There is an unusual addition to the front page news these days. It is the tomato! As prices of tomatoes soar, there is panic. From housewives to gourmet chefs there is a scramble to devise meals where the familiar flavor and texture of tomatoes can be recreated without the star ingredient. Recipes are shared, and suitable substitutes recommended, such as tamarind, raw mango, kokum and curd. Ironically these tartness-adding agents have been used in Indian cooking well before the tomato gravy became ubiquitous element in everything from paneer to pizza!
Interestingly, the tomato is a relatively recent arrival in India. It is believed to have been introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and was probably grown in the parts of India where the Portuguese influence was strong. It was not easily adopted by the local people as it was looked upon with suspicion, often referred to as vilayati baingan (imported brinjal), and unclear whether it was meant to be eaten raw or cooked. It is only in the 19th century, with the British influence that tomatoes became a part of Indian cuisine.
As we are missing the tomato in our daily meals, it is a good time to take a look at its chequered history.
The global history of the tomato also is a long and convoluted one. The plant is believed to have originated in South and Central America, and can be traced back to early 700 AD to the early Aztecs who named it tomatl or xitomatl (plump thing with navel). It was an integral part of their native diet in the sixteenth century. The Spanish conquerors of the region called it tomate, from which the English word tomato is derived.
Europeans first came in contact with the domesticated tomato when they captured one of the cities of the region. The Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes is thought to have brought back the seeds to southern Europe where they were planted for ornamental purposes. The tomato was not eaten till the late 1800s. This was in part due to their reputation as being deadly plants. Some of this was because the tomato was classified by Italian herbalist Pietro Andrae Matthioli as being part of the deadly nightshade family (Solanaceae plants that contain toxic tropane alkaloids) and a mandrake (a group of foods thought to be aphrodisiacs). The fruit was also nicknamed as “poison apple” because it was believed that eating this could be fatal.
Another thing that compounded this belief was that rich people in the 1500s used plates made of pewter which had high lead content. Foods high in acid, like tomatoes, would cause the lead to leach out into the food, resulting in lead poisoning and death. Thus the cause of death was not tomatoes but lead poisoning. However this connection was not made then, and the tomato was labelled as the culprit. The less affluent who ate off plates made of wood, did not have that problem, and hence did not have an aversion to tomatoes. This is essentially the reason why tomatoes were only eaten by poor people until the 1800’s, especially in southern Italy. People may have started eating tomatoes when not much else was available because not only did they add flavour to the otherwise bland meat dishes, but they could also be preserved and stored. The earliest recipe for tomato sauce was published in 1694, by Neapolitan chef Antonio Latini in his book Lo Scalco alla Moderna (The Modern Steward).
Even within the rest of Europe, tomato as an edible component was looked upon with suspicion. Tomato was perceived as a cold fruit, and coldness was considered a bad quality for a food according to the Galenic school of medicine. It was associated with eggplant which was also an unknown; it was cultivated close to the dirt, another factor that didn’t make it palatable. While the tomato was gradually making its way into cuisine in southern Europe, it still had to find its way to other parts of the world.
How did the tomato synonymous with pizza? Thereby hangs a tale! In 1889 the Queen Margherita of Italy was to visit Naples, and one restaurateur wanted to create a special dish to honour Her Majesty. He made a pizza topping from three ingredients that represented the colours of the new Italian flag: red, white, and green. The red was the tomato sauce, the white was the mozzarella cheese, and the green was the basil topping. Hence, Pizza Margarite was born, which still remains the most standard pizza.
The mass migration from Europe to America in the 1800s meant that the new arrivals also brought with them their own culinary ingredients and traditions. The Italians took with them the tomato and its basic partner the pizza. The rest is history! From the mid-1880s tomatoes became a staple in American kitchens. As the demand for tomatoes increased they began to be imported in large quantities.
One of the big importers of tomatoes was John Nix, wholesale merchant in New York. When a shipment of tomatoes arrived at the port a 10 per cent import tariff was levied. At the time imported vegetables were subject to this tax, while fruits were exempt. Nix protested, arguing that tomatoes were not technically vegetables. He was not wrong. Tomatoes were, and are, botanically classified as a fruit. A fruit contains the seeds of the plant while any other edible part of the plant that we eat, which doesn’t come from the fruit of the plant is considered a vegetable.
Nix filed a case against Edward Hedden, the Collector of the Port of New York. The case made its way to the Supreme Court in 1893. The case was argued using definitions of fruits and vegetables from different dictionaries and their usage. It became a hotly debated issue: Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable? Eventually the court unanimously agreed that the tomato should be classified as a vegetable because of how it was used in everyday life, not how it was used in commerce or in purely botanical terms.
A plump thing with navel, a poisonous ornamental plant, a poor man’s multi-use ingredient, a tax-exempt fruit to a taxable vegetable. Tomato puree indeed!
–Mamata
Millennial Matriarchs 