reality put them together. They're the best.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah. Yeah, yes, I feel that way about a capresee
literally every time I eat it, so I'm always so good. Yeah,
it's just like, wow, this is ideal. Why Why do
I not eat this every day? Yeah? Because tomatoes aren't
good every day, you know, like I will hold out
for a really good fresh tomato.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yes, And we did talk about that in the old
episode where we did and I know we'll talk about
that in this, but there has been a lot of
kind of like pontification, pontification about grocery store tomatoes essentially, yeah,
and not having kind of the flavor that you want.
(03:13):
And that's kind of based in wanting to make of
a tomato that will travel well and will last longer
and all that stuff. But a lot of times the
flavor ended up getting lost in that. But yes, that's
another thing when we do these redexes, I feel like
a lot in the early days, I was so excited
(03:33):
to talk about all of my favorite foods. So I
feel like a lot of my favorite foods are the
ones that need the redocks because I was.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like it was immediately, yeah, let's go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, but tomatoes are definitely one of my very favorite,
very favorite foods.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Oh me too, Me too. Yeah. I have such good
childhood memories of we had gardens when we could when
I was a kid, and like one of my early
formative memories is just like toddling out into the garden
and just being like, oh, food grows here, great, and
just eating tomatoes like right off the vine. Like if
you left me I supervised, I would be in that
(04:09):
tomato plant and and my my mom's family had a
had a bigger garden and they grew this one specific
kind of tomato called an ox heart that I haven't
been been able to track down outside of like their
garden that I it was. It was big and like
(04:30):
botanical heart shaped, like like organ heart shaped and so good,
so like savory and lovely and oh yeah, good memories.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah yeah, And I I feel like the tomato we
could do there's so many offshoes. Oh yeah, that we
could do that. It has been incorporated and so and
so so many things. But yes, speaking of the ox art,
(05:05):
like when we when I was looking back at over
this episode, I can see why. There's so many fun
things about it, so many fun things about it. And
one is that it has gone via these various names
over history, like the poisonous apple, the love apple, the
wolf peach, the tax evader. I can't wait to talk
(05:26):
about that. I can't wait to talk about that pimp.
And there are a lot of myths about tomatoes, many
of them tied up in racism, sexism, and classism, which
we'll discuss, but like it's just this very storied I
want to say vegetable.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's culinarily used as a vegetable. You can. I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna police you on that. You can, Okay,
thank you?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But yeah, yeah, and I know, well, I'm pretty sure
I mentioned this in the first time we did it.
But your story reminds me of I don't know why.
Every now and then, some scene in the movie just
sticks with me for life, and I can't tell you
the reason. But one is the movie Phenomena Unravolta. John
Travolta's character has like these magic powers. Sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I was not expecting you in a thousand years to
bring up the film. Please continue.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, he's got these powers and for some reason, at
one point, he like because Kira Sedgewick is in it,
and he says something about like why do we eat
apples like this, like with you know, you hold it
in your hand, you bite into it and not tomatoes,
and he hands for the tomato she bites into it
like an apple. It's like a romantic scene, I guess,
(06:52):
but I always it stuck with me clearly. I was like, yeah,
why don't I eat to me.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Right, Yes, there's a there's a juiciness juiciness issue. I
think but yes, but I mean, but we peaches like that,
so why not anyway, I don't know, I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yes, No, Like I got to revisit that movie. I
don't think I've seen it so I was like very
young anyway, Okay, you can see our past episodes on
the Bloody Mary Pizza. I feel like we did a
sauce that was some type of tomato sauce, but I
couldn't remember what it was.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Maybe tka masala maybe maybe. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I feel like it's come up a lot of times
in something that maybe you wouldn't you wouldn't think of
it first, but it's there. Yeah, our Campbell's episode Ketchup.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Sharon talked about it controversially jambalaya.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Oh yes, just even remembering that, Yes, And I'm pretty
sure it's come up in a lot more things, but
those are some of the big ones. Okay, But I
guess this brings us to our question. Sure, yes, tomatoes,
(08:19):
what are they?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well? The tomato is a type of, yes, juicy and
savory fruit with a thin, edible skin and tiny seeds
that's grown in a lot of varieties for a lot
of purposes. They can be roundish to oblongish, grape sized
to fist sized, tart to sweet, green to yellow to
(08:41):
orange to red to like purple so deep that it's
nearly black. They're eaten fresh or cooked, and are especially
popular in sauces and stews because they do contain a
lot of moisture and although they can be fairly firm
when they're fresh, especially before they ripen, they do cook
down just so soft they sort of like integrate except
for those seeds and skin. They're like a fleshy water
(09:04):
balloon of flavor.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
There.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
They're like they're like a summer sunset at the end
of like a long hot day that's just bright and
deep and just an edge of like refreshment.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah. Yeah, once again, wonderful done. Yeah. It's like because
they are they got a lot of that moisture, so
they do feel refreshing a lot of times to me
when I have them, like, yeah, kind of revitalizing or something.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Right, Yeah, and I got that little hint at tart. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Botanical name solanum like a persicum. Sure, let's go with that.
