WEBVTT - From the Vault: Tomato, Tomato, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.239 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:12.080 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's Vault episode 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.200 is the first part of the two part series we 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.800 did about the humble tomato. Why why did I say 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.759 humble tomatoes, not humble the beautiful, glorious, majestic tomato. Yes, 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:25.360 this is a part one of our episode Tomato tomato, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.000 or maybe it was tomato tomato or tomato tomato or 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:33.240 tomato tomato. I'm not sure. Did you say tomato tomato? 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:39.519 Was that tomato tomato? Um? I love you tomato. Yeah. 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.720 But anyway, these were fun. These were some some nice 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:49.199 food based botanical explorations, and I believe we got to 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.640 gush a lot about just how good a tomato can be. Hey, 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:58.400 and they're in season again. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:07.839 your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.040 to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.600 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I was going 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.039 to start off today by saying that, of course it's 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.680 the most wonderful time of the year, but I think 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.600 I'm actually already on record saying October is the most 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.200 wonderful time of the year, and of course October is 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.880 because that's you know, monster madness, but monster season aside, 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.600 I think tomato season is the second most wonderful time 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.120 of the year, and we're right in it now. Tomato 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.839 season is pretty wonderful. Um, We're we're big tomato fans 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.399 here in the house. Given the confines of imposed by 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.760 the pandemic, we're actually growing more tomatoes at the house 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.320 than ever before. Um, and yeah, it's been fabulous. We're 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.280 big fans of pensanella, which is a I think a 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.080 tuscan chopped salad or originally but it's like soaked or 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.040 soaked stale or toasted bread we throw in basil and 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.000 then of course the tomatoes. Uh. Similarly, we really love 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.120 a good caprice salad because, yeah, a great tomato just 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.480 elevates anything. In my opinion. You know, you can do 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:12.480 a great tomato. All you need is just a little 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.440 salt and pepper, maybe a drizzle of olive oil, and 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.480 you're good to go. A great tomato is I think 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.440 in the same class where people think of like a 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.240 great steak. It is just like a complete food in 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.520 itself that is so good it you know, it kind 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.239 of makes people moan when they eat it. And I 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.720 definitely grew up thinking that I did not like tomatoes. 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:34.919 I thought I hated tomatoes. I'd always pick them off 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.360 of a sandwich if if they were on there. But 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.720 I realized later in life the issue was just that 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.240 I hated bad tomatoes. And almost every tomato you get 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.280 in a you know, in a subway or what. I 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:46.960 don't mean to single them out, but you know, any 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.320 sandwich shop, whatever, it's almost never going to be a 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.440 good one. It's going to be kind of a white, mealy, tough, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.280 flavorless thing that doesn't have all of the beautiful aromatic 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.880 tomato ee compounds, that doesn't have that perfect juicy text. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.880 You're a ripe, home grown or or you know, farmer's 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.680 market summer tomato that has never been refrigerated, never had 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.240 to be shipped on a big truck, any of that stuff. 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:13.919 It is a thing of beauty. And if you've never 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.600 experienced a tomato that way, you don't know what you're 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.519 missing yet. Yeah, absolutely, you just you're not going to 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.920 get the same thing with a grocery store tomato generally, 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.600 unless you know they are actually serve as selling like 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.799 local air limb tomatoes. I'm a big fan of box 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.679 meal kits. I'm a subscriber to one of them right now. 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.120 But you're just not gonna You're not gonna get a 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.360 wonderful tomato through the mail like that it's got it's 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:38.840 gotta come from your own garden. It's got to come 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.040 from a local um garden. It and when you get 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.680 to dig into it, it is like nothing else. It's 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:50.520 just miles above uh the sort of mundane canned tomato 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.800 grocery store tomato experience. Yeah, and I think one reason is, 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.400 uh just the sheer mechanics of like shipping products. Right 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.200 if you ever had a really good ripe summer tomato, 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.280 as soon as you handle it, you know, like this 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.360 would not survive the like the rough process of getting 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:10.760 from a farm to the grocery store to my house. 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.400 It's a delicate baby bird. It's the thing that that 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.680 you know, it's it's barely going to survive the trip 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.200 from the vine to your kitchen counter. Oh yeah, and 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.320 again speaking is a very amateur tomato grower here. But 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:27.799 the ones we bring in from the backyard, like they 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:29.720 we have to like knock the bugs off of them, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.479 they're already oozing a little bit. Yeah, this is a 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:37.640 very delicate balance between the plate and the compost heap. