Subject: Potatoes

From: [email-masked] (norman miller)
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 22:06:01 GMT

I'm sure this question has already been raised and answered,
so just point me in the right direction and I'll be happy.

The question: since potatoes are new world and since potatoes 
have been a staple in Ireland, Germany and Poland among others
for a very long time, the rate of spread must have been extremely
fast.  Has anyone written to that?

Ditto the tomato for Italy.

Thanks in advance,

---

From: [email-masked] (Daniel Paul Checkman)
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 13:36:34 GMT

>Thanks in advance,

Arent' the potatoes in Ireland and Peru different varieties?  If so, then
they could've easily been in both places.
-Dan

---

From: [email-masked] (Bill Silvert)
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 14:27:27 GMT

>they could've easily been in both places.

Potatoes did come from the New World, and there are hundreds of
varieties.  My mother (Vicki Oppenheimer, author of "On the Nature of
Food") has written how there are statues in some European countries
honouring Drake and others for saving lives by bringing the potato to
Europe and averting starvation.
-- 
William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2.  Tel. (902)426-1577
InterNet Address: [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Julie Kangas)
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 14:22:36 GMT

>they could've easily been in both places.

There are quite a few different varieties of potatoes, but all of
them come from Peru originally.  

Some countries were less inclined to accept potatoes than others.  Many
people were leary of them and many stories, probably urban legends,
exist describing how monarchs tricked/forced/cajoaled the peasants
into planting potatoes.  (Catherine the Great, after numerous
commands to plant potatoes went ignored, supposedly had a royal potato
patch guarded and issued orders that peasants were *not* to grow
or eat potatoes.  Of course, potatoes got pilfered and everyone
started growing them.)

Tomatoes were also regarded with suspicion at first because they
belong to the (I believe) nightshade family.

Of course, once people realized that no one was going to die from
eating tomatoes and that potatoes were really neat things, then
they spread quickly.

Julie
DISCLAIMER:  All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else

---

From: [email-masked] (Barry Shein)
Date: Sat, 1 May 1993 05:31:20 GMT

My grandmother (who was Russian, basically) believed that tomatoes
were poisonous. I even remember her "compromising" on the issue,
yelling at my mother that if *she* wants to eat them, fine, but for
the luvvagod don't give them to the children, they don't know better!

So either my grandmother was a peculiarly idiotic person (which she
certainly was not, she was a very nice and very intelligent woman), or
the extinction of this belief does not go back very far.

I suppose it's possible she just thought they made your stomach upset
or something, I don't remember her making any specific claims other
than the look of disgust on her face when she looked at one being
served. Oddly, she would eat them incorporated into foods I think (I'm
pretty sure her stuffed cabbage involved tomato juice as the stewing
liquid.)

Who knows. I don't even know that she had to be consistent.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | [email-masked]          | uunet!world!bzs
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD

---

From: [email-masked] (Bayla Singer)
Date: 1 May 93 11:26:51 GMT

It is my inmpression that both the potato and tomato are members of the
Solanaceae (nightshade) family.  The flowers -are- strikingly similar.

--bayla

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From: [email-masked] (norman miller)
Date: Sat, 1 May 1993 13:32:02 GMT

>Solanaceae (nightshade) family.  The flowers -are- strikingly similar.

Right you are.

Here's why I raised the question about these foods.

If tomatoes became _food_ within the last 150 years, what were Italian 
cooks doing before?  Do we simply have _more_ recipes or were some of
the old ones changed and are now forgotten?

Same question about the potato except that it was accepted further
back.

In both cases there's also the sociological question: how, when modern
"marketing" techniques didn't exist, in the absence of advertising,
mass media, rapid and efficient transportation, etc., did these things
get established.  Barry Shein mentions his tomato-shy bubbe.  Surely
she wasn't alone in resisting change.  So how did change come about?

Another thing that bothered me was that German word for potatoes
(kartoffel) is quite old and pre-dates the arrival of the tubers. 
Turns out that the word is from the old Italian tartufo, truffle, and
was acquired its new meaning through a confusion of the two.  (Same
problem as with turkey/guinea fowl?).  Anyway, I'm glad I checked out
the kartoffel because I was ready in my folk-etymological way to swear
on a stack of Onions (that's the dictionary) that the word was simply
a corruption of erd-apfel, as in pomme de terre.  Another dumb guess
bites the Erde!

Norman Miller

---

From: [email-masked] (Erik. A Speckman)
Date: 1 May 93 21:15:41 GMT

I would like to refer people to _On Food and Cooking : The Science and
Lore of the Kitchen_, Harold McGee. IBSN 0-02-034621-2, which I referred
to for some of the information in this posting.
 
I would also recommend _Why We Eat What We Eat: How the New World Changed
the Way Everyone Eats_ by Raymond Sokolov.  I have only had a chance to
skim this one, but it covers some of the questions raised in this thread
about why we eat certain foods.  