Tomatoes are part of the night shade family. They're a
warm too like temperate weather crop and grow on tender
stems that can be either bushy or vine like, but
that are not edible. Those stems and leaves don't don't
do that. The plants will produce small white to yellow flowers, which,
(10:07):
if pollinated, will develop into a fruit that's pale to
deep green and tart and sort of crisp while it's
still growing, and then will ripen to any warm shade
from light yellow to dark purple, and will get softer
and sweeter and develop these savory flavors as well as
they ripe in and Yes, according to scientific taxonomy, it
(10:28):
is a fruit. It grows from the ovary of a flower,
and it contains seeds. Technically it's a berry, I know,
I know, along with a banana. A banana is also
a berry, but according to the law, that can be
a totally different story. More on that later on. The
(10:51):
tomato is a perennial plant, which means that they will
live more than one year. If you like protect them
from winter frost. They will not tolerate that, but there
They are usually grown as an annual, that is, for
a single season, and then replaced with new seeds or
new plants. The bushy varieties are usually what's called determinate tomatoes,
which means that they fruit all at once, like over
(11:12):
the course of a couple weeks at one point in
their growing season. The viny ones are usually indeterminate, which
means that they will bloom and fruit in these individual
little clusters of tomatoes over the course of a season.
And throughout history, most of the tomatoes that people ate
were what we now call heirloom tomatoes, meaning that they
fruit via open pollination and their seeds will generally produce
(11:37):
the same fruit as their parents. But lots of the
tomatoes that we have in grocery stores today are known
as hybrid tomatoes, and they were developed in such a
way that they must be carefully pollinated in order to
produce standardized fruit or to fruit at all, meaning that
if you plant seeds from those, they're not guaranteed to
(11:57):
grow any fruit, let alone fruit that resembles their parent plant.
The word comes from the Aztec to model, which we
did mention in our Bloody Merry episode, and that is
said to come from a root for like to swell
or to plump, so it means something like the swelling fruit,
(12:22):
you know. And the English spelling of tomato is thought
to have been influenced by the word potato, which originated
in our language a little bit earlier, but like around
the same time, because both were being brought to Europe
from the Americas by early colonizers. And yeah, they're sometimes
harvested when they're still green and firm, especially for dishes
(12:44):
like fried green tomatoes, which are slices that are breaded
and then deep fried.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So good.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But more often, yeah, they're harvested ripe and softer, and
upon which they can be eaten out of hand or
raw chopped into salads or fresh sauces, or as a
topping for sandwiches or various dishes. You can blend them
into juice of varying thickness and drink it straight or
seasoned or in cocktails. They're also cooked into all kinds
(13:13):
of sauces and soups and stews and casseroles, sometimes having
been skinned and seeded first. And because they can fruit
like prolifically and a little bit overwhelmingly, in fact, they
are a popular canned good. They can also be processed
down into like a thick, flavorful paste, which is absolutely
(13:33):
a like secret and heavy scare quotes ingredient to making
like everything tastier. Splurge on the good stuff that comes
in the tubes that's usually imported. That a little goes
a long way. It's worth it, I promise you. But yeah,
the world is your tomato.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Good tip by recently, time has no meaning. I think
a year ago I talked about it on this podcast
that I was having a trouble using all my tomato.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but okay noted.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah yeah, the stuff in the tubes, right, it'll last
in your fridge for a good long while, and it's
so much better than the stuffing cans. It's so nice.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, all right, good tip. Oh well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
On their own? Tomatoes are pretty good for you. You know,
some fiber, lots of micronutrients. They'll help fill you up.
But to keep you going, pair with protein and fat,
you know. Yeah, so capraisee a salad pretty much perfect,
I will say. One of the pigments that's also a
nutrient in tomatoes, a red orange colored carotenoid called lycopene,
(14:46):
is named after tomatoes botanical name, and licopene is interesting
because it doesn't break down during cooking. It rather becomes
more bioavailable, which is cool. A lot a lot of things,
a lot of things that are good for us will
break down a little bit during cooking. So that's rad.
And licopene is also what makes things like like watermelon
(15:07):
and like pink grapefruit or pink wava those colors. Yeah, okay, yeah,
but saber motto. But I mean before ingesting a medicinal
quantity of anything. Maybe don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
There you go shortening it up today. Yeah, yeah, it's
There was definitely a big health pushed around tomatoes when
I was in college, so that would have been like
twenty eleven on but I remember it, imber. I remember
it very clearly, and they were like, get your lycopene.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I think that way to get it. That that was
right when some of the research about lycopene and bioavailability
in cooking was all coming out. So that tracks.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Hey, well, what about the numbers. We do have some
for you.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We do have some numbers because tomatoes are hecking popular.
They are one of the largest most lucrative vegetable crops
in the world, second only to potatoes and like right
up there with like onions and lettuce. As of twenty twenty,
nearly one hundred and eighty seven million metric tons of
(16:22):
tomatoes we're being produced globally. That's like three hundred and
fifty billion pounds, which is an amount of I can't
that's more. I can imagine quite a lot, and that's
more than I have a really good concept of what
that is.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Every now and then, Lauren, you quote Star Wars and
I don't mean, I don't know that you mean to,
but I've just seen Star Wars so much that I'm like, Ay,
that was definitely a hand so quote. Right, though I
can imagine quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I wonder, I wonder if I got that from him? Actually,
I yeah, huh, you do?