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:39.880 You've got to get there just the right time. But 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.479 on the other hand, I'm also actually I'm a pretty 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.720 big fan of canned tomatoes for cooked applications. If if 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.279 it's a tomato, you know, if you're making tomato sauce 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.640 or something like that, a decent can of of whole 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.839 peeled tomatoes that you puree yourself or mash to whatever 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.279 consistency you want, where it's just fine. I mean, you 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.440 know that they're picked when they're ideal, and you know 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.880 they go ahead and canum. It's much better than trying 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.000 to make a say a tomato sauce from tomatoes that 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:09.240 are fresh in the off season. Yeah. Yeah, It ultimately depends, 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.000 like what is the role of the tomato in the dish? 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.400 Is Is this a starring vehicle for a fresh tomato. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.480 If so, nothing but a really good fresh tomato is 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.080 going to work. But if it's something where the tomato 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.839 is more of a supporting player, then perhaps one of 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.200 these other things will work. And then, of course all 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.240 there's not just one tomato. Obviously, there's so many different types. 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.720 For my own purposes, I find that when it's not 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.680 tomato season, those little like grape tomatoes are pretty good 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:38.840 if you have to get some of the store. Absolutely, 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.320 I'm a hundred percent in agreement, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.800 are the much better option if you need fresh tomatoes 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.120 in the off season. So listeners, as you can probably tell, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.240 we're going to be talking about tomatoes not for one episode, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.800 but for two whole episodes. And if you're thinking, well, 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.640 the tomato is just so mundane, it's so every day. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.200 This is gonna be a you know, two episodes of 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.240 of backyard um like hoakery here that I can just 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.320 skip on stuff to blow your mind. Nothing could be 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.880 further from the truth, because there is so much weirdness 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:15.560 in these episodes. There's quackery, there's myth making, they're tall tails, 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.200 and there's all space colonizations, yes, space colonization. It's going 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.240 to cover really like a broad area of stuff to 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.919 blow your mind content, even though at the center of 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.920 it is this fruit that has become just such a 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.159 staple of most of our diets in one form or another. 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.240 So maybe we should start off just by looking at 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.480 the tomato plant as an organism, What what is this organism? 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:44.280 And how did we end up with the modern cultivated tomato. Yeah, 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.880 this is a great, great place to start, because this 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.920 is another one of those stories where if you don't 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:51.960 think about it too close, if you don't research it yourself, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.960 you just might think, oh, well, tomatoes have always been everywhere, 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.320 they have always been a part of our diet because 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:02.119 they're just so ubiquitous now. But this is not the case. Okay, 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.880 So first of all, you've probably just heard to say 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.120 the word fruit. This is one of those facts I 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.640 think most people know at this point. You probably learned 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.040 this before. But in biological terms, a tomato is a 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.680 fruit rather than a vegetable. And part of this comes 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:17.720 down to the different ways that we use the term 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.200 fruits and vegetables in a sort of culinary or nutritional 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.840 sense versus in a botanical sense. Um Like we in 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.240 a culinary or nutritional sense, we intuitively sort things into 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.040 categories of fruits and vegetables, I think largely based on 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:36.200 sugar content and whether they're primarily used in sweet or 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.520 savory preparations. So plants that are savory or vegetables plants 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.080 that are sweet or fruits. However, even this is somewhat 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.040 arbitrary as a cultural convention, because there are ways in 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.880 which these these types of groupings can vary widely from 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.160 culture to culture. One example is avocados. Are avocados a 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.120 sweet food or a savory food? I think for me 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.600 and for most of Americans, the answer overwhelmingly would be 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.320 its savory food. They go in guacamole, you pair them 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.480 with lime and salt, you put them on toast, you 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.440 put them in a burrito. But for millions of people 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.240 in like South America and Asia, avocados are primarily a 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.760 sweet food, used more often in dessert dishes, which seems 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:19.960 very strange to us. But I don't know. If you 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.960 think of it as kind of basically just a buttery substance, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.400 it starts to click in place. Yeah, yeah, I agree. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.520 I always grew up thinking of it certainly something you 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:31.800 add a little salt and pepper two again some olive 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.920 oil two, and you have a great dish. But we're 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.160 big fans of going to local like bubble tea places, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.280 uh in Asian dessert places, and you will find like 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.959 avocado smoothies as as a you know, a standard item 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.240 you encounter on menus and I've tried it before and 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.280 it's delicious, But yeah, you wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily think 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.360 about it from a Western perspective of being the dessert item, right. 