Unlike the vegetable groups surveyed in other sections of this study, the Solanaceae vegetables examined in this paper (pepper, tomato and eggplant) have very few citations. Virginia references to these vegetables will be cited in the discussion of individual varieties.
*The White or Irish Potato, which is also a New World vegetable in the Solanaceae family is covered in the Root Crops section of these papers.
The Solanaceae family in the New World has provided us with some of our most important culinary crops, although both the pepper and the tomato were slow to reach the table. The earliest use of the pepper, tomato and eggplant in northern European countries appear to be as ornamentals and seem to be virtually unknown as culinary crops prior to the 18th century. They were adopted much earlier in southern Europe and quickly become part of the diet in Spain, Portuagal, Italy and, apparently, the Arab world. In India, the pepper revolutionizes the diet as early as the 16th century (Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984) and within one hundred years it is adopted throughout South East Asia.
Both the Pepper and Tomato originate in South America. All domesticated varieties of the pepper seem to derive from wild populations in Bolivia (Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984) and the tomato originates in the coastal highlands of western S. America, wild plants are still found in the coastal mountains of Peru, Ecuador and northern Chili (The Tomato in America, Smith, 1994).
Wild populations of tomato are two celled fruit which were apparently not used by the Incan people. By unknown means the tomato makes its way to Central America where the multi-celled fruit we know today is developed. The original multi-celled tomato was a large, lumpy fruit. The modern smooth skinned tomato is a result of a cross between this and the cherry tomato (The Tomato in America, Smith, 1994).
All of the major groups of culinary peppers known today had been developed prior to European contact and are not substantially different from those known by the pre-Columbian natives of Central and South America. The oldest archeological remains of pepper have been found in cave dwellings in the valley of Tehuacán, Mexico dating to 7000 BCE. These almost certainly represent wild varieties of the pepper. Selected forms probably came into cultivation sometime between 5200 and 3400 BCE. By 2500 BCE they are found at Huaca Prieta in northern Peru, probably a different species than those found in Mexico.
Domestication centers for peppers at the time of the New World discoveries were: Capsicum annuum – Mexico and Hispaniola; C. baccatum – Central South America; C. pubescens – Andes of Peru; C. chinense and C. frutescens – central to northern S. America, Central America and the West Indies. Most of the peppers of commerce today are of the C. annuum type (Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984).
The eggplant seems to be developed as a culinary plant in India although no date for domestication has been found. It was known in China by the 5th century BCE (Evolution of Crop Plants, Smartt and Simmonds, 1995). It is apparently acquired by the Arabs after the defeat of Raja Dahir at Sindh (present day Pakistan) in 712 AD. The 10th century cookbook of Ibn al-Mahdi, in present day Iraq has a recipe that includes eggplant. The Arab physician, Ebn Baithar, writes of it in the 13th century and cites Rhases from the ninth century. (Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World, Hedrick, 1919). It seems to enter Europe sometime before the 15th century but was likely in Moorish Spain at a much earlier date.
A. Pepper (Capsicum sp.)
Most authors attribute the name pepper, as applied to the Capsicums, to Columbus’s mistaken belief that he had found the western passage to India and access to the true pepper (Piper nigrum). However, Columbus would have been familiar with the black pepper so it is more likely that that the name was applied to the New World pepper in allusion to the its spicy qualities. Many New World vegetables, such as beans, pumpkins (pompions) and corn were named for similar Old World plants. Columbus’s first letter to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1493 includes the passage: “In these islands there are mountains where the cold this winter was very severe, but the people endure it from habit, and with the aid of the meat they eat with very hot spices.”
On the second voyage to the New World in 1494 Columbus is accompanied by Dr. Diego Alvarez Chanca, physician to the fleet, who gives the first written record of peppers: “Their principal food consist of a sort of bread made of the root of a herb, half way between a tree and grass, and the agé, [sweet potato] which I have already described as being like a turnip, and a very good food it certainly is. They use, to season it, a vegetable call agi, which they also employ to give a sharp taste to the fish and such birds as they can catch.”
An earlier, second hand, description of the pepper was written by Pietro Martire de Anghiera (Martyr), an Italian cleric at the Spanish court in Barcelona who was present when Columbus returned from his first voyage: “Something may be said about the pepper gathered in the islands and on the continent …but it is not pepper, though it has the same strength and the flavor, and is just as much esteemed. The natives call if axí, it grows taller than a poppy…When it is used there is no need of Caucasian pepper. The sweet pepper is called Boniatum, and the hot pepper is called Caribe” (Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984).