Tomatoes are one of a number of now common food plants that were native to
the New World and did not begin their spread east until after Columbus'
journeys.  Along with the tomato came the potato and the sweet potato, the
pumpkin and other squashes, kidney and lima beans, sweet and hot
peppers along with pineapple, avocado, and seasonings such as vanilla and
allspice.
 
The tomato plant was brought to Europe in the early 1500's.  It was
quickly adopted as a foodstuff by the Italians but it took almost 200
years before it began to catch on as a food in the rest of Europe. During
this time, it was quite popular as an ornamental plant.
 
The vegetation of a number of plants in the Nightshade family, which
includes such food plants as the tomato, potato and the originally
white eggplant, are poisonous.  The family also includes such toxic plants as
Nightshade, Datura and Tobacco.  It is believed that this association is
responsible for the tomato's slow acceptance. 
 
The toxins in the nightshade family are all alkaloids and seem to have
evolved as a defense against mammals.  Only the potato carries a serious
risk of poisoning and then only after exposure to light and extremes of
temperature.  A bad potato can be identified by the presence of green
chlorophyll and can be rehabilitated by peeling off the green layer.  The
alkaloids are not distroyed by cooking. 
 
The nightshade family is not alone among food plants in being toxic.
 
Fruit seeds, and Lima beans liberate cyanide when damage to the plant
tissue brings cyanide containing compounds into contact with certain
enzymes. The mechanism is not activated when seeds are simply swallowed
whole. This defense is also present to a lesser degree in kidney beans, yams,
sweet potatoes and bamboo shoots. 
 
Where as most cyanide producing plant tissues are not deliberately eaten,
Lima Beans are.  In order to avoid poisoning, many countries restrict
cultivation to varieties that are low in cyanogens. In other countries
people avoid the problem by boiling in an open pot which drives off the
cyanide gas.
 
All raw beans contain varying amounts of compounds which interfere with
digestion and block the absorption of certain nutrients.  Fortunately
these compounds are broken down by boiling.

I want to say that there is no real danger from eatin any of these
common foods in the modern day, but I would not reccomend roasting up a
big bag of fruit seeds to eat while you finish reading your newsgroups. 

I hope this information is useful.  If people are interested in further
information I would again like to refer them to the books I mentioned
above as well as Raymond Sokolov's long running column on food in the
magazine _Natural History_.  
 
-Erik

-- 
 -Erik [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Francis Fung)
Date: 2 May 1993 04:58:39 GMT

[email-masked] (Erik. A Speckman) writes:

(very informative stuff on various toxins in food deleted)
>big bag of fruit seeds to eat while you finish reading your newsgroups. 

Just wanted to mention that roasting them would, as far as I remember, 
eliminate the cyanide risk. Exactly how (enzyme denaturation?) would
be interesting to discuss; would this be the same mechanism that 
detoxifies lima beans through boiling in an open pot?

Francis Fung

---

From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: Sun, 2 May 1993 11:52:29 GMT

>alkaloids are not distroyed by cooking. 

I don't think you meant to say that!  I think you meant "Amongst those
normally used for food, only the potato carries a serious risk of poisoning
...."  For example, the thorn apple is a significant killer.

One of the most dangerous things about this family is that certain edible
plants are very similar to some very poisonous ones (e.g. the nightshades
themselves).  People interested in eating the 'original' versions of food
plants should be very, very careful with anything that looks like a tomato,
cape gooseberry, or whatever.  Most of the cabbage family are harmless (if
nasty), but the same is not true of the nightshade family.

Nick Maclaren
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street,
Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  [email-masked]
Tel.:   +44 223 334761
Fax:    +44 223 334679

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott D. Spiegler)
Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 15:36:53 GMT

I wonder if your grandmother's concerns re: tomatoes related to the class of vegetables they belong to,
namely 'night shades'. I'm not sure of the origins of this word, but I know that this entire class was
considered 'dangerous' by the likes of Benjamin Franklin. In that class are also eggplants, oddly
enough. Some people connect this class of food to the formation of gout.

I'd appreciate hearing more about this.

Thanks, Scott

---

From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 19:04:58 GMT

A number of points have been raised in this thread:

1. How fast did the new world foods spread.
Tomatoes are recorded as eaten in Italy in the sixteenth century (fried, I
believe--I do not know of any recipes). Corn (maise) appears in a Chinese
herbal in the mid sixteenth century. Peanuts were introduced to west africa
in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese, and spread fast enough to cause
later explorers to assume they were native. There is a reference to what
seems to be Paprika ("red Turkish pepper," if I remember correctly) in
Hungary, I think slightly before 1600. Adam Smith's comments on potatoes
(1776) make them sound like a relatively new wonder crop. He assumes his
readers know about them, but is struck by how high their yield is compared
to less exotic food plants. I believe they were introduced to Ireland in
the late sixteenth century.