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.840 But either way, these culinary distinctions often just don't have 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.520 a biological basis. In fact, other alinary vegetables things we 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:08.440 think of as vegetables in a cooking sense, are biologically fruits. Cucumbers, chili, peppers, eggplants, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.840 all fruits. But to go even better, the tomato is 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:16.480 not only fruit, it is technically a berry and one 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.960 thing that I think you could probably even into it 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.480 just looking at say, you know, if you're growing a 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.760 variety of heirloom tomato in your backyard and you see 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.480 this monstrous fruit hanging off of a vine that you 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.760 have to prop up on a steak or a cage 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.560 or otherwise, this gigantic fruit is just going to make 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.280 it drooped down on the ground. Uh, And it's the 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.160 you know, it looks like a thing that should not 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.320 be in a way. Um, so you might be able 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.640 to into it that tomatoes have not always been this way, 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.520 like many of the modern fruits and vegetables we eat. 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.160 It had to be adapted from a naturally occurring fruit 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.640 or vegetable that did not necessarily grow as large in 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:01.800 the edible part um. And it appears that modern cultivated tomatoes, 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:06.920 which have the scientific name Solanum lycopersicum, are descended from 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.760 a wild berry that grew in northwestern South America, maybe 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.520 around the area of Peru or a little farther north. 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:20.040 And the research tracing these biological origins has been summarized 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.480 in a few sources. I looked at, for example, in 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.880 the Oxford Companion to Food, which was edited by Alan Davidson. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.400 They looked at studies by, for example, Sophie co in 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.720 N and other researchers over the years that found that 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:39.480 the wild ancestor of the tomato was very likely. They 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:45.040 identify a couple of species, one Lycopersicon seraciform, and then 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:50.319 another one so Lantum pimpanellifolium, which is today known as 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.840 the current tomato. Not current as in timely, but current 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.520 as in like the fruit a current. And it's called 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.440 this because in a way, these these wild tomatoes, the 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:04.280 Slanum pimpanella folium, sort of resemble currents they're these tiny 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:08.480 little berries, almost kind of current or blueberry sized. Yeah, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:10.640 some of the examples I was reading was that if 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.600 you went back to pre Columbian Peru, you would encounter, 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:16.360 if you knew where to look, you would find these 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:21.440 wild growing, essentially yellow berries that were the predecessor, the 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.840 likely predecessor to the modern tomato. Yes, now, exactly how 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.400 it went from that wild berry to the cultivated varieties 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:32.640 that people eat that that's still um, we know some things, 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.520 but it's still a somewhat open question that there have 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.760 been some genomic studies that I'll talk about in just 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.920 a minute, but we know that such a thing as 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.840 the cultivated tomato existed by the time the Spanish arrived 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.360 in meso America. By that time, the az Tech people 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.400 are the no waddle speaking people were eating tomatoes that 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.280 they grew as crops, and they were eating them in dishes, 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:00.559 often prepared in conjunction with chili peppers. But of course 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.199 we we know that this wild ancestor of the tomato, 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.840 this berry grew in northwest South America. It was, you know, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.520 this wild fine and so there's still a question of 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.960 how exactly that wild fruit made its way up north 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.480 to Meso America in order to be cultivated as a 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.280 food crop by the Aztecs. Yeah, there's already even at 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.960 this early stage in the history of the global tomato. 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.640 It's kind of a botanical game of telephone, right. Uh. 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:30.480 So I was trying to look up what is some 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.480 of the most recent scientific work on this, and there 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.840 was a new study about the domestication history of the 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.520 tomato that was published just this year, published in the 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:46.280 journal Molecular Biology and Evolution by Razafard at All. And 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.320 so what they present is a little complicated. I'm going 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.160 to try to do the simplest version I can. So 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.360 the authors say that before their research, our best guess 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.880 about the domestication history of the tomato went like this. 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.760 So you had this wild berry in South America. It's 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.560 growing up in the Andes, up in the northwest corner 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:09.520 of South America. And this is Solanum pimpanella folium here again, 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.520 this is the one we mentioned earlier. The fruits are 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.280 going to be about the size of a blueberry. Then 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.920 in this older understanding, this was transformed into the semi 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:26.040 domesticated plant Solanum lycopersicum saraciform or SLC. But if you 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.040 see SLC and tomato literature, don't confuse that with Salt 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.040 Lake City. It means this species and this would have 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.439 happened within South America. These fruits would have been about 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.480 the size of a cherry, so kind of similar to 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.280 cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes that you could buy at 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.439 the store today. Obviously somewhat different, but