The early explorers found several varieties of peppers, all of which would be recognizable today. Historia de las Indias, compiled by Bartolomé de las Casas after arriving in the New World in 1502 (pub. 1876) describes several peppers, one, called “ají,” is long and slender, the other round like a cherry and more pungent. Hans Stade, a Hessian captive of the native people in western Brazil (1547 – 1555) describes two peppers, a red and a yellow: “When green it is as large as the haws that grow on hawthorns. It is a small shrub, about half a fathom high and has small leaves; it is full of peppers which burn the mouth.”
The first description of the bell pepper comes from Lionel Wafer, an English buccaneer who records two types of pepper while in Panama in 1681, “one called Bell-Pepper, the other Bird-Pepper.” Sir Hans Sloane, writing about the peppers of Jamaica on Sept. 9, 1688 records: “I saw them [African slaves] likewise here preserve, or pickle green Indian-Bell Pepper. Before it turns red, this Capsicum is cut and cleaned from its seeds, then has a gentle boil in water, and so is put into a pickle of lime juice, salt and water, and kept for use”(Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984).
It is probable that the first peppers in Western Europe came from the Iberian peninsula but the first northern European description of the pepper seems to come by way of the Balkans. The Turkish empire probably first encountered the pepper during their siege of the Portuguese colonies of Ormuz, Persia (1513) and Diu, India (1538) and from here the pepper was introduced by the Ottoman Turks to the Balkan peninsula. This area constituted much of the agricultural land that paid tribute to the Ottomans in the form of produce. From the Balkans the pepper was introduced to Germany where it was first recorded by Fuchs in 1542. (Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984).
Fuchs classes it as “Siliquastrum” (big pod, from Pliny) in De Historia stirpium (1542). He writes; “There are some who call it Spanish pepper, others Indian, some even Calcutta;” this from the mistaken belief that the pepper originates in India. The origin of the pepper remains in doubt for many centuries. As late as 1865, Fearing Burr writes in Field and Garden Vegetables of America: “The Capsicum annuum, or common Garden-pepper, is a native of India.”
Fuchs records several varieties of peppers in De Historia stirpium: “There are a greater [maius] and a lesser [minus] siliquastrum. The greater produces larger pods, almost black, or dusky in color. The lesser, on the other hand, produces smaller red ones…besides these, there are two other kinds, of which one produces very long pods, reddish purple in color, the other wider and much shorter ones… It is strongly heating and drying…so it is certainly not without reason that many use this instead of true pepper.” He also records the rather surprising observation for so early a date that the pepper “is found almost everywhere in Germany now, planted in clay pots and earthen vessels. A few years ago it was unknown in Germany” (The Great Herbal of Leonart Fuchs, Meyer, 1999). Notes found for his unpublished Vienna Codex at his death reveal that he had changed the genus name to “Capsicon,” probably from the 14th century Byzantine physician, Joannes Actuarius, who described an unknown plant as Capsicon, from the Latin capsa or capsula, meaning chest or box (Peppers, The Domesticated Capsicums, Andrews, 1984).
After this time the pepper appears in almost all of the 16th and 17th European herbals including Dodoens, A New Herball (1583); De l’Escluse (Clusius), Rariorum plantarum (1601) and Besler, Hortus Eystettensis, (1613). The peppers illustrated in these herbals are all varieties of C. annuum, including pendant, upright, bell shaped, pyramidal shaped and tomato shaped peppers.
The first reference to the pepper in England comes in Gerards Herball (1597), edited and enlarged by Johnson in 1633. It was possibly in England somewhat earlier. Phillips, in History of Cultivated Vegetables (1822), records: “Guinea Pepper – Capsicum…brought to Europe by the Spaniards, and we have accounts of its being cultivated in this country as early as the reign of Edward the Sixth.” Edward VI reigned from 1547 – 1553. Gerard’s Herball illustrates three principle sorts, “Long codded Guinea Pepper, Round codded Guinea Pepper” and “Small codded Guinea Pepper” and also illustrates twelve other fruit forms. Judging from his description of the plant the pepper is fairly well known but seldom grown as an ornamental plant and probably never eaten: “There are many other varieties of Ginnie Pepper, [other than the three principal sorts, above] which chiefly consist in the shape and colour of the cods: wherefore I thought good (and that chiefely because it is a plant that will hardly brooke our climate) only to present you with the figures of their severall shapes…These plants are brought from forrein countries, as Ginnie, India, and those parts, into Spain and Italy: from whence we have received seed for our English gardens, where they come to fruit bearing: but the cod doth not come to that bright red colour which naturally it is possessed with.”
The Herball also records: “Ginnie peper hath the taste of pepper, but not the power or vertue, notwithstanding in Spaine and sundrie parts of the Indies they do use to dresse their meate therewith, as we doe with Calecute pepper: but (faith my Authour) it hath in it a malicious qualitie, whereby it is an enemy to the liver and other of the entrails.”