2. Did people worry about potatoes and tomatoes because they were relatives
of Belladonna (deadly nightshade)? 

This is a common assertion, but I do not know what the evidence is.
Eggplant, which was common, at least in the Islamic world, from about the
tenth century on, is, I believe, a member of the same family. It sounds to
me like the sort of story that starts as somebody's guess and turns into
historical fact after a few repetitions, but I could be wrong.

David Friedman

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 3 May 93 17:54:28 -0600

> detoxifies lima beans through boiling in an open pot?

Uh, no.  Cyanogenic plants include a lot of things that are edible,
and a lot of plants that are not (IMHO) very toothsome....

Some of the food plants with cyanogenic parts include:
  cassava (tapioca)
  plum, cherry, peach pits
  almonds
  bamboo sprouts
  sorghum
  lima beans
  ....

Plants are cyanogenic if they contain "cyanogenic glycosides" -- chemical
compounds that will release cyanide (CN-) when a sugar group is clipped off
by an enzyme or an acid (like stomach acid).

The cyanogenic glycosides are generally contained in certain organelles in
the cell, and they just sit there unless the cell is damaged.  When the
cell is damaged, the cyanogenic compounds are exposed to enzymes from another
compartment in the cell (a "glycosidase") or to acid, and the cyanogenic
glycoside breaks down to give CN-, a sugar, and a "leftover".

One of the more famous cyanogenic compounds is "amygdalin", the "essence
of bitter almond".  Just about every B-grade mystery (and even some from
writers who should know better!) that involves cyanide poisoning talks
about the detective noting the "odor of bitter almonds" -- and later
you find the person was supposed to have been poisoned with sodium
or potassium cyanide.  Bzzt!  Cyanide does NOT smell like "bitter almonds"--
in fact, many people cannot smell cyanide (and I'm one of them).  The best
description I've heard of the true odor of cyanide is "snotty".

The "odor of bitter almonds" is actually the chemical benzaldehyde,
the harmless substance that's left over when the cyanide and the
glucose have been clipped off the amygdalin.  You'll also smell
benzaldehyde in maraschino cherries, Jergens hand lotion and almond
extract.  All non-poisonous.  

On the other hand, linamarin, the cyanogenic glycoside from cassava,
does not release benzaldehyde when it breaks down and releases cyanide.
No warning there!

Most species that are cyanogenic come in both "sweet" and "bitter"
forms.  The "sweet form" lacks the cyanogenic glycoside, while the
bitter form has the cyanogenic glycoside.  There are at least
two genes controlling whether an individual plant will be "bitter"
or "sweet" -- one for whether or not the glycoside is made, and the
other for whether or not the glycosidase (enzyme) is made. 

Kay Klier  Biology Dept  UNI

---

From: [email-masked] (Pete Bergstrom)
Date: Sun, 2 May 1993 12:31:55 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (norman miller) writes:

There is a book by an anthropology professor at Macalester College
(St. Paul, MN) named Jack Weatherford called "Indian Givers" and is a
study of how potatoes and other western hemisphere plants have moved
around the world. 

The book has received quite a bit of acclaim and you might like to
browse it.

Pete

---

From: [email-masked] (Rhonda Dollas)
Date: 4 May 93 14:46:01 GMT

Regarding Catherine the Great and potato strategies, I've heard the same
technique was used by a Greek king (I don't remember which one, though)
to get Greeks to eat potatoes.  Since I heard the story about a "modern"
Greek king, most likely it is a rip-off from the Catherine story.

Rhonda 
[email-masked]

---

From: Tony Roder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tuesday, 4 May 1993 09:23:14 PST

This discussion is of personal interest:  a couple of years ago, I suddenly
became allergic to raw almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, etc.  The allergic
manifestations are a classic tightening of the throat, dry mouth, and
general weakness.  They don't occur when these same nuts are roasted.
They also occur with fresh cherries, apricots, even apples, but not when
these fruits are cooked in any way.

I suspect cyanide, but would love to hear others' opinions.

-----------------------------------
Tony Roder, speaking his mind .....

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 4 May 93 11:30:11 CDT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Julie Kangas) writes:
|
|Tomatoes were also regarded with suspicion at first because they
|belong to the (I believe) nightshade family.

I once read a biography of George Washington Carver, a horticulturalist
of the last century.  Apparently in his time and region (somewhere in
the US south like Georgia) people still regarded tomatoes as poison.  He 
would eat them in front of people who would be just absolutely sure he 
would die.  I suppose he got a big kick out of it.

---
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  [email-masked]

They moved all the streets around while you were sleeping last night.

