- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press; Reprint edition (30 Jun 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0252070097
- ISBN-13: 978-0252070099
- Product Dimensions: 2.3 x 1.5 x 0.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,494,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"Finally, a reliable work on the history of the tomato in America! The author, a thorough researcher and delightful writer, presents facts with authority and myths with exposure... The definitive study on the subject." -- John F. Swenson, Chicago Botanic Garden "Andrew F. Smith easily qualifies as the major-domo of tomato history." -- Chicago Tribune "At last, at long last, the true history of the tomato in the United States is being told." -- Karen Hess, Food Heritage Press "Smith's work is fascinating reading... This volume immerses us in tomato lore and whets our appetite for a juicy bite of that scarlet fruit." -- Wilson Library Bulletin "A thorough and useful reference, making available masses of material not otherwise available." -- Library Journal
Product Description
From the Americas to Australasia, from northern Europe to southern Africa, the tomato tickles the world's taste buds. Americans along devour more than twelve million tons annually of this peculiar fruit, variously considered poisonous, curative, and aphrodisiacal. In this first concerted study of the tomato in America, Andrew F. Smith separates myth from historical fact, beginning with the Salem, New Jersey, man who, in 1820, allegedly attracted spectators from hundreds of miles to watch him eat a tomato on the courthouse steps (the legend says they expected to see him die a painful death). Later, hucksters such as Dr. John Cook Bennett and the Amazing Archibald Miles peddled the tomato's purported medicinal benefits. The competition was so fierce that the Tomato Pill War broke out in 1838. "The Tomato in America" traces the early cultivation of the tomato, its infiltration of American cooking practices, the early manufacture of preserved tomatoes and ketchup (soon hailed as "the national condiment of the United States"), and the "great tomato mania" of the 1820s and 1830s. The book also includes tomato recipes from the pre-Civil War period, covering everything from sauces, soups, and main dishes to desserts and sweets. Now available for the first time in paperback, "The Tomato in America" provides a piquant and entertaining look at a versatile and storied figure in culinary history.
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First Sentence
On Sunday, January 30, 1949, CBS broadcast live over national radio a reenactment of Robert Gibbon Johnson eating the first tomato in America. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
On Sunday, January 30, 1949, CBS broadcast live over national radio a reenactment of Robert Gibbon Johnson eating the first tomato in America. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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5 reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
An amazing story...
25 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
I read this book the month it came out in 1994. I'm not sure how I found out about it but oh well...
Tomatoes are one of god's gifts and if you have the least bit of interest in this amazing fruit, get this book. The history of the tomato and how it arrived on people's plates after centuries of neglect is way more interesting than any Bond film. The author's research is meticulous.
Also, the back of this book has historic recipes from the 1800's that use tomatoes. This of course could spur someone to pursue a career in archeological gastronomy. The bottom line is I love this book and it is one of my top 5 most prized books.
-- Indiana Tomato Lover
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating!
4 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have to say this book was fascinating. I read it cover to cover and was both informed and amused by the content.
While the "great tomato pill debate" could have perhaps been covered in a little less depth for my own taste, I have to appreciate the author's personal insight (at least the benign tomato pills reduced the use of calomel) as well as "just the facts." Of course, the facts are there, too. It's very well researched.
Well worth the read for any vegetable historian or committed tomato grower!
While the "great tomato pill debate" could have perhaps been covered in a little less depth for my own taste, I have to appreciate the author's personal insight (at least the benign tomato pills reduced the use of calomel) as well as "just the facts." Of course, the facts are there, too. It's very well researched.
Well worth the read for any vegetable historian or committed tomato grower!
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Tomato (or tomata) surprise
3 July 2010
Format:Paperback
It turns out almost everything I thought I knew from tomato folk-lore was wrong.
Tomatoes originated in Mexico: wrong.
Our early ancestors thought they were poisonous: mostly wrong. Or aphrodisiac: wrong.
That opinions were changed when a man named Johnson ate tomatoes in a public display, where hundreds of people had gathered expecting to see him die: wrong.
The facts, as related in Andrew Smith's "The Tomato in America," are more interesting, although related too repetitively and carelessly edited.
It appears that tomatoes -- or tomatas as the word was usually written up to the 1830s -- were well established as a food in some parts of the English colonies around the time of Declaration of Independence, like South Carolina. They were also eaten in the British Isles, usually with salt, pepper and oil -- novices were instructed that they could be eaten "like cucumbers."
However, the tomato/tomata had a gaudier career in the new republic. It was not just a food but a medicine, and there was a lively war over tomato pills in the 1830s, followed by a tomato mania which, if not as fabulous as the Dutch tulip frenzy, lasted longer.
Smith includes a big selection of early tomato recipes, which for the most part comprised equal parts tomatoes and sugar, cooked to a goo. The results sound gag-inducing to a modern palate.
Smith's book was published by the University of South Carolina Press in 1994, and that press may have been interested because South Carolina was where tomatoes really got established in what later became the United States (although they were eaten in the old Spanish Southwest, too). It was reissued in 2001 by the University of Illinois Press, the only time I have ever noticed one university press picking up a recent title from another.
Tomatoes originated in Mexico: wrong.
Our early ancestors thought they were poisonous: mostly wrong. Or aphrodisiac: wrong.
That opinions were changed when a man named Johnson ate tomatoes in a public display, where hundreds of people had gathered expecting to see him die: wrong.
The facts, as related in Andrew Smith's "The Tomato in America," are more interesting, although related too repetitively and carelessly edited.
It appears that tomatoes -- or tomatas as the word was usually written up to the 1830s -- were well established as a food in some parts of the English colonies around the time of Declaration of Independence, like South Carolina. They were also eaten in the British Isles, usually with salt, pepper and oil -- novices were instructed that they could be eaten "like cucumbers."
However, the tomato/tomata had a gaudier career in the new republic. It was not just a food but a medicine, and there was a lively war over tomato pills in the 1830s, followed by a tomato mania which, if not as fabulous as the Dutch tulip frenzy, lasted longer.
Smith includes a big selection of early tomato recipes, which for the most part comprised equal parts tomatoes and sugar, cooked to a goo. The results sound gag-inducing to a modern palate.
Smith's book was published by the University of South Carolina Press in 1994, and that press may have been interested because South Carolina was where tomatoes really got established in what later became the United States (although they were eaten in the old Spanish Southwest, too). It was reissued in 2001 by the University of Illinois Press, the only time I have ever noticed one university press picking up a recent title from another.
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