While all of the early varieties of peppers recorded in Europe seem to be of the C. annuum variety, the Florilegium of Alexander Marshall, c. 1653 from Windsor Castle, England, illustrates an upright pepper that seems to be of the C. frutescens type. Sweet, in Horus Britannicus (1827) writes that the peppers were introduced from India, C. annuum in 1548 and C. frutescens in 1656 (The Kitchen Garden, Stuart, 1984). The Clutius Watercolors, painted in Holland in the late 16th century by unknown artist(s) and collected by the pharmacist Theodorus Clutius illustrates “Capsicum seu Piper Indicum longum” and “Latum,” the second appearing to be of the frutescens species.
By the end of the 17th century the pepper begins to appear in culinary works, although infrequently and with some caution. John Evelyn writes in Acetaria (1699): “Indian Capsicum, superlatively hot and burning, is yet by the Africans eaten with Salt and Vinegar by it self, as a usual Condiment; but wou’d be of dangerous consequence with us…by Art and Mixture is notwithstanding render’d not only safe, but very agreeable in our Sallet.”
By the 18th century peppers, particularly of the bell type, are often pickled. Bradley, writing in Dictionarium botanicum (1728) observes: “These make a very good Shew in a Garden and are two ways useful, the green Pods make an excellent Pickle, and when the pods are full ripe, the Seed within them being clean’d and pounded in a Mortar is very good to put into Sauces, but ‘tis very hot, so that a little of it goes a great way; the long Pods are the best for pickling, and the ripe Seeds also of the long Pods are best for Sauces” He lists twenty varieties of pepper. It is interesting that three years later he records in New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, (1731): “Capsicum Indicum, or Guinea Pepper, with long and round Scarlet Fruit, for which it is only admired, begins to make a handsome Show in Gardens about July”. This seems to indicate that the primary use of the hotter, Cayenne type pepper is still as an ornamental.
The pepper does begin to emerge as a culinary crop in the second quarter of the 18th century, although likely only in the kitchens of experimental cooks. Bradley, in The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director, (1736) gives this recipe: “To Pickle Cucumbers: It is a custom in some places to pickle the green Pods of Capsicum Indicum with their Cucumbers…But the Capsicums should be boiled in Water gently, and wiped dry, before you put them among the Cucumbers.” In the fifth edition of Hannah Glass’s The Art of Cookery, (1755) she includes a recipe: “To dress a Turtle the West Indian way: a little Cayan pepper, and take care not to put too much.”
Philip Miller seems to support the emerging, but still gourmet, use of the pepper by the English in The Gardeners Dictionary (1753): “The Fruit of these Plants, though at present of no great Use in England, yet the eighteenth Sort [bell type pepper] affords one of the wholsomest Pickles in the World, if they are gathered young, before their Skins grow tough. The inhabitants of the West-Indies make great Use of the Bird-pepper; which they dry, and beat to a Powder, and mix with other Ingredients…they send some of these Pepper-pots to England, by the Name of Cayan Butter or Pepper-pot; and are by some of the English People mightily esteem’d.” He also lists a “Bonnet Pepper”, probably similar to the Scotch Bonnet, a very close relative of the Habanero pepper and the earliest reference to the Capsicum chinensis variety. Capsicum chinense was named by de Jacquin in mistaken belief that it originated in China. The Datil pepper, is also of this group and is said to have been grown in Spanish Florida (Heirloom Vegetable Gardening, Weaver, 1997).
Eden: or, A compleat body of gardening, written by John Hill in 1757 also illustrates the emerging popularity of the pepper for pickles: “This is a Plant whose Singularity first gave it a Place in Gardens, which it has a Right always to preserve…the Fruit is conspicuous, in the highest Degree: it serves the double Purpose also Of Ornament and Use; for it affords an excellent Pickle.”
By 1783 Bryant records in Flora diaetetica: “The Annual Guinea Pepper is a native of America, but on account of the beautiful colour of its pods, or more properly berries, it is now cultivated in almost every garden in England…This plant is cultivated greatly in the Caribbe Islands, where the inhabitants, and also the Negroes, use the pods in almost all their soups and sauces, and by reason the slaves are exceedingly fond of them. These pods or berries make an excellent pickle, and there is one variety which Miller says is preferable to the rest for this purpose. His words are: “The pods of this sort are from one inch and an half, to two inches long, are very large, swelling, and wrinkled; flattened at the top, where they are angular, and sometimes stand erect, at other grow downward.” This sort Miller calls Bell-pepper.”