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 4 May 93 11:38:43 CDT

Another note about the biography I once read about George Washington Carver:
The same book seemed to give him the credit (or much of it) for convincing
people that the tomato was safe.  The same book also gave him the credit
for convincing people to plant and grow peanuts (instead of cotton) to
improve the soil.  (I guess they fix nitrogen?)  He also was the developer
of peanut butter (again according to the book--and I can no longer recal
the title) and other uses of peanuts.

---

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 4 May 93 11:43:50 CDT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Erik. A Speckman) writes:

|I want to say that there is no real danger from eatin any of these
|common foods in the modern day, but I would not reccomend roasting up a
|big bag of fruit seeds to eat while you finish reading your newsgroups. 
|

I love appricot seeds!  (Though there seem to be trees with bitter seeds
and trees with sweet seeds.  They taste alot like almonds.)

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 4 May 93 13:46:30 CDT

I have heard the same story about Spanish missionaries returning to Spain.
(regarding tricking the peasantry into stealing potatoes.)
---
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (John Trimble)
Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 14:18:16 GMT

With regard to accepting potatoes, some people are just naturally studid, but
I've always regarded the stories of people rejecting potatoes with a great
deal of skepticism. I figure potato rejection is something like phenomena
I've seen in my own life: I'll never use a calculator, I'll never own a 
vcr, I'll never use a computer, I'll never drive a foreign-made car, You'll
never get me in a seatbelt, etc.  Potato rejectors had to have been the 
exception rather than the rule, because potatoes are so very, very wonderful;
try them you'll like them.  I mean, we're not talking about chia pets, but 
about something that adds to the quality of life in an agricultural society
the way the things I've mentioned above add to the quality of life in a 
technological society.  The benefits are palpable and the drawbacks, if any
are obscure.

[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Julie Kangas)
Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 20:36:41 GMT

>technological society.  The benefits are palpable and the drawbacks, if any

But most people don't think in terms of how useful something is or
what a great advance in agriculture it is.  They think (regarding
food at least) in terms of their tastebuds and tummies.  Most people
are not too keen to try new foods and make them an integral part
of their diet.  And if you don't eat them then your kids won't
either.  In today's world that won't mean anything since they can
try new foods at college or somewhere away from home.  But in isolated
peasant villages, the chances for a kid to try food radically different
from his parent's food would be (I think) slim.  

Put yourself in the place of a peasant in the 1500s.  You don't care
about society at large.  You do care about you and your family and
growing enough food to survive.  You also don't have much of an
education and you're superstitious.  Someone comes along one day
with a weird root vegetable whose leaves resemble the leaves found
on poisonous plants.  I think you would regard said weird plant with
a bit of skepticism.  You don't give diddly that it yields more per
acre than your other crops since you (1) are afraid it might be
poisonous and (2) your family has never planted such things.  But
of course, once you are convinced that the potato tastes real great
(someone tricks you into eating one maybe or someone else eats one
and doesn't die) then you'll plant it and realise what a great crop
it is.

Julie

---

From: [email-masked] (Daniel Paul Checkman)
Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 00:23:03 GMT

>They moved all the streets around while you were sleeping last night.  

Yah, but don't they have cyanide in them?  Don't eat too many in one sitting!
I never liked them, but that was because I always got the bitter ones off our
tree.  I like cherry pits better, but you have to take a hammer to them to
get them open.
-Dan

---

From: [email-masked] ()
Date: 5 May 1993 13:27:14 GMT

{If there really were any people who rejected potatoes, they must have
been unthinking archconservatives, because potatoes are so tasty!]

The problem with getting Europeans to eat potatoes is that while the
tubers are edible, the _leaves_ are poisonous.  This is not the case
with most other vegetables Europeans were familiar with.  You're growing
a patch of beets, you can thin out the excess plants and cook them up
as greens, etc.  Do this with young potato shoots and you will get
seriously dead; and it would take only a few instances of this to
convince most people that since the leaves were poisonous, the whole
plant must be.

---

From: [email-masked] (Stephan Fassmann)
Date: Wed, 5 May 93 09:10:33 MDT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (David Adams) writes:
>From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
>Subject: George Washington Carver (was: Re: Potatoes)
>Date: 4 May 93 11:38:43 CDT

Among other things he also found about 100 uses for peanuts, i.e. peanut 
milk. I did a book report on him in elementary school. He did things with 
peanut similiar to what is now done with soy beans.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 5 May 93 12:44:04 -0600

> I suspect cyanide, but would love to hear others' opinions.

Not cyanide.  Probably a protein that is denatured when the foods are cooked.
Hazelnuts, walnuts, and the flesh of cherries, apples, apricots do not have
cyanogenic glycosides.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 5 May 93 12:46:14 -0600

> and trees with sweet seeds.  They taste alot like almonds.)