similar somewhat in 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:48.160 in look, in size. And then finally, this middle species, 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.400 the s l C, was transformed into the larger, fully 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:56.679 domesticated clandum Lycopersicum variant Lycopersicum, and this was the Aztec 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.480 food crop that was developed into the tomatoes that the 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.680 people eat all around the world today and uh strange 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.080 fact lyco persicum. I think Robert you might have a 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:11.240 note about this later, but it means literally wolf peach. Yes, um, yeah, yeah, 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.360 that it's This is interesting because this was some sort 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.800 of a fruit that was described by Galen who lived 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:24.920 two dred c, which obviously as well before tomatoes actually 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:30.240 came to uh To, uh To to Europe, so obviously 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.200 Galen was not describing a tomato. But this just this 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.160 description ends up getting wound up in the classification of 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.200 tomatoes in the West later on. Yeah, but so anyway, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.320 the authors of this study from used population genomic methods 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.680 to try to reconstruct a genomic map of the modern 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.760 tomatoes domestication history, and they conclude quote A. Results suggests 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:58.400 that the origin of SLC may predate domestication, and that 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.240 many traits considered typical cole of cultivated tomatoes arose in 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:07.080 South American SLC, but we're lost or diminished once these 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.560 partially domesticated forms spread northward. These traits were then likely 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.840 re selected in a convergent fashion in the common cultivated 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.760 tomato prior to its expansion around the world. So a 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.960 little complicated. Basically, they're saying that the semi domesticated breed 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:24.960 of tomato that may have been used as a as 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.240 not not a cultivated crop but a semi domesticated food 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.920 by some people in South America, it had some traits 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.800 that arose naturally, and then those traits were re selected 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:41.160 and emphasized by growers in Mesoamerica before the tomato finally 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.920 spread all over the world. Interesting, now we've already touched 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.080 on the fact that the tomato isn't the only case 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.520 of this there. There's a whole thing about what you 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.320 call breeds of plants and how and how to know 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.600 whether you're talking about the same fruit or plant. When 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.920 you're using different names throughout history, it can become very confusing. Um. 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.320 But just about the history of the word tomato itself. 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.680 The English word tomato, of course comes via the Spanish tomate, 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.080 which was adapted from the original no Wattle word tomadel. 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:15.880 Now I've seen a lot of sources claimed that to 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.680 model was simply the Noattle word for the fruit for 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.920 the tomato, but the entry and the Oxford companion actually 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:24.840 goes a little deeper. And this is kind of interesting 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:29.120 again about linguistic confusion. So apparently in the now Wattle language, 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:33.720 tom model simply meant plump fruit. So to indicate the 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.800 ancestor of our tomato you had to add the prefix z. 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.200 So the word was z to model that was the 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.640 ancestor of the tomato we have today, and this distinguished 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:49.160 it from the husked ancestor to modern tomatios, which the 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.720 Aztecs called meal to model, and then the Spanish ended 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:57.000 up using the word tomate for both tomatio in Spanish 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.920 that just means little tomato, though they are not actually 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.040 large and small versions of the same fruit. They're totally 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.480 different species. Yeah, but that but they are related. These 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.440 are all in the night shade family, and we'll get 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.639 into to that, um into that in a bit. But 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.440 the authors of the Oxford Companion point out this led 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.959 to a bunch of confusion for Spanish chroniclers, who just 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:22.560 didn't always seem to understand which fruit was being talked about. Uh. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.439 THEO and I have mentioned this before, but they also 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:30.080 point out that in as Tech cuisine, tomatoes were consistently 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.399 linked with chili peppers, and I gotta say it's a 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.600 good combination. Tomatoes and chili peppers are are two fruits 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.879 that go well together. Absolutely, But here, once we have 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.919 contact between the hemispheres, this opens up the doors of 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.760 of of spread of this plant all over the world, 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.760 and eventually it does spread. Now I have to say 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.600 that the way that the tomato spreads uh through and 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.600 around the world is it both is it was it 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.480 once alarming, like it's really it's really a success story. 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.280 But it's also not one of these situations where you 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.320 can say, oh, well, this individual brought the tomato to 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.520 Europe and then it was an enormous success. And here 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.480 we are like, it's not that simple and uh and 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.800 and we we certainly encourage people are interested in this 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:16.520 to seek out some of the books we're going to 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:18.639 mention here in a bit because they'll get into a 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.400 lot more detail about this. It is, um, I guess 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.600 you would say it is. There's a lot of touch 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.040 and go uh, false starts. Um. And as we'll discuss 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.280 a little bit too, there's some myth making involved in 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.440 some some legend regarding just how the tomato takes off 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.920 and what is standing in its way. I would also 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.680 say that the tomato has a somewhat complicated and murky Uh. 