Bryant also records the emerging use of the much hotter bird pepper: “Perennial Guinea Pepper… varies in the form and colour of its fruit; they being oval, roundish, or pyramidal in different plants, and of a yellow or of a red colour. Their size is nearly that of a Barberry. It is a native of the East Indies but is much cultivated in the West, where they have a variety of it with an oval, red fruit, which they call Bird-pepper; the berries of this variety they pickle, but the principal use they put them to, is to make the famous Cayan Butter, called also Pepper-pot. These Pepper-pots are often sent to England and other places, and generally meet with an equal approbation.” The perennial pepper or bird pepper is the variety C. annuum var. glabrisculum. This pepper is also known as the Chiltepin.
By 1822 Phillips records in the History of Cultivated Vegetables:“From the rich and varied colour of the fruit, this plant is cultivated among our ornamental housed exotics; but it is also grown in considerable quantities by the market gardeners for the supply of London, where it is much used in pickles, seasonings, and made-dishes.” He also lists a number of medicinal uses: “Of late, capsicum has been successfully used in particular cases of the yellow fever.” The belief that the peppers are useful in treating yellow fever is also recorded by authors in this country in the first half of the 19th century.
It is interesting that the pepper spread throughout the globe before reaching British North America. Nathanial Butler, governor of Bermuda (1619 – 1631) in his book, Historye of the Bermudaes records that the pepper, along with other New World crops received from England, were sent to Jamestown on December 2, 1621 on board the ship Elizabeth. I have found no 17th century references to the pepper in Virginia so while it may be known, it is apparently not grown and seldom used. However, most of the slave labor imported to North America prior to 1720 came from the West Indies so it is very possible that the pepper arrived with the African slaves and as many plantations employed female slaves as cooks it may have entered the American diet to some extent through this means, particularly in the southern colonies.
The pepper appears occasionally in 18th century American documents. Peter Kalm, while in Philadelphia in September, 1748 writes: “Capsicum annuum or Guinea pepper, is likewise planted in gardens. When the fruit is ripe it is almost entirely red, it is put to a roasted or boiled piece of meat, a little of it being strewed upon it, or mixed with the broth. Besides this, cucumbers are pickled with it. Or the pods are pounded whilst they are yet tender, and being mixed with salt are preserved in a bottle; and this spice is strewed over roasted or boiled meat, or fried fish, and gives them a very fine taste. But the fruit by itself is as biting as common pepper.”
In Williamsburg, John Randolph give the pepper only a single sentence in A Treatise on Gardening, 1793 (probably written in the 1760’s): “PEPPER, Capsicum, should be sown in April, and should be gathered before the pods grow hard, for pickles.” Jefferson first plants Cayenne pepper in 1767. In 1774 he records planting an unknown pepper he calls Piperone, he received from John Wood. In a July 20, 1772 letter written by George Washington to Daniel Jenifer Adams, who is shipping to the West Indies, he asks him to procure, “1 lb. Kian Pepper.”
References to “pepper” in the Virginia Gazette are all for spices other than the Capsicums. Advertisements for “long pepper” refer to a variety of black pepper (Piper Longum). Listings for “Jamaica pepper” refers to Allspice. This name was used for Allspice into the 20th century as recorded by Bailey in Cyclopedia of American Agriculture (1907 – 1909): “Allspice is derived chiefly from the Antilles, Central America, northern South America and Jamaica, whence the name sometimes used Jamaica pepper.” There are quite a number of advertisements for “pimento” but this is also in reference to Allspice. Today the name is more commonly used to describe a variety of Capsicum but it derives from the Spanish “pimiento,” originally applied to the New World allspice in allusion to the black pepper, which they called “pimeinta.” Pimentos were one of the items prohibited for import beginning in 1775; the capsicums were not near important enough to warrant this attention.
By the last quarter of the 18th century references to peppers become more frequent. An English prisoner of war, Lt. Thomas Anburey, records in 1779 from the Jones Plantation near Charlottesville: “many officers, to comfort themselves, put red peppers into water, to drink by way of a cordial.” A New System of Husbandry, Varlo (1785), written in Philadelphia records for March: “Capsicums for pickling, sow on a hotbed.” Col. Francis Taylor of Orange Co. records planting “Indian Pepper” in 1791 and 1792.
In the first quarter of the 19th century the Capsicum pepper becomes much more common in the United States. The American Gardener, Gardiner and Hepburn (1804), written in Washington DC records for March: “Sow capsicums…in the same manner as love apples; they make excellent pickles.” The American Gardeners Calendar, McMahon (1806), written in Philadelphia records: “The different varieties of the Capsicums, Tomatoes, and Eggplants, being in much estimation for culinary purposes; you should sow some of each kind…the large heart-shaped capsicum, is in the greatest estimation for pickling, but the small upright kinds, are the strongest for pepper.”