Peach, apricot, and almond are all varieties of the same species.  So the
seeds SHOULD taste alot alike!   ;-)      -- Kay

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 5 May 93 12:51:17 -0600

> with most other vegetables Europeans were familiar with.  You're growing

And the European peasant diet was based on _grains_, with very few
root crops (the root crops were often fed to animals, not used as
human food).  Food prejudices are perhaps the hardest to change!

---

From: [email-masked] (Ilana Stern)
Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 20:36:49 GMT

> human food).  Food prejudices are perhaps the hardest to change!

I learned once that when a people are conquered by another ethnic
group, the conquerees eventually assimilate into the conquerors.
But the last three things they hold onto as their own are their
language, their religion, and their cooking. 

-- 
/\               I'm cruising the data superhighway!   
  \_][ <--NCAR Ilana Stern dod#009 r.b. cliff swallow [email-masked]    
      \______________________________________________________________________

---

From: [email-masked] (Cameron Laird)
Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 20:53:26 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Pete Bergstrom) writes:
			.
			.
			.
>study of how potatoes and other western hemisphere plants have moved
			.
			.
			.
There is an extensive literature on this topic.
For particular attention to the potato, the standard
popular treatment is

	Salaman, Redcliffe N.
	1949	The history and social influence of the potato,
		With a chapter on industrial uses by W. G. Burton.
		Cambridge [Eng.] University Press

I see this in used book sales from time to time.

Our tuber also stars in

	Salaman, Redcliffe N.
	1944	The influence of the potato on the course of Irish
		history.  Browne and Nolan limited, Dublin

	Stuart, William
	1927	The potato, its history, varieties, culture and
		diseases.  Oliver and Boyd, London

	Boyd, W. G.
	1948	The potato; a survey of its history and of factors
		influencing its yield, nutritive value and storage
		...  Chapman, London

and many other books.
-- 

Cameron Laird
[email-masked] ([email-masked])	+1 713 267 7966
[email-masked] ([email-masked])  	+1 713 996 8546

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 00:50:54 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (David Friedman) writes:
>Hungary, I think slightly before 1600. 

Ah, the capsicum genus.  Known in the Caribbean as aji (with an 
accent on the i), peppers made it back with Columbus and were 
distributed to his patrons in the early 1490s.  The Portuguese
introduced capsicums to their colonies in Goa by 1520 or 
so; within a generation they had spread not only east to China
and Japan and Southeast Asia, but also west to Turkey.

The Hungarians called the red powder made from dried capsicums
"Turkish pepper," applying a diminutive ending to the word 
pepper, and gave us peperke or paprika.  By the early 1600s
peppers were spreading through Europe from the east, in spite
of having made a somewhat circuitous route around the globe.

The capsicum genus originated in part of South America that is
now Uruguay; the archaeological evidence puts its earliest 
cultivation at approximately 7000 BC, making it (along with
the bottle gourd and certain beans) one of the earliest of
domesticated plants.  Of course, the fact that it grows like
a weed helps this.

If you're interested in the history of peppers, see Jean Andrews'
fabulous book Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums, by the University
of Texas Press.  There's also a book called Blue Corn and Chocolate,
which deals almost exclusively with New World foods and their 
spread into Old WOrld cultures.

Hard to imagine, say, Thai cuisine without those wonderful little
pods, isn't it?  Does anyone have some pre-16th century Thai recipes
for reference?

--Scott "Oh and by the way, I'm back on the net" Fisher

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 6 May 93 12:57:39 CDT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Scott Fisher) writes:

|If you're interested in the history of peppers, see Jean Andrews'
|fabulous book Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums, by the University
|of Texas Press.  There's also a book called Blue Corn and Chocolate,
|which deals almost exclusively with New World foods and their 
|spread into Old WOrld cultures.
|

Ah, chocolate.   I wonder who figured out that they could add sugar
and make it sweet and that it would be so wonderful.  After all with
out the sugar it is pretty nasty stuff!

And where did sugar cane come from?

---

---

From: [email-masked] (Robert Murphy)
Date: 6 May 93 23:47:25 GMT

>she wasn't alone in resisting change.  So how did change come about?

There was an article about the introduction of the tomato to American
cuisine in The Old Farmer's Almanac about 10-20 years ago.  My memory
on this is vague, but it basically ran like this:

Up until the late 1700's, folk wisdom was that tomatoes were loaded with
deadly poision.  A New England gentleman who knew differently took on
himself the job of rehabilitating the tomato's reputation.  So, he let
it be known that on a particular day, he would go to the town square and
eat a tomato.  On the appointed day, a large crowd had gathered.  He
gave them a big speech full of all kinds of bosh (this is what I remember
best) about how all the ancient authorities (Socrates, Aristotle et. al.)
ate and praised tomatoes, and how the Italians prized the tomato as the
"Apple of Love", and (this may be true) how even TOM JEFFERSON was
growing them at Monticello and eating them.  He wrapped up his harangue
and then pulled out a big, juicy tomato, polished it, and gobbled it
down.  When he hadn't keeled over dead after 15-20 minutes, the spectators
allowed as how there might be something to what he had to say.  The
incident was reported in papers throughout New England and had a great
deal to do with the acceptance of the tomato as food.