Speaker 1 (17:08):
You also do everything is fine here a lot? Oh.
I try not to like let this intrude on our podcasting,
but I guess I'm just gonna do it now. Yeah. Yeah.
Occasionally you say a quote and I'm like, is it
a quote? Or has she just just as within it?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Have I just subsumed it into my being?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That one I did not, No, not neither of Yeah. Yeah,
I didn't intend that one either for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Ah well, I.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Think I'm thinking about that that that dog in the
house that's on fire.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, it's yeah, that's more.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's that's that's what I'm thinking about. But but again, yeah,
I watched I watched the original trilogy a lot when
I was a kid, so it.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Might be back in there.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
It also could just be me. Yeah, both could be true.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Any and all of you above. Yeah, sure sure tomatoes. Yes,
a full third of that ridiculous amount of production happens
in China. Other top producers are India, Turkey, and the US.
As of twenty seventeen, though Mexico was the largest exporter.
I suspect partially because they export to US and we
(18:24):
like tomatoes, followed by the Netherlands and Spain. That same
year twenty seventeen, the global industry was worth over five
billion dollars, and it is generally an industry that sees
increases in value year over year, or has for at
least the past like twenty ish years. Here in the States,
(18:46):
Florida and California produced two thirds of our fresh tomatoes.
California produces ninety five percent of our tomatoes for processing.
There are also a lot of tomato festivals around the world.
If you have one locally that you have been to
and enjoyed, please write in and let us know. Here
in Atlanta, we have one called the Attack of the
(19:07):
Killer Tomato Festival. It features a lot of local farms
and chefs and bartenders. That one's coming up in July.
You're smiling, like you've been to it, Annie, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I have, Yeah, I have. I've been to that. And
then there's one in oh gosh, way up north, but
it happens whenever that that eclipse happens where we had
the office events. Oh yeah, they had like a big
tomato festival at this winery up north and like you
(19:38):
could get you could pick your own tomatoes, and that's
where my mom fell in love with like fresh Mari
and Narsa, so that we have a couple of them
for sure. I think that the Killer Tomato one. We
try to use our name to get free tickets and
they're like, no, nah, it was great.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I go, yeah, yeah. Podcasting is not the press, that's fair,
fair not a journalist it is. However, perhaps the most
famous tomato based festival in the world is Lato Matina,
which is a tomato food fight that hits the streets
(20:24):
of Bugnel, Spain every August. It's been running since like
about nineteen forty five. Although it was banned under Franco's
regime because it had no religious significance, which I think
you could argue with if you wanted to. But since
twenty thirteen, it got so big, like forty thousand to
fifty thousand people were showing up that they started limiting
(20:46):
it to just twenty thousand.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
They were like, wow, we got to get this under control.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
As of twenty fifteen, they brought in some one hundred
and thirty tons of tomatoes to throw. The battle only
lasts an hour. It is marked at the beginning and
the end by the firing of a water cannon. Participants
are told to squish the tomatoes before they throw them
(21:16):
to like to like, lessen the impact, Keep it friendly,
Keep it friendly. Also, they are advised to wear goggles. Also,
and I quote from their website, do not miss the
polo bomb a greased pole with a Spanish ham at
the top. Whoever can climb the pole and get to
the ham can keep it.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yay. It's like Bulan but with.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Ham and the pole is greased.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Afterwards, they clean out the streets with fire hoses and
reportedly the whole town is like real squeaky clean afterwards,
because like the acidity of the really does a number
on surfaces.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Well, if anyone's been, that sounds.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Like a delight, yes, I oh my goodness, it sounds
like like chaos, like absolute complete chaos. They're like, please,
don't try to injure people. Look where you're throwing, like,
don't wear any clothing that you don't want destroyed. Please,
don't rip anyone else's clothing. That's really rude. Be safe,
(22:29):
have fun. I'm just like, wow, it's I. Yes, if
you have been, let us know.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Oh please, oh please. Okay. So we've made the case
that currently tomatoes are quite popular, but they have not
always been popular.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, no, and we are going to talk so much
about that in the history section, which we are going
to get into after a quick break forward from our sponsors,
and we're back.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, yes, and and bear
with us because this is gonna be a fun yeah.
Which of us wrote yes, yes, which we did update
it and change some things around, but in the early
days it was much less. Uh. Lauren does kind of
(23:29):
the science and like what is it? And I do
the history sort of like a free.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
For all, which like that Tomentina like like it was
too much chaos, Like I was.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes. And also there
is a lot of history with the tomato, and this
is already a lot, so again, a lot of side
quests we will go down for sure, but okay. The
(24:01):
earliest ancestor of the tomato most likely originated in South
and Central America, where it descended and evolved from the
deadly night shade plant over millions of years. In these
kind of early days, it was small and probably more
yellow than red, and the leaves were slightly poisonous donate those.
(24:24):
Around five hundred BCE, the aztect domesticated the tomato and
began using it in their cooking and also medicinally, including
as say it with me now and for ye yes,
or in ceremonies stuff like that. From there, other South
(24:45):
and Central American civilizations integrated the tomato into their cuisine.
And I feel like we've talked about that quite a bit.
