Lead contaminated Pewter Dishware made 1700s Europeans fear tomatoes 😂

A little more history on crops courtesy of my uncle.

Did you know that tomatoes once were not as convenient and common in kitchen use as they are today. In Europe in the 1700s, tomatoes were seen as small red bombs or toxin bombs. The nightshade family of plants (tomatoes belong to this family) sounded spooky enough, and that was only one reason for the fear and suspicion of tomatoes among 1700s Europeans.

The real reason for the fear and suspicion of tomatoes was the type of dishware that the wealthy people in Europe used to eat. Wealthy people ate off of pewter dishware, which contains lead. The acidic nature of tomatoes boosted the extracting of lead from pewter dishware and entering the body, causing many people to become sick.

Instead of blaming the dishware for their sickness, people blamed the tomatoes. This is a classic example of misdirection.

While that happened, the people who could not afford pewter dishware were enjoying the benefits of tomatoes while eating off of wooden dishware. They kept using tomatoes in their stews without regard to what others were saying about tomatoes. It's funny thinking about it, I can imagine a wealthy man back then pushing a tomato away dramatically while an average farmer down the street is using tomato without a care in the world.

Without enlightenment and wisdoms comes positive change. Now tomatoes are the most commonly used ingrediant in pizza sauce, diced in salads and blended in soup.

In my kitchen, tomatoes are a religion, they have been a part of human culture since history has been recorded. History has a way of taking something that was considered dangerous a few hundred years ago and making it the base of much of the cuisines around the world today.