The Tomato: A World Traveler

The tomato is just one example, but it is a very good example of what can happen when cultures possessing high levels of transportation technology encounter cultures possessing previously unknown food produce. This concept is a key part of what has come to be known as the “Columbian Exchange.”

The tomato’s wild ancestors are native to the slopes of the Andes. Researchers are therefore surprised that edible tomatoes do not appear to have been a part of the diet of the Inca. It was rather Central American cultures such as the Aztecs who domesticated the tomato. When Spanish Conquistadores arrived in Mexico they found the plant under intense cultivation. Seeds made their way back to Spain where, through an unknown process, they became known as Moor’s Apples (Pommes dei Moro). In Italy they came under cultivation and were known as “golden apples.” As this name suggests early European tomatoes were yellow in color rather than the red which we generally associate with tomatoes today. The French name Pommes de Amour, or “love apples” is probably a corruption of the sound of the old Spanish name, and leads some to believe that tomatoes had achieved a red color before reaching France since that color has long been associated with love.

Tomatoes were popular in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean from early in the 17th Century, but they were slow to gain popularity in northern European cultures, perhaps due to their resemblance in leaf shape to native poisonous plants such as belladona. In Germany they were associated with werewolves and witchcraft in the first several centuries they were known. However, everywhere the popularity of, and even a dependence upon, the tomato as a food resource was growing. From a few seeds brought from the “New World” numerous varieties of tomato were produced.

Seeds were then transported back across the Atlantic to North America where although not trusted as food in the 1820’s it was being nationally cultivated by the late 1830’s. Most modern Americans take tomatoes for granted, and consider them an integral part of such “All American” foods as the hamburger, but early Americans generally distrusted the red “fruit.” Among the enlightened few who regularly consumed tomatoes in the early days was Thomas Jefferson, who also often served “French fries” at his table.

So when you next eat a tomato, consider how its ancestors most likely made their way from the New World to the Old World, and back again. Tomatoes are hugely more interesting than this. “Heirloom” varieties alone have a long and astonishingly well documented history, and hybrids are another story altogether. Heirlooms are androgynous closed systems which almost always produce true to type, but hybrid seeds are only good for one plant with the bred for characteristics, and will produce seeds which if fertilized and planted will vary widely in characteristics from the parent. One last note, tomatoes are thought by some to greatly reduce the risk of cancer in humans due to a high antioxidant content. Could this world traveler also help save us from cancer?