And then Christopher Columbus, Yes, that guy probably ran across
tomatoes in fourteen ninety three and possibly took them back
to Europe depending on the source. Spanish conquistador Hernand Cortes
(25:09):
took seeds he retrieved from the fallen Aztec city of
tunosh To. Then I've heard a couple of different pronunciations.
I'm very sorry, I find butcheringerts are to Europe in
fifteen twenty one. Another thing I read said it was
Cortes who brought seeds back to Europe after discovering them
in Montezuma's garden in fifteen nineteen. Mysteries history, as we say,
(25:35):
and there is, there are a lot of mysteries in
the early history of the tomato. Ull say that, whatever
the case, by the fifteen forties Spain was producing tomatoes
and they began spreading them across Europe. They took to
Italy particularly well. And then a fifteen forty four Nepalese
(25:55):
cookbook contained the first known written reference to the tomato.
Author Pietro Andre Mattioli classified the tomato as a man
drake and a night shade, which has been this source
of confusion, since this was not the best thing to
be classified as. Italian nobility used the plant as a
(26:17):
table top decoration because they thought it was poisonous. Yeah,
because and of this classification.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Uh huh, and you know, being kind of metal, they
were just like, yeah, like, it's really it's really lulls
if we put this poisonous thing on our tables.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah, yes, that is one of the most fascinating aspects
of humanity in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Oh yeah, poisonous.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I'll put it right here on my table where I eat.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah yeah. The English also largely believed that the tomato
was poisonous after the introduction of it in fifteen ninety seven.
The word tomato first appeared two years earlier, in fifteen
ninety five, from the Spanish word tomat from the Aztec
word tomadel. It wasn't the most flattering mention though, because
(27:09):
again people were kind of there was a lot of
as I said, racism and classism tied up into tomato
when it came to Europe and how people were describing it,
and then it was thought to be poisonous. So it
was sort of this strange intersection of Oh I'm I'm
rich and I will put it ornamentally on my table
and oh you eat that? Yeah yeah yeah. John Gerard's
(27:33):
popular English herbal I always want to say or Well
Herbal described the tomato as poisonous and quote of rank
and stinking savor doubt. Yeah, and this is how the
tomato got one of its nicknames, the poison apple, which
I think sounds pretty cool, but whatever, right, right, Yes,
(28:00):
But now we must expand upon why the Europeans thought
the tomato was poisonous other than the naming shrestem, because
there were a couple of reasons, although I will say
most of them are sort of in the realm of speculation. Yes,
so one of the popular stories you'll hear is wealthy
Europeans liked to eat off pewter plates, which had a
(28:25):
lot of lead, and tomatoes have a lot of acid,
and acid leads to lead leakages, and that leads to
lead poisoning, which can lead to death sometimes sometimes. However,
this would have impacted only a pretty small group of people.
The people who could afford to eat offew they did
(28:45):
it regularly and had tomatoes. The impoverished or less well
off would not have had that problem, and people did,
they did eat tomatoes, particularly in Italy. So it's like,
maybe that was a piece of it, but that can't
be the whole.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
It cannot be the whole story.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
No, No, Then there's also a French botanist, Joseph piton
de four. Okay, so previous botanists had recognized the relationship
of this tomato to the night Shade family, but in
the sixteen hundreds Pitton disputed this subclass, instead saying that
they belonged in a new grouping of plants called leco
(29:26):
purse sicon. You said it earlier, that thing, sure, yeah, yes,
which is Greek for wolf.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Peach, wolf peach.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I mean the tomato has nicknames like in no other
is amazing. The term is similar to the old German
term meaning the same thing. And this whole thing kind
of stemmed from a belief that people held that members
of this family, like say wolf Spain or Nightshade, could
(29:56):
be used to summon noir wolves.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Oh okay, to summon them, not keep them, not keep
them away.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I know, it was kind of it was kind of
tied up in they were also people thought they were
used in witchcraft, so it was sort of like tied
up with summoning werewolves. Aka, maybe witches are able to
use them to become wolves. So I don't think it's
quite how we think of were wolves today. Sure, but
(30:30):
they had a lot of suspicions about about tomatoes and
wolves and were wolves and witches, because yeah, they were.
Some of these plants are not the tomato, but some
of them in that family are hallucinogenic, and so some
people thought tomatoes were okay, and therefore they got wrapped
up in the height of witch hunting in Europe when
(30:53):
many hunters believe that the tomato may be an ingredient
that witches used for spells and transformation. And it's all
largely down to that night shade aspect. And yes, uh,
I don't know how I never put together lycopene likecanthropy.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It seems obvious when you say wolf peach like that.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, it seems obvious when you say wolfach clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Uh. But but like interestingly, like edible, night shades were
not entirely unknown because eggplants had been brought to Asia
by birds.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I mean not like on purpose, you know, like they
ate them and then pooped the seeds. But uh but yeah,
but but but people in multiple multiple places, uh had
domesticated eggplants long before the Colombian Exchange ever started, and
so eggplants were already part of Italian cuisine by the
time tomatoes arrived, right, But yeah, there was still this
(32:00):
kind of confusion, and certainly all the way up in
seventeen fifty three. Linnaeus, who's the guy who invented like
the sixth level taxonomy system, did not help because even
though he reversed Baton's classification, he still kept the name
the species name leco persecon when he classified tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
It's so confusing. And then I just wanted to throw
out there there is a whole website called tomatoes are Evil.