Jefferson records planting the “Major, Cayenne” and “Bull nose” peppers in 1812. An 1813 letter from Samuel Brown (Natchez, Texas) to Jefferson describes the perennial Capsicum frutescens and apparently sends him seeds: “A tablespoon of the pods will communicate to vinegar a fine aromatic flavor & that quantity is as much as would serve a northern family many months. In this warm climate our relish for Capsicum is greatly increased & I am much inclined to subscribe to the opinion of Mr Bruce that “nothing is so great a preservation of health in hot climates.’”
Jefferson responds to Brown: “I shall set great store by the Capsicum, if it is hardy enough for our climate, the species we have heretofore tried being too tender.”Jefferson records planting Brown’s pepper the following year and writes on April 28, 1814: “the Capsicum I am anxious to see up; but it does not yet show itself…I do not yet however despair of them.” Unfortunately, we hear no further of this experiment.
The three most common peppers in the colonies seem to be the Cayenne, Bell, or Bullnose and Tomato pepper. This is true well into the 19th century. The American farmer’s new & universal handbook, by practical agriculturists (1854) records: “The varieties grown for pickling and kitchen use are the Sweet or Bell, the Cayenne, and the Tomato or Flat.” Buist, in The Family Kitchen Gardener (1861) records the “Cayenne, Bell or Sweet Pepper: most esteemed for pickles and Tomato or Flat Pepper also used for pickles though hotter than above.”
Peppers are probably appropriate for our gardens though on a very limited scale and best represented at the homes of experimental gardeners or perhaps slave dwellings. The Bullnose pepper, is the best representative of the Bell or Sweet Pepper though the modern Bullnose pepper is probably larger than the original Bell pepper.
B. Tomato (Lycopersicon lycoperison)
The first description of the tomato by a European comes from the Franciscan priest Bernardino Sahagún who arrived in Mexico in 1529 and writes that the Aztecs combine “xitomatl” (tomato) with chilies and ground squash seeds to make a sauce. The term tomato results from confusion with the Nahuatl language (Aztec) “tomatl,” which was their name for the husk tomato (Physalis ixocarpa). The word tomato probably originates in Jamaica.
The first description of the tomato in a European herbal comes in 1544 by the Italian herbalist, Pietro Andrae Matthioli who records “mala aurea” or Golden Apple “flattened like the melrose [type of apple] and segmented, green at first and when ripe of a golden color.” (Commentarii in sex libros Pedacci Dioscordis Anazarbei De medica material). Matthioli writes that the golden apples were cooked in the same way as eggplant, fried in oil with salt and pepper.
In 1554 Matthioli enlarges the herbal and gives the Italian name for mala aurea as “pomi d’oro,” again referring to the golden color of the fruit. The French name the tomato pomme d’amour and from this the English call the fruit Apples of Love. The French pomme d’ amour may derive from a mispronunciation of the Italian pomi d’oro or perhaps from the common name of pomodoro, by which the tomato is known to this day in Italy. It is also possible that the French name was borrowed from “pome dei Moro” (fruit of the Moors). As the Moors were pushed out of Granada, their last strong hold on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1493 this would imply a North African introduction. This is unlikely given the early introduction of the tomato into southern Europe and the name, pome dei Moro, more likely described the eggplant.
A third possible explanation for pomme d’amour arises from Matthiioli’s classification of the tomato with the mandrake, called by the Hebrews dudaïm. In Genesis (30:14) Racheal and Leah make a love potion from the Mandrake root but as very few writers that I can find associates the tomato with aphrodisiac properties this explanation does not seem likely. Later herbalists thought Matthioli’s plant to be Galen’s lycopersion (wolf’s peach) and Tounafort formally classifies the tomato as Lycopersicon Esculentum in 1700. One allusion to supposed aphrodisiac properties for the tomato is suggested in its genera name. The Retir’d gard’ner by François Gentil, 1706 (an English translation of the French Le Jardinier Solitaire by George London and Henry Wise) records: Apples of Love…Lycopersicon was born at Paphos, a Mountain in Cyprus, a Place in a more particular manner devoted to the Worship of the God of Love.
The tomato is illustrated by the Belgium botanist, Rembert Dodoens in Cruijdeboeck (1554) and is translated to French by Charles de l’Écluse (Clusius) Histoire des plantes (1557). Clusius ties the tomato to the Greek myth of Hesperides, guardian of the golden apples given to Hera on her wedding by Zeus. This work is in turn translated by the English herbalist, Henry Lyte in his Niewe Herball (1578).