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:42.399 If it were a text, we would call it the 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.520 reception history. Yeah. Absolutely, So we're gonna take a quick break, 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:49.560 but when we come back, we are going to dive 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:54.040 into some of the issues of its spread through Europe 0:18:54.080 --> 0:19:02.399 and then paradoxically, like back into North America. All right, 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.560 we're back. So. Uh. We may have talked in the past, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.200 you and I about doing a tomato episode, uh, doing 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.359 something about the tomatoes. Tomatoes have definitely come up on 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:15.000 the show before, but my wife this summer had had 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.480 specifically mentioned she said, you guys should do Tomato episode. 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.640 You should do it. You should, you should really dive 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.280 in there. And I think something that helped encourage this 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.919 is that we encountered a sign at a botanical garden 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.719 that was describing tomatoes and it mentioned that in the 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:32.680 past people thought they were poisonous. So I have to 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:34.480 admit that that was like, that was a real key 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.680 area of interest for me going into this episode, getting 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:42.040 into you know, just just discussing whether people ever actually 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:45.240 considered the tomato to be poisonous and what does that mean, 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.359 because it just seems ridiculous on the face of it, right, 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.959 but the tomato has conquered the planet. We know the 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.960 tomato is not poisonous, and the idea of people being 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.160 afraid to eat it because they think it is poisonous, Uh, 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.600 it just seems completely looney. Well, in this money, because 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.880 even once you investigate it, I would say that this 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:08.320 irony remains, because the irony remains because we are going 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.520 to encounter people who are saying the tomato is poisonous, 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.960 but they're not saying it at a time when nobody 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.240 was eating tomatoes because everybody thought they were poisonous. They'd 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.800 be like, well, some people eat them but they're poisonous. Right, Yeah, 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.639 you didn't have like single voices with a global reach 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.359 saying we do not eat tomatoes or no one should 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.800 eat tomatoes, because you have a lot of um, you know, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.560 a lot of division based on like who's talking about it, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.399 what country they're in, what you know, what levels of 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.400 society they're at, etcetera. And then on top of additional 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.160 legends that pop up. But but this basic idea that 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.760 people specifically, you'll see like Europeans or Americans used to 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.159 be afraid to eat tomatoes because they thought they were poisonous. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.919 You see this everywhere. You see this again at botanical gardens, 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:58.280 you see this popping up in news stories about the 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.480 tomato and it is often just and it is just 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.439 a straight up fact. Uh. But again, when I started 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.479 looking into it, I became increasingly less sure because on 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.240 one hand, yeah, it sounds too good to be true, 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.440 and then you do encounter these um these are these 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.560 these wrinkles in the description that really um drive home 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.800 that Okay, not everybody thought this at the same time. 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:21.439 So again we're not going to cover the entire history 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.720 of the tomatoes um influx into Europe. And then it's 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:31.560 um it's acceptance by European societies. But the first known 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:37.480 European reference to tomatoes comes in four from Italian herbalist 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:44.040 Pito Andre Matthioli, and he wrote of the mala aria 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:48.919 the golden apples we described as ripening from green to yellow. 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.600 Now he classified the tomato with the man drake, which 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.080 was of course part of this big nightshade family. And 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:58.920 this is, of course this is accurate. I mean they 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:01.359 are in this family. We consider the tomato to be 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.560 a nightshade, along with things like the eggplant um But 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.280 this is often held up is one aspect of the 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:14.159 poisonous reputation that tomatoes gathered in European society, with botanists 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:16.600 signifying that they were a part of this family that 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:21.159 contained things um uh like deadly nightshade or like like 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:23.840 the man drake root, which of course has all these 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:28.439 connotations with various medicinal and sort of magical practices. But 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:30.680 at the same time at the only discussed how tomatoes 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.240 were cooked and eaten at the time much in the 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.840 same way as eggplants, which were another imported food. Only 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:41.119 this this eggplants came from Asia um and and they 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.199 were again part of the night shade family, and this 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:46.080 has to be This seems to be a major sticking 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:51.120 point for a large portion of of the tomatoes European 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.800 tradition UH, with it and the related egg plant not 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.119 traveling all that well into New European cuisines, or not 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.359 all of them anyway, because of their or association with 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.600