Okay it was. I looked over it to make sure
it's still there, but I didn't get to do a
deep uy. But when I remember looking into it when
we first did this, and it was very funny. Also,
I forgot to mention, I know I mentioned it in
(32:48):
our Strawberry episode, but I have a friend who won't
eat tomatoes because she has a fear of eating anything
with seeds. Oh sure, they're like grow oh within her,
And I feel like that whole I mean, it's not
that the tomatoes would be evil in that case, but
it is kind of creepy that something would grow out
(33:10):
of you like that. I get it.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
I get Meanwhile, during all of this, there might have
been some pushback against tomatoes coming down from Christian religious
leaders because tomatoes are not mentioned in the Bible, so
they were like, ah, yeah, none of that. Okay. However,
(33:32):
the French might not have had all of these same
hang ups because they referred to the tomato as a
palm d'amour or love apples, and brief aside about the
etymology of this term in particular, because all right, like
it's so lovely and it is very debated, and the
(33:56):
debate is delightful because it hinges on the origins of
the Italian word for tomato, which is pomodoro.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
So there are two popular stories about how this name
came about. First, the first one is that it derives
from palm to oro or the golden apple. As as
we said right at the top, I think a lot
of the tomatoes of this time were more yellow than
red when they were ripe. And adding to that, a
(34:28):
popular opera in the sixteen hundreds in Italy was called
Il palmd' oro. It was a story about Eris's golden apple,
which is inscribed to the most beautiful goddess and causes
again a lot of chaos, lots of chaos in this
tomato episode. I love it anyway, So yeah, so the
phrase palm to' oro was definitely in the public in
(34:48):
the public's consciousness at this time, but less romantic. Perhaps
more likely, the name pomadoro might have derived from palmo
de moro, or the fruit of the Moors, meaning Muslims
who were kind of known for introducing exotic foods to
(35:09):
the rest of Europe. Pomeo de moro was also a
term for eggplants around that time. Believers in each legend
explain the other one that they don't believe in by
saying that English historians later mistranslated the entomology, and furthermore,
believers in both sometimes say that the French mistranslated palmadoro
(35:34):
to get palm's damour. The story there, which is almost
certainly apocryphal, goes that a French traveler once asked an
Italian chef about like a particularly excellent dinner, and when
the chef started talking about palmod'oro, the French guy like
misheard and subbed in words from his own language, creating
(35:56):
palm d'amour.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Wow, some mistranslations and blame going on.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
God, I love it.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Either way, the tomato did grow really well and in
southern France. It was introduced there by a cultural trade
with northern Italy, though supposedly the tomato was grown in
France for like a whole generation as an anti mosquito
repellent in gardens before anyone was willing to try to
eat them.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I can't imagine imagine having such a beautiful mosquito rebellent,
but right, yeah it yes, also quick marineris side. This
is kind of where yeah, yeah, this redux the idea
first started. I'm sure we'll come back to it. But
there wasn't quite enough for a full episode, it seemed.
(36:51):
But I bet we could do one on like Tobaino
based sauces or something like that. So as usual, people
love to argue about who can claim to be Mari
and Aara's birthplace, but it's generally believed to have been
created in southern Italy, though again to me, it just
makes sense that multiple people's probably came up with this
around the same time in sixteenth century. Is generally when
(37:12):
people say it happened. The name translates to seafaring in Italian,
and historians think that it's because Mari and Eara traveled
well and went longer without spoiling as compared to something
like meat, so sailors would mix it with the starch
like noodles for a filling mill. Oh. I went really
southern are for a second, but yeah, I mean, that's
(37:34):
that makes sense to me. But when I read it,
I was like, oh yeah, Mari and Ara, Yeah yeah,
So many sailors again coming up in these things.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, m hm.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Slowly, as all of this is going on, Europe as
a whole started accepting the tomato as a thing that
could be eaten without killing you. And I guess I
should specify Europe who weren't people who already had been
a tomatoes They were poor. It started appearing in the
eighteenth century British soups and more widely on French men us.
(38:12):
It made its way to Asia, and it's around this
time that tomatoes started making some headway in the US,
thanks in Part two one Thomas Jefferson. Yes, that guy
has a whole thing about tomatoes and growing tomatoes and
all this stuff about tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
In seventeen ten, the first known written mention of the
tomato in North America popped up in William Salmon's Biologica.
It appeared in a few periodicals in the years following,
but was still viewed with suspicion. People were still not sure,
which is interesting again in that way of like colonization globalization,
(38:51):
people were still not sure about tomatoes, and I guess
people are like Europeans who came and settled there. As
as tomatoes green more accepted, a new menace appeared, the
green tomato worms. Yes, here's the quote. The tomato in
(39:14):
all of our gardens is infested with a very large,
thick bodied green worm with oblique white sterrolls along its
sides and a curved, thorn like horn at the end
of its back. Mm a menace. Indeed, Ralph Waldo Emerson
described these worms as quote an object of much terror. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Hate those things, hate them, no use for them, don't
like them.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
So you you this is resonating with you.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, oh yeah, they're actually really pretty. I was like,
I'm I was like, oh, I like, wow, we get
out of it stopping to my tomatoes because they will
they will eat all of your tomatoes. And it's like,
my guy, you're the size of my finger. How did
you do that? And it's like burp, I'm sorry. Uh no,
tomatoes for you.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Got good taste, I guess. Well. Another account by a
man who went by okay, so this is one of
those like hearsay hearsay things. So it was. Another account
about this worm claimed that a man who was named
doctor Fuller decried the worm was quote as poisonous as
(40:24):
a rattlesnake, and that the thing would spit it to
you and cause immediate swelling. So I mean I wouldn't
mess with it. No, no, no, no, and then yes.