In Germany the tomato is first illustrated in Fuchs unfinished herbal, the Vienna Codex (1560): “Malus aurea: its color usually resembles the color of gold…its fruit is not always of one color, but also occurs in other colors. Three kinds of this apple…are known to us. The first, either gold or saffron in color, and striped, is round and shaped like the others…The French call it pomme d; amour. A second kind…is a different color, for instance, red. A third, with size and shape like the preceeding ones, but in color saffron, or a whitish yellow, differs even more from the others, and has an oblong fruit.”This may be the earliest description of what has come to be known as the Roma type fruit. It seems to be used solely as an ornamental as Fuchsobserves: “The whole plant, indeed, gives off a heavy and quite disgusting odor. It should be cultivated here in gardens and in “pleasure gardens’”(The Great Herbal of Leonart Fuchs, Meyer 1999).
John Gerard’s Herball (1597) is also based on Dodoens work and he lists the tomato as “Apples of Love,” writing that they produce: “goodly apples, chamfered, vneuen [uneven] and bunched out in many places; of a bright shining red colour, and bignesse of a goose egge or a large pippen...the whole Plant is of a ranke and stinking savour. There hath happened into my hands another sort…the fruit hereof was yellow of colour.” English tradition has long held that the first person to grow the tomato in the British Isles was Patrick Bellow who raised them in 1554 at Castletown in Louth, Ireland. Tomatoes were apparently difficult to grow in England and are, again, raised solely as ornamentals. Gerard observes: “Apples of Love grow in Spain, Italie, and such hot Countries…In Spaine and those hot Regions they use to eat the Apples prepared and boiled with pepper, salt, and oile: but they yeeld very little nourishment to the bodie, and the same nought and corrupt.”
Parkinsonclasses the tomato as“Pomum Amoris, or Love Apples” in Paradisi in Sole, (1629): “Although the beauty of this plant consisteth not in the flower, but fruit…wherof ther are two especiall sorts, which we comprehend in one Chapter, and distinquish them by maius and minus, greater and smaller: yet of the greater kinde, we have nourised up in our Gardens two sorts, that differ only in the colour of the fruite, and in nothing else.”
“Great Apple of Love the ordinary red sort…[the fruit] are of the bigness of a small or meane Pippin, unevenly bunched out in divers places, and scarce any full round without bunches, of a faire pale reddish colour, or somewhat deeper, likeunto an Orenge.” He also cites a yellow fruit of the same shape and size. “They growe naturally in the hot Countries of Barbary, and Ethiopia; yet some report them to be first brought from Peru, a Province of the West Indies. Wee only have them for curiosity in our Gardens, and for the amorous aspect or beauty of the fruit. In the hot Countries where they naturally growe, they are much eaten of the people, to coole and quench the heate and thirst of their hot stomaches.”
Parkinson gives the first description of what sounds to be the cherry tomato: “Small Love Apples…the fruite are small, round, yellowish red berries, not much bigger then great grapes.” With few exceptions, all writers before this time describe the tomato as a distinctly lobed, somewhat flattened fruit. Good illustrations of this type are found in Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis (1613).
Throughout the 17th century and into the 18th century the tomato is used primarily as an ornamental in northern Europe and it is curious that while most authors recognize that it is eaten in southern Europe, it is generally considered only as a medicine and unhealthful to eat by Northern Europeans. The French Jacques Dalechamps, professor of surgery and physician of the Hotel-Dieu, records in Historia generalis plantarum (1587): “This herb is a foreign plant not found at all in this country except in the gardens of a few hebalists…it is dangerous to use them.” Oliver de Serres, agronomist to the French King, Henry IV, writes in The Theatre of Agriculture (1600): “the apples of love are marvelous and golden… are used to cover cabinets and arbours, which they grow merrily over, fastened firmly with the supports… extremely pleasant: and of good grace, nice are the fruits that these plants produce...Their fruit is not good to eat: they are only useful in medicine” (Food, Root 1980).
In England, in the 18th century, the English translation of Tournafort’s The Complete Herbal (1719) records that Italians eat them “but considering their great Moisture and Coldness, the Nourishment they afford must be bad.” He does recommend tomato juice for treating eye ailments. In 1728 Bradley writes that tomato “makes an agreeable Plant to look at, but the Fruit of most of them is dangerous” (The Tomato in America, Smith, 1994).
By the middle of the 18th century the tomato starts to be used, to a limited extent, by the English as a condiment. Philip Miller lists eight varieties of “Love Apples” in The Gardeners Dictionary (1754) and comments: “The Italians and Spaniards eat these Apples, as we do Cucumbers, with Pepper, Oil, and Salt; and some eat them stew’d in Sawces, etc. and in Soups they are now much used in England, especially the second Sort [large red tomatoes] which is preferr’d to all the other. This Fruit gives an agreeable Acid to the Soup; though there are some Persons who think them not wholsome, from their great Moisture and Coldness, and that the Nourishment they afford must be bad. They are call’d by the Portuguese and Spaniards Tomatoes.”