I'm sure if anybody's interested, they can look this up in back issues of
OFA, or call up Yankee in New Hampshire for pointers.

Bob Murphy
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 19:30:44 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Julie Kangas) writes:
>>deal of skepticism. `
>on poisonous plants.  

What made it worse, at least with the potato, is that when it was
first introduced to England, nobody knew you were supposed to eat
the tubers.  Queen Elizabeth was served a dish of boiled potato
leaves and stalks, predictably thought it was pretty awful, and
immediately decided the only people fit to eat it were the Irish.
(Well, *something* like that.)  Remember that this was centuries
before widespread, uniform information (I figure we're still 
at least decades before widespread, uniform information ourselves,
right?)  It took sometimes generations for people to figure out
how to cook, grow, hybridize or eat a new plant.

The Peruvians, on the other hand, knew just how versatile and useful the
potato was, but then they ate them with peppers.  I've made a variation
on a traditional Peruvian recipe called "papas a la huncaina" out of
Andrews' book.  I didn't happen to have any Andean ajis at the time, so
I used a fresh, roasted habanero, a little goat cheese because I've 
grown to love the combination of chevre or feta with peppers, and the
rest of the ingredients out of Andrews' recipe...  What else goes in
it?  Pretty simple: boil some small potatoes (I've used baby red potatoes
and yellow Finnish, which are actually more like Peruvian) and prepare a
sauce of roasted habanero, juice of 1 lime, 2 tablespoons or so of olive
oil, 1 tablespoon of ground annato seeds (achiote) sifted to remove the
bigger bits, a little oregano, and two largeish scoops of goat cheese or
a mild, easily-melted feta.  Whoosh the sauce up in a blender, pour over
the potatoes so that the cheese melts, and be sure you've got bread on
hand to scoop the last of the sauce out of the bowl.  Warning: this is
REALLY REALLY hot if you're not used to chiles; try it with roasted bells
if you're not up to habaneros.

Bit of tomato trivia: I learned last Saturday that the very first presidential
assassination attempt in the U.S. occurred when George Washington's chef
served him a dish of tomatoes, thought at the time to be poisonous.

BTW, I've found a Bay Area source of Andean ajis and other c. baccatum
cultivars.  Keep reading this space for more information as it becomes
available.

--Scott "They don't call me Captain Capsaicin for nothing" Fisher

---

From: [email-masked] (Jack Campin)
Date: 7 May 93 11:02:29 GMT

> I suspect cyanide, but would love to hear others' opinions.

Some people get similar problems (they're called Type 1 allergies) with
seafood, and peanuts (which don't contain cyanide either) are just as bad
as walnuts.  Most people with allergies to one don't have them to others.
I don't think the allergens have been identified.

Whatever causes them, don't take risks.  These can easily be fatal; there
was even a case in England a couple of years ago of a child with peanut
allergy dying of shock after eating a cake that had been baked on a tray
which had been oiled with a thin film of peanut oil as a release agent.  If
you have one of these allergies, you should be carrying an adrenalin
syringe with you at all times and know how to use it, likepeople with
beesting allergies; there is absolutely NO way you can find out what
processed foods contain these allergens (the manufacturers often don't know
themselves, and formulations change so often that something might be safe
one month and lethal with the next batch).  The allergies get worse with
each successive occurrence and nothing can be done to desensitize them.

-- 
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
   Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4192    FAX: 031 451 3431    INTERNET: [email-masked]
JANET: possibly backwards    BITNET: via UKACRL    BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 7 May 93 12:07:54 CDT

In article 736732045@godzilla, [email-masked] (Robert Murphy) writes:

|  He
|gave them a big speech full of all kinds of bosh (this is what I remember
|best) about how all the ancient authorities (Socrates, Aristotle et. al.)
|ate and praised tomatoes...

Cute...  