Going back to Thomas Jefferson, he really didn't seem to
fear this worm. He like wrote about it, and apparently
(40:47):
his daughters and granddaughters liked to use tomatoes and things
like mbocha. I know it is controversial, and in eighteen
twenty four speech, Jefferson's son in law said that despite
being an unknown in for ten years, tomatoes were by
the time of speech all the rage. Again, this is
also like a very specific I would assume class and
(41:09):
bubble of people.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Subset of society. Yeah sure, yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
A good like peek at what was going on. Here's
another fun story. Uh, okay, So there is this widely
spread story that in eighteen twenty a guy named Colonel
Robert Gibbon Johnson decided he was going to eat a
basket of tomatoes on the courthouse steps in New Jersey,
(41:38):
and a crowd gathered to watch him slowly die because
they assumed that's what would happen to him. Yeah, if
he did so, And when nothing happened, people were like, oh,
maybe we can eat this thing.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
And that's how tomatoes became a popular food item.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, exactly. But apparently he was like known for stunts
like that, which is sort of like one of the
reasons this is probably not true, because it is it's widely,
widely spread, but it's one of those things that got
presented as historical fact much later, like in the nineteen hundreds,
(42:15):
I think, but there's no real evidence of it. And
according to some things I read, the tomato industry wasn't
even really going in New Jersey at the time, but
it is. It is really funny and fun Yeah, grain
of salt like on your tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
You go absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Bill Yacht Savarin wrote in his eighteen twenty five book
The Physiology of Taste that the tomato was a newly
popular thing in Paris at the time. He said that
it had been almost entirely unknown fifteen years previous, and
that it was at first very expensive but now common
in markets. He claimed it was introduced by Paris by
(42:58):
the influx of people from the south of France during
the Revolution, and that quote, tomatoes are a great blessing
to good cookery. They make excellent sausage which go well
with every kind of meat.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah agreed, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, definitely. Thanks in part to canning and to the
Civil Wars need for canned foods, tomatoes, which were particularly
suited for being canned, grew in popularity, and this culminated
until eighteen ninety seven when Joseph Campbell yep that one,
introduced canned tomato soup. You can see our episode of
(43:32):
Campbell for more on that. Yep, yep, but yes. A
couple of years before this, in eighteen eighty seven, a
US tearff placed a ten percent tax increase on vegetables
but not fruit, but tomato importer John Nix was not
having it any suit a port in New York, claiming
that since tomatoes really were fruit, they should be exempt. Yeah.
(43:54):
The justice overseeing the case disagreed, writing that vegetables quote
usually served at in with or after the soup, fish
or meats, which constitute the principal part of the rapast
and not like fruits generally as dessert. So he was
basically like, it's a vegetable.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Man, No, no, he was yeah, yeah, yeah. The judge
was like, no, it's a vegetable. This case vegetable acts vegetable.
It's functionally a vegetable. It's not a fruit. U O
US taxes. This case went to the Supreme Court, by
the way, and has influenced a bunch of other cases,
like a bunch of other tariff cases, specifically like this
(44:33):
one from twenty thirteen, where an importer of pillows shaped
like animals argued that they didn't have to pay a
pillow tariff because the product was a stuffed animal and
not a pillow.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Oh wow, but yes.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
This canning technology led to a dramatic increase in the
use of and demand for tomatoes, which were really too
delicate to travel at this time. And speaking of the
United States, in the nineteen hundreds saw breeders like like
(45:16):
Alexander W. Livingstone, who developed many of the surviving strains
of what we today call heirloom tomatoes. These folks were
part of like a larger scientific and agricultural movement to
categorize and perfect plants and animals for food of all kinds.
(45:38):
And this is part of where we get like like
competitive fairs and growing competitions that you know still in
mostly rural areas today. That that's where a lot of
those came about. There was this whole to do about
competitive pigeon breeding in Vienna. Anyway. Yeah, a lot of
(46:01):
the strains of tomatoes that were developed during this time
to be the tastiest or biggest, or weirdest, or sturdiest
or like otherwise superlative. A lot of them have been lost,
but others were kept and passed down through generations.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Pretty good use of anyway, I gotta say. Anyway, anyway,
kind of going back to some of the etymology notes
you mentioned at the beginning, or by nineteen twenty, hot
tomato was saying for an attractive lady.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Circa the nineteen thirties, refrigeration and shipping technologies were improving
to the point that large scale farms could provide produce
to wider regions, but most heirloom tomatoes being grown were
too finicky for that, so agriculture researchers set to the
task of making sturdier and more uniform tomatoes, and that's
(47:07):
where our hybrids come from. These strains were developed to
be more resistant to disease and to have thicker skins
and brighter colors, making sure that they don't burst during shipping,
and that they look pretty on store shelves. You know.
