When Tomatoes Could Get You Executed for Witchcraft
Tomatoes arrived in Europe just when authorities were trying to figure out the ingredients of witches’ flying ointment – the goop they smeared on brooms to make them fly, or on themselves to fly without a broom. That goop could also transform whoever it was smeared on into a werewolf. In 1545, the pope’s physician, Andres Laguna, described the key ingredients as henbane, nightshade, and mandrake – close botanical relatives of tomatoes. Tomato plants not only look like deadly nightshade, a suspected ingredient of witches’ magic goop, they are just about identical to the untrained eye. Some tomato varieties, such as yellow cherry, look like hallucinogenic mandrake fruits, another ingredient of the witches’ goop.
At a time when Europe was engulfed by witch hysteria, a plant that looked like an ingredient of a witches’ concoction was bound to prove controversial. Even today, many suspect those who experiment with new foods. In the 1540s, experimenting with tomatoes could get people accused of witchcraft. Unsurprisingly, many decided to leave tomatoes alone. Indeed, the only place where it was safe to have them was Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition had temporarily declared that the belief in witchcraft was heretical. The Spanish and Italians eventually incorporated tomatoes into their diets wholesale, but the English and French remained in the “tomatoes are demonic” camp for a long time.