---

---

From: [email-masked] (John Trimble)
Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 15:46:16 GMT

Now that food is plentiful, at least for those of us with leisure to 
type away at the keyboard, tummies and tastebuds are top priorities.
But for folks struggling to get enough to eat, seeing a neighbor get
twenty pounds of potatoes for the same effort you put into 1 pound of
grain is compelling.  As I understand it, the spectacular spread of
potato culture occurred first in places where they grow well and produce
more than what was already culturally accepted.  I'm a gardener, and I
recently discovered several oriental vegetables thanks to a fellow 
gardener who served in Peace Corps in Malaysia.  It didn't take much to 
convince me to try some of his varieties, even though I have very limited
gardening space.  And some of what initially provided variety has 
somewhat supplanted things that were formerly John's-garden-staples-because-John's-grandpa-planted them, or rather packed them off to the that-makes-a-nice-change row.  In fact, that people were so quick to replace their traditional fare
with potatoes accounts for potato famines, when there weren't unaffected crops
to fall back on.  You're right that social pressure is important, but I think
you underestimate the rapidity with which people accept the unfamiliar, as when
the best gardener on the block obtains a new variety, whether by the accidents 
of genetics (his own accidental hybrids, like the hundreds of gourds that formerly graced Mexican gardens) or a plant brought by a traveling peddler from 
another region.  I remember many a meal with the admonition, you'll eat what's 
served, and I also rember having turnips passed off as potatoes, so it's 
easy to imagine potatoes passed off as turnips.  I further think folks were 
more aware of food being "off" than it's being "poisonous"--I mean, to a 
fellow with fever and diarrhea, what's the dif?  

Well, that's enough prattling on.  I don't require an authoritarian potato
imposition to satisfy my sense of folks accepting potatos, and I'm sorry if 
that offends your sense of folks having to be forced to eat them.  If they don't have bread, let them eat taters!
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (John Trimble)
Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 15:51:59 GMT

My own grandmother didn't eat tomatoes until she was grown, believing them to
be poison, so I can confirm that the myth about what she called "love apples", that they are poison, at least existed in some parts of North Texas.  However, 
she was quick to learn they weren't poison and to adopt them into her garden
and menu, given a chance.  She says she did not justify the idea that they 
were poison by their association with nighshade, but that they were poison 
all on their own.  She'd only heard of nightshade when I mentioned it, never 
having heard of it's being in the same family, and knowing no more about it 
than, from reading, that it is poison: deadly nightshade.

No one had to force her to eat a tomato.

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Fri, 7 May 1993 19:53:55 GMT

>out the sugar it is pretty nasty stuff!

I believe it was the Viennese, who followed the analogy of coffee
(since there's a certain amount of cultural contact between Vienna
and the Ottoman Empire, where coffee is mixed with sugar and served
in a wonderful, thick syrupy beverage.  Since coffee is often served
with milk, someone added milk to the chocolate-sugar-water blend
and presto, hot cocoa was born.

If you read 17th century literature, you'll find references to
coffee-houses (Voltaire spent a lot of time in them, for instance)
and to the chocolate served there as well.  I've also seen cocoa
serving sets from the 17th century, so it was in fairly regular
use by the mid-1600s.

BTW, try mixing unsweetened cocoa with honey, then pouring hot espresso
on it to melt the honey and dissolve the cocoa.  Add a little milk
if desired.  Great stuff, and more caffeine than a six-pack of Jolt.

>And where did sugar cane come from?

Mmmmm... Middle East, yes?  

--Scott "The three Cs: Capsaicin, Caffeine and Cane Sugar" Fisher

---

From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Fri, 7 May 1993 20:02:34 GMT

In article <bobert.736732045@godzilla> [email-masked] (Robert Murphy) writes:
>growing them at Monticello and eating them.  

The Jefferson bit, I believe, is true.  As for the "Apple of Love"
part...

Last year we grew some Pink Brandywine tomatoes, an heirloom variety 
from the Brandywine River in the Pennsylvania Amish country.  It's
an indeterminant plant, the only one in our garden that year, and
we watched its vining sprawl with interest.

The Brandywine took what seemed like so much more care and time
to develop fruit: we were constantly tying it up, keeping the
fruits off the ground, and generally fretting over this unusual
variety.  After what seemed like an age, there was an irregularly
shaped pink globe ready for consumption.  I picked it, rinsed it
off, and decided to serve it sliced and otherwise unadorned at
dinner that night.

The aroma was incomparable, like the kitchens of Venus preparing
a very special meal for one of Mars' clandestine visits.  I took a
first bite and nearly fainted... voluptuous, rich, and intoxicating
were the first words that came to mind.  The depth of flavor was
almost arousing in its intensity and sensuality.

"Now I know why they used to call them love apples," I told Kim.

--Scott "And also why they used to call babes tomatoes, I guess" Fisher

---

From: [email-masked] (Daniel Paul Checkman)
Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 19:36:23 GMT

>serving sets from the 17th century, so it was in fairly regular

Not that it matters much, but those coffeehouses, specifically the ones in
London, were where modern casualty insurance got its start.  The coffeehouse
that seemed to attract the most "insurance brokers" of the time was LLoyd's of
London.  Just a neat bit of trivia.
-Dan

---

From: [email-masked] (Pat Churchill)
Date: Sun, 9 May 1993 06:39:47 GMT

> London.  Just a neat bit of trivia.

