Nowadays, tomatoes are associated with nice, delicious things like summer, pastas, and the country of Italy. But back in the 1500s, when they first arrived in Europe from the Americas, they had a very different reputation.
For nearly three centuries, most people in the Old World steered clear of this New World food. Not because they didn't like its taste, but because they thought it was poisonous.
Long before it ended up on dinner tables around the world, the tomato was cultivated and eaten by the Aztecs, who called it tomatl in the Nahuatl language. In Europe, one of its earliest descriptions comes from an Italian doctor and naturalist called Pietro Andrea Mattioli. Mattioli correctly classified it as a member of the Solanaceae or nightshade family — a group of plants known to grow in dark places, which also includes potatoes and eggplants — but incorrectly classified it as a mandrake, a genus of the nightshade family that's known to be highly toxic.
The tomato's early reputation was further tarnished by English botanist John Gerard's 1597 text Herbal, a Renaissance encyclopedia of plants and plant-based medicines. In this text, Gerard wrote that the "whole plant" was of "rank and stinking savor."
Another text, Maison Rustique, or The Country Farm, an English translation from Latin published in 1600, warned that "the plant is more pleasant to the sight than either to the taste or smell, because the fruit being eaten provoketh loathing and vomiting."
It's been said that, during the early 18th century, some Europeans believed that tomatoes had made the adventurous diners who ate them ill. The idea behind this rumor is that the acidity of the tomatoes would have "leached" the lead out of the metal plates they ate from. Today this theory has been largely discredited, though, as tomatoes do not contain enough acid to make this happen.
Gerard was not entirely wrong about the plant, however. He and others correctly identified that only its leaves were toxic, while the fruit itself was perfectly edible. Even so, most Europeans opted to steer clear of the tomato altogether, and throughout those centuries it was grown only by a small number of plant enthusiasts, who cultivated it for its exotic appearance rather than its taste or nutritional content.
It was not until the 19th century, when bakers in the city of Naples started putting tomatoes on their pizza, that the plant's popularity began to take off. Within decades, tomatoes were grown and consumed across Europe, finding their way into various regional dishes and diets.