In 1771 Hanbury records in A Complete Body of Planting: “The names Love Apples or Mad Apples are now grown useless, especially when talking of the Kitchen Garden produce: The fashionable term to express them is Tomatoes. Of these there are several varieties, though the most common as well as most useful kind is that which now goes by the name of Tomatoe, a term given it by the Spaniards…large, compressed, furrowed fruit. The culture of this is chiefly attended to in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, where the fruit is not only in great request for the heightening of their soups and sauces, but the inhabitants eat them as we do Cucumber, with oil, pepper, vinegar, and salt. The latter practice is at present little used by the English.”
By the end of the 18th century the Encyclopædia Britannica records the tomato is “in daily use; being either boiled in soups or broths, or served up boiled as garnishes to flesh-meats.”
The tomato is equally slow to be adopted in British North America though it appears to be used in Florida at a very early date. William Salmon practiced medicine in South Carolina in the late 17th century and records in Botanologia (1710) that he had seen tomatoes grown in Carolina, in “the South-East part of Florida,” using older the place name for southern North America. The tomato was probably introduced by the Spanish in settlements such as Santa Elena on Parris Island or from British trade between the Caribbean and North America. It is possible this was a result of slaves imported from the West Indies who had learned to cook with them. Tomato seeds have been recovered from archeological digs at Fort Matanzas near St. Augustine, Fl. from 1740 – 42 (The Tomato in America, Smith, 1994).
The first European import of the tomato to British North America appears to be in Williamsburg, Virginia. Dr. John de Sequeyra arrived in Williamsburg about 1745 and apparently brought tomato seed with him. A portrait of de Sequeyra currently housed at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware has a signed note on the back by E. Randolph Braxton that reads: “Dr. Seccari…was family physician to my grandfather Philip Ludwell Grimes. He first introduced into Williamsburg the custom of eating tomatoes, until then considered more of a flower than a vegetable.” It is of interest to note that de Sequeyra was a Sephardic Jew of Portuguese descent. In John Hill’s, Eden: or, A compleat body of gardening (1757) it is recorded: “Few eat this; but it is agreeable in Soups. Those who are us’d to eat with the Portuguese Jews know the Value of it.”
Dr. John Augustine Smith, president of the College of William & Mary (1814 – 1826) wrote that de Sequeyra “was of the opinion that a person who should eat a sufficient abundance of these apples, would never die.”
It is possible that John Custis grew the tomato or, perhaps, learned of it from de Sequeyra. At the end of a letter Peter Collinson, in England, writes to Custis in Williamsburg, Collinson seems to be answering a question Custis posed in an early letter: Feb. 6, 1742/43: “I thank you for yours September 26 which I will pay Due Regard too as also to yours of August 10th. Apples of Love are very much used In Italy too putt when Ripe into their Brooths & soops giving it a pretty Tart Tast. A Lady Just come from Leghorn sayes She thinks it gives an Agreeagle Tartness & Relish to them & she Likes it Much. They Call it Tamiata. I never yet Try’d the Experiment but I think to do It. They putt in but one or Two att a Time, the boiling Breaks them & then they are Diffused through the whole.”
In the second half of the 18th century the tomato becomes much better known. On Oct. 10, 1759, Collinson writes to John Bartram in Philadelphia to say that he does not have tomatoes but will acquire seed form the nurseryman James Gordon. Henry Laurens, a South Carolina merchant sends tomatoes to Mrs. Creamer, wife of the overseer of his plantation, on July 31, 1764. Harriot Pinckney Horry records a collection of recipes in 1770 in S. Carolina that includes: “To Keep Tomatoos for Winter Use,” again for the use in soups (The Tomato in America, Smith, 1994).
Charles Varlo publishes New System of Husbandry in 1785 in Philadelphia and records for the month of May: “Capsicums plant out where they are to flower and tomatoes, in rich ground.” The Gardener’s Calendar, Squibb (1787) records for the month of June: “Your tomatoes will now begin to run: they, being of a procumbent growth, should have sticks to support them; which should not be very high, but strong and bushy; first let one stick be set in the middle of the hill, then put three or four more round the outside of the plants, to keep them from falling to the ground.”
In 1793 Charles Wilson Peale received a red Tomato from France for his Natural History collection. His son, Rubens supposedly raised seed from this and illustrates it in 1795. His illustration is of a large, somewhat flattened red fruit with pronounced furrows.
By the turn of the century the tomato is well established in the Middle Atlantic States and in the south. McMahon records in The American Gardener’s Calendar (1806) in Philadelphia: “Tomato, or Love-apple, is much cultivated for its fruit, in soups and sauces, to which it imparts an agreeable acid flavour; and is also stewed and dressed in various ways, and very much admired…they will require such support as directed for Nasturtiums.”