And legend has it that labs instructed their scientists to
(47:28):
think of what would make a tomato a good projectile
and then work on developing out traits from there.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Well, you've set me up perfectly born, because I was
really curious why in pop culture people throw tomatoes rotten
tomatoes at performances they don't like.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Huh huh.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
The website of that name turns out people have never
really thrown tomatoes, or not in mass anyway, but they
have thrown peanuts, eggs, jelly beans much later, even at
a Beatles concert. Okay, And in the in the case
of this emperor who I don't recognize, venomous snakes, no, no,
(48:12):
he How do you get the bit of a steak
and then you got to throw the bit of a snake?
Speaker 2 (48:17):
It seems impractical to me.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Personally, people are very again, putting something they think is
poisonous on the table that they eat at. I just
I don't know, and I guess that story, which just
reading it, I feel like it's probably not true. But
apparently it was more at the crowd. They're the snakes
of the crowd. Oh oh, no, for the Emperor's amusements.
(48:40):
Oh no, or to clear people out. Wow, yeah, that
will clear me out right quick. Yeah no, that's the
second a snake gets thrown at me. I'm gone. I'm good.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
And I like snakes, I'm I do too.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I just don't want a venomous snake thrown at my face.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Because the snake isn't going to be happy about being
airborne anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah no, no, no, okay, I just told you I
finally watched snakes on a plane. I no, thanks. So
there is one known documented case of tomatoes being thrown
at a performer in the US, where the crowds were
known as quote the rowdiest of all, and audience members
(49:24):
showed up with armfuls of food fit for hurling, and
that included tomatoes. Not just tomatoes, but included tomatoes which
were cheap, smelly. According to this article, which I guess
throwing size and made a nice splat on impact. Okay,
here's a snippet from the eighteen eighty three New York
(49:45):
Times article detailing performer John Ritchie's harrwing experience. A large
tomato thrown from the gallery struck him square between the eyes.
Then the tomatoes flew thick and fast, and Richie fled
for the stage or the door was locked, and he
ran the gauntlet for the ticket office through a perfect
(50:05):
shower of tomatoes. I mean, I'm not encouraging anybody to
throw things at a performer unless it's requested. But that's
pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
It is as long as is funny, and as long
as no permanent harm was done. I don't know I
would be even if even if no physical harm was done,
I would be permanently scarred by such a such an experience. Yeah,
oh man, if we, if we ever do live performances,
please don't throw tomatoes at us.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
No, you can gift us with the tomatoes, YEA happy,
But don't no throwing the yeah or snakes? Yeah no, no,
I will say Peta p E. T A did encourage
the throwing of tomatoes at people wearing fur due to
their kind of splat factor in the color. And here's
(50:58):
a quote from them. Fur wearers be warned, vigilante vegetables
are ready to paint the town red. Okay, speaking of
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the movie came out in
nineteen seventy eight, and that song has a fun place
in my heart because we played it every Halloween.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Oh aw, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
I did not remember this, But in nineteen ninety there
was a mild panic about space tomato mutations when NASA
sent some tomato seeds to space. The point of that
article was to prove that, like, we've sent other things
to space, but the tomato was the one.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
We were like, oh no, yeah, when those cosmic rays
get ahold of our tomatoes, what's going to happen. Maybe
it's because of the Killer Tomatoes. Maybe it's because of
Attack think I think so, yeah, honestly together, yeah it is. Meanwhile, okay,
So there's been a bunch of genetic research into tomatoes,
(52:04):
and it turns out that the wild ancestor of all
of the varieties of tomato that we know and love
today is a species by the name of Solanum pimpanellafolium,
known to botanists today as the pimp. It's a fruit
the size of a pea. It still grows wild in
(52:26):
Peru and Ecuador. Back in like the forties, Ish the
pimp was one of the species that researchers drew from
in developing these hardier strains of tomatoes. There there was
a widespread push to genetically map the tomato at the time,
(52:46):
led by one Charles Madera Rick, a biologist who was
once referred to as a cross between Charles Darwin and
Indiana Jones right His seed collecting expeditions to South America
in the forties and fifties, along with advances in genetics
in the sixties and seventies, led to our current understanding
(53:07):
of the tomato on like a scientific level, and there
is still a tomato genetics research center in his name
at UC Davis. Part of their work has been in
mapping tomatoes species, various tomato varieties genomes to find out
(53:29):
what kind of genetic diversity we're dealing with in modern
wild and cultivated plants. The first full genome for the
tomato was a Hins variety published. It was published in
twenty twelve, and as of twenty fourteen, this group had
sequenced three hundred and sixty varieties of tomatoes and found
(53:51):
that domestication has depleted the gene pool in a few areas,
including size, with larger fruit being preferred and with resistance
to disease with as frequently happens. So, like, what does
this mean practically, Well, you know, like, genetic diversity is good.
(54:12):
It allows for happenstance that can create new and excellent traits.