Maybe the Lloyds guys should have stuck to drinking coffee, judging
from the troubles they're now having :-)
-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            The floggings will continue until morale improves              
    [email-masked]  Pat Churchill, Wellington New Zealand     
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 18:34:01 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] writes:
>> [...] 

Hmmm.  I admit woeful ignorance on cultivars, could you elucidate 
on this just a bit?  (I thought they were separate species; ie. 
peach = Prunus persica; apricot = P. armeniaca; almond = P. dulcis.
I suspect an interesting history surrounding this group of plants.)

	D.R.

David Roller  |    Bitnet = dr@auducvax           | "Sometimes it is hard
Parker Hall   |  Internet = [email-masked]  |  to form an opinion..."
Auburn Univ.  |  Voicenet = (205) 844-4512        |   -- Charles Darwin

---

From: [email-masked] (David Adams)
Date: 10 May 93 13:26:08 CDT

And where did coffee come from?  Was it an old world plant or a new?

---

---

From: [email-masked] (Herman Rubin)
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 22:09:13 GMT

>And where did coffee come from?  Was it an old world plant or a new?

Coffee was accidentally discovered in Ethiopia when an Arab trader found
his donkeys acting high, and traced it to the berries of the coffee plant.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
[email-masked] (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

---

From: [email-masked] (Dick Cleek)
Date: 11 May 1993 14:04:48 GMT

> I suspect an interesting history surrounding this group of plants.)

Peach trees are associated with the backwoods frontier in America. Apparently
they fruit in one or two years, require less work than apples and make an
excellent brandy.  In Jordan and Kaups' book THE AMERICAN BACKWOODS FRONTIER,
1987, this fruit tree is one of the cultural indicators of the backwoods
frontiersman. Provocative book , BTW.
-- 
..........   .........................         .......................
: |_|\/\/ :   Dick Cleek                        [email-masked]
:.centers.:   Univ.of Wisconsin Centers         [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 19:05:24 GMT

Coffee is an old world plant. It is generally believed to be native to
Abyssinia, although I believe there is a minority opinion favoring Yemen. I
believe it was in use in Abyssinia from very early, but only began
spreading through the Islamic world around 1400 or so, reaching England in
the mid 17th century. So Coffee appears in Europe about the same time as
the New World plants. So, incidentally, does tea, also an old world plant.
 
David Friedman

---

From: [email-masked] (Pat Churchill)
Date: Wed, 12 May 1993 00:19:25 GMT

> the New World plants. So, incidentally, does tea, also an old world plant.

Reay Tannahill in *Food and History* says coffee originated in
Ethiopia. I forget the details but I can check.  She has some
interesting stuff about coffee reaching Europe and England and the
advent of *coffee houses* which evolved in England as gentlemen's
clubs (peope started going there to drink the new miracle beverage but
ended up continuing to go there for the company) while in places like
France they became cafes.
-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            The floggings will continue until morale improves              
    [email-masked]  Pat Churchill, Wellington New Zealand     
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

---

From: [email-masked] (Jack Campin)
Date: 14 May 93 13:27:29 GMT

[email-masked] (Pat Churchill) wrote:
> Reay Tannahill in *Food and History* says coffee originated in Ethiopia.
> I forget the details but I can check.  She has some interesting stuff
> about coffee reaching Europe and England and the advent of *coffee houses*
> which evolved in England as gentlemen's clubs (people started going there
> to drink the new miracle beverage but ended up continuing to go there for
> the company) while in places like France they became cafes.

There is an interesting description of the first few months after coffee
arrived in Istanbul from its Arabian homeland (during the reign of Suleyman
the Magnificent, I think) in a book called "Istanbul and the Civilization
of the Ottoman Empire" (I forget the author).  The same pattern of initial
craze and moral panic occurred here as it did in Western Europe; there was
a great deal of concern about its stimulant and also its anaphrodisiac
properties (and given the way the Ottoman court worked, the latter seems a
very odd thing for them to be worrying about).  The panic took on the
specific form of a religious concern about whether roasted beans counted as
a burned food, and as such unclean.  The religious court was called in by
the Just Say No faction to settle the matter, but by the time they reached
their decision it was clear that only one answer would be acceptable to the
people of the city; the ulama bowed to caffeine-fuelled public opinion and
decided that bean roasting was just a form of cooking.

As in France, coffee seems to have become institutionalized as cafes rather
than clubs.  I assume this was because both France and the Ottoman Empire
were highly centralized states with no significant bourgeoisie needing
private places to network.  Also, the Turkish coffeehouse developed in the
Islamic culture of public space, which (palace apart) does not divide up
areas of city by social class; was France like that at the time?  There's
certainly more class heterogeneity in a typical French cafe nowadays than
in any similar public space in Britain (and of course no British person
would even think of a gentleman's club as a public space at all).