Tomatoes Were Linked to Witch and Werewolf Folklore
Authorities throughout much of Europe believed that witches and werewolves were closely associated. They reasoned that, just as witches concocted and brewed potions that allowed them to fly, they concocted and brewed potions that transformed people into werewolves. A main ingredient in that witches’ brew were plants that looked a lot like tomatoes. It was not the tomato’s fault that it was first imported to Europe around 1540, at the height of witch and werewolf hysteria. From the fourteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries, thousands of Europeans – mostly women – were killed as witches.
Women accused of witchcraft were lynched by mobs (or hanged, crushed, drowned, burned by courts, etc.). It was propelled by both secular and religious groups. Conservative estimates put the number of executed victims in the tens of thousands. Other estimates go as high as half a million. Tomatoes arrived in Europe just when authorities were trying to figure out the ingredients of a witches’ flying ointment – the goop they smeared on brooms to make them fly, or on themselves to fly without a broom. That same goop could also transform whoever it was smeared on into a werewolf. In 1545, Andres Laguna, the pope’s doctor, described the key ingredients as henbane, nightshade, and mandrake – close botanical relatives of tomatoes.
