Tomatoes only grew popular with the invention of pizza in Naples during the 1880s.
Once considered a killer, the tomato changed the course of food history when used to honour royalty and it was both an aphrodisiac and a tax evasion tool for decades.
And you thought the popular red produce was boring.
By all accounts, the tomato grew wild in the Andes of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, where they were called “tomatl.” Spanish conquistadors, such as Cortez, introduced tomatoes to southern Europe in the early 1500s, but only as an ornamental plant, admired for the beauty of its fruit.
The Italians were the first Europeans to eat tomatoes. Some early varieties were more yellow than red, prompting herbalist Pietro Andrae Matthioli to call the plant the “golden apple.” He classified the tomato as part of the deadly nightshade family and called it a mandrake — a category of food considered an aphrodisiac.
Mandrakes are in the Old Testament, which translates the Hebrew word as “love apple.”
But many Europeans considered tomatoes dangerous — and a source of temptation. By the late 1700s, the plant’s nickname was the “poison apple.”
Fear spread with rumours that aristocrats were dying after eating tomatoes — and they were, but not because of the food. The rich used pewter plates and, when acid from the tomatoes leached lead from the pewter, many were poisoned.
The poor had wooden plates and were spared.
Tomatoes only grew popular with the invention of pizza in Naples, Italy, during the 1880s.
Legend says a restaurateur celebrated a visit from Italy’s Queen Margherita by making a pizza from three ingredients representing the tri-colour Italian flag: tomato sauce (red), mozzarella cheese (white), and basil topping (green).
Pizza Margherita was born, and is still popular today.
In the New World, tomato acceptance grew slowly. And it didn’t help when terror gripped New York State when word spread that green tomato worms were deadly to the touch. Even poet Ralph Waldo Emerson believed the worms poisoned any tomato they crawled upon.
Still, common sense eventually won out and tomatoes took another leap forward in 1897 when innovator Joseph Campbell discovered they kept really well when canned. He made condensed tomato soup a household staple.
At that time, to avoid taxation, the tomato was classified as a fruit. But that changed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the tomato was a vegetable, which made it taxable.
The fruit-or-vegetable debate still rages (I say tomato, you say to-mah-to). But, today, tomatoes are eaten around the world, with more than 1.5 billion tonnes grown commercially every year.
I see some parallels between that colourful history and the embrace of the Christian church, except in reverse. The church was a staple of life early on, but has lost credibility in recent years.
To some, it’s a “love apple” and, to others, a “poison apple.” There are valid reasons for the fear and sometimes loathing that often dogs the church, but I submit many people are looking at the tomatoes, instead of the plates.
Like every other group of humans — from governments to service clubs — the church is seriously flawed, from those of us in the pulpit to those in the pews and plush chairs with cup holders.
Offences include sexual and financial misconduct, spiritual command-and-control tactics, divisive sectarianism, harsh judgment and condemnation, the suppression of individuality in favour of unholy homogeneity, and too many other sins to list.
But the failure of leaders to live up to the loving standards of Jesus is no reason to discard the whole thing. That’s especially true because the handbook of the faith is candid about Christian complicity.
Though most people don’t know it, the New Testament puts most of its focus on addressing wrongs in the church, not in the wider society. Believers are called to a higher standard.
And, when we don’t meet it, sin is to be confronted gently and humbly, with accountability and appropriate consequences.
Still, the whole message of the Gospel is grace and forgiveness, redemption and the ability to change through the power of God. When we uphold that, faith honours our Sovereign and reflects the flag of His realm: love.
His banner over us is love; love representing the red of Jesus’ blood, the pure white of our forgiveness, and the green of everlasting life (basil, once symbolic of hate, later became the emblem of love and marriage).
But part of the problem is that, among many people, faith is purely ornamental, and not a source of genuine spiritual nourishment. It’s common to want the luscious fruit of faith — going to church purely for the social aspect, or affirming inoffensive ideals like treating people the way we want to be treated.
But that’s far different from sinking our teeth into the radical, sacrificial, and subversive love Jesus calls us to.
Yes, there have always been worms in God’s garden. I’m one of them.
We inflict damage, but we’re way outnumbered by good and godly people who live their faith passionately and produce the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22, 23).
So it’s simply not true we poison the whole garden. Though the church is far from perfect, it’s still soup for the soul.
Share your thoughts with Rick Gamble at info@followers.ca He pastors a nondenominational church in Brantford called Followers of Christ (www.followers.ca) and teaches journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University.
October 29, 2020 at 10:12PM
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A saucy history of the tomato - St. Thomas Times-Journal
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