So so another part of this group's work is they're
they're trying to to basically like undo some of the
work that was done in creating and propagating these supermarket hybrids. Yeah, yep. Meanwhile,
(54:34):
that tough skin that was bred into these modern mass
marketed tomatoes might be good for something else. Tires, Okay, okay. So,
so one of the ingredients in rubber tires is this
type of filler called carbon black that's petroleum based, and
(54:55):
it makes the rubber more durable. It's about like a
third of the makeup of your pickle rubber tire. But
since it's made from crude oil, it's not great for
the environment, and the price is at the whim of
the global oil industry, which is whimsical indeed, And since
We've got more vehicles on the road now more than ever.
(55:16):
You know, the industry is looking for replacement sources. Research
team led by Ohio State University published a paper in
early twenty seventeen about how a mixture of tomato peels
for stability and eggshells for microstructure like like strength on
a micro level can replace a portion of carbon black
(55:37):
in rubber tires. So yeah, I don't know if this
catches on. It could also help reduce food waste. You know, shells,
shells from eggs cracked before delivery, tomato skins that go
unused in the making of processed sauces. They could be
collected and put to work.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Yeah, get to work.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Right, and eggshells earn your keep here and obligatory down notode.
Projected increases in temperature from global warming has the industry
concerned that specialty producers like Italy and California might not
(56:20):
be able to grow as much in the coming decades
due to restrictions on water use. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yeah, I feel like I've heard a lot of stories
about the tomato because I do love the tomato, and
all some end with kind of like we've lost so
much of this flavor and also yeah, climate change, but
I mean you have to talk about those things. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's I mean, and it's cool that, right, It's really
cool that those genetics departments are like, Okay, how can
(56:48):
we like unbork what we have borked? Like like what
can we what can we do?
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (56:52):
So's it's really cool. Yeah, there's a lot of cool
stuff going on with tomato. And as we said, there's
a million different pathways we could take on this. Yeah,
I'm sure we'll be we'll be back.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Oh yes, oh yes, yeah that I I realized that
I didn't even google tomato world record, so.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Oh well, now I'm gonna lie away because I can't
google it myself. I only trust you, Lauren. Well, that's
that's a fun It's a bright note for us to
look forward to in the future because I will talk
about tomatoes all the time. Yes, yes, yes, but that
brings us to the end of this arito for now. Yes.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Yes, we do have a tiny bit of a listener
mail for you though, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
Thank you, som Yes, thank you, and we're back with
that one. We should have recorded video one. That's that
was a shame that no one will see that.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Yeah, there's a lot of genuine flapping panic.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
It was if tomatoes are flying at me. Oh yeah,
I'd be out, I'd be out of town. So today,
because this episode has gone a bit long, we're just
going to read one actual physical letter that I have.
So we got a note from a listener named Ethan Fidida,
(58:40):
and I hope I'm not bettering your name. Feel free
to send me a strongly worded correct but please be
kind because I really like you, in part because you
sent us some receas after Lauren had mentioned that you
never had any, and it just so just so happened
to coincide with Ethan opening up a Herisa business. And
(59:04):
I promise we have not seen each other since I
received the shipment Lauren, but I have not eaten your portion,
nor will it.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Okay, I'm keeping an eye one.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
Yeah, I could take a picture and send it to you,
but it would feel kind of like a hostage picture,
so it probably won't.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Say thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:23):
Yes, but we did want to shout out Ethan for
I've tried it. I've tried the spicy one because he
sent us spicy and regular non spicy, and I haven't
tried the nine spicy one. But the spicy one is
very great. It is spicy, but we love spicy. Yeah, yeah, yes,
I put it in my polinsa. I did a nice
(59:43):
little squirrel. It was very very good. But here is
Ethan's letter that he sent. Hope you and Lauren enjoy
my Harisa. It's a more modern take on the North
African classic, inspired by my now ninety eight year old
grandma's mcgreby cooking. I love using it in a bunch
of ways, as a condiment on a breakfast sandwich or
(01:00:04):
on some eggs, as a marinade for a variety of proteins,
roasted with root vegetables, or to kick up soups and stews.
The sky is the limit. Please let me know what
you think and let me know what recipes you use
it with or on. I'm interested to see how it resonates.
As I mentioned, I'm days away from finally launching via
(01:00:24):
e comm store, so your feedback and hopefully a shout
out it would be awesome, and so yes, happy to
shout it out. It was very good. And also Ethan
sent a link to because the grandmother he mentioned, her
image is on the logo of these products, is like
her story is printed on it. And he did a
(01:00:46):
whole story about like grandmother's hands. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
And it was a really good It was a really
good read and with excellent photography. So I recommend that.
And so the store is el Fassi E l f
A s s y Lfossefoods dot com. And yeah, we
(01:01:06):
he sent his product, but this is not a sponsor.
Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Not an app, just just a human who we like.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yeah, yes, and it was very good and I can't
wait to share it with you, Lauren, the jar that
I will not eat. That is reserved for you.
Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
And you alone, all right, looking forward to it. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Yes, yes, so thank you, thank you, Thank you very much, Ethan.
And we'll get back to more listener mail in the
next episode when our redex doesn't go long. Yes, absolutely, yes, yes, yes,
and you can send that listener mail to us. We
would love to hear from you. Our email is Hello
at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saber pod. And we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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