Jefferson first records planting “tomatas” in 1809 and plants them every year there after until 1824. He is apparently familiar with the fruit before he begins to grow them himself as he records in the Notes on the State of Virginia (1782): “The gardens yield muskmelons, water-melons, tomatas”…etc.
By 1828, the English traveler, Frances Trollope while in Cincinnati records: “From June till December, tomatoes (the great luxury of the American table in the opinion of most Europeans) may be found in the highest perfection in the market at about six pence the peck” (Kitchen Gardening in America, Tucker 1993).
The tomato seems to be a little slower catching on in New England. In the Aug. 13, 1830 edition of the New-Bedford Mercury (Mass.) a subscriber writes of the tomato: “one of the very best plants for the table and in daily use when in season, over all parts of the country but New England.” By 1861, Buist records in The Family Kitchen Gardener: “In taking a retrospect of the past eighteen years, there is no vegetable on the catalogue that has obtained such popularity in so short a period…In 1828-9 it was almost detested; in ten years more every variety of pill and panacea was “extract of Tomato.” It now occupies as great a surface of ground as Cabbage.”
The tomato may have been found in a few Williamsburg gardens by the forth quarter of the 18th century although it is not listed by either Randolph or Prentis. Dr. de Sequeyra apparently grew it so it may have been shared with other experimental gardeners. Its limited display should be of the large, furrowed variety illustrated by Peale.
C. Eggplant (Solanum melongena)
The eggplant is apparently unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans (Food, Root, 1980) although it is almost certainly known in the Arab world after the 11th century A.D. It is first described in Europe by Leornart Fuchs in Historia stirpium (1542) as “Malis insana: In our country, it grows in gardens, but often in pots and hanging window gardens…they are eaten by some people, cooked in oil, Salt and pepper, like mushrooms…is a food for gourmets and those wiling to taste everything. Therefore, those who have some interest in sanity, those at once terrified by its very name, will avoid using these” [fruits]. It appeared on a menu for Pope Pius V in 1570 and seems to have a limited use in Italy after this time (Food, Root, 1980).
In England it is listed in the Gerard/Johnson Herball (1633) as the “Madde or raging Apples,” in which the fruit is described as: “somewhat long, of the bignesse of a swans egge, and sometimes much greater, of a white color, sometimes yellow, and often browne.”
The eggplant is a tropical fruit that requires night time temperatures that do not drop below 50 degrees to set fruit. It would be somewhat difficult to bring to maturity in England in the open ground. The Herball (1633) seems to verify this: “This plant growth in Egypt almost every where in sandie fields even of it selfe, bringing forth fruit of the bignesse of a great Cucumber…We have the same in our London Gardens, where it hath borne floures; but the Winter approaching before the time of ripening, it perished: notwithstanding it came to beare fruit of the bignesse of a goose egge one extraordinarie temperate yeare.”
Like the tomato, the eggplant suffers the reputation of being unhealthful, even dangerous, to the English diet. The Gerard/Johnson Herball relates the common belief of the day. “The people of Tolledo do eat them with great devotion being boiled with fat flesh…But I rather with English men to content themselves with the meate of sauce of our owne Countrey, than with fruit and sauce eaten with such peril: for doubtlesse these apples have a mischievous qualitie, the use whereof is utterly to be forsaken…Therefore it is better to esteeme this plant and have him in the Garden for your pleasure and the rarenesse threof, than for any virtue or good qualities yet knowne.”
An interesting account of the origin of the genus for the Eggplant (Melongena) is found in The Retir’d gard’ner by François Gentil, 1706 (Le Jardinier Solitaire):
“Of Mad-Apples…We have but a small Account of Melantzene, (for so this Plant was formerly call’d) only that she was of Arabia, where she led a very infamous Life, she was belov’d by a Satyr, with whom for some time she maintain’d a scandalous Correspondence. The Satyr fell in Love with her at the Feasts of Bacchus. She was handsome enough, and had a winning Behaviour; her Manners were free and unconstrain’d, like those of her Sex, who are not of a very regular Conduct. But forasmuch as a Passion of this nature lasts no longer then the Object continues to please, Melantzene falling sick perceiv’d her Charms every Day to diminish, which induc’d her Lover to forsake her, at a time when she found her self uncapable of making new Conquests. However she did what she could, but all to no purpose: This wrought so effectually upon her, that she fell into a miserable Condition, and at length dy’d in Despair. The Satyr, in Pity of her he had formerly lov’d, desired the Goddess Flora to turn her into a Flower; the Goddess granted his Request, and she was instantly chang’d into a Flower call’d after her own Name, and by the Latins Melongena insana.
The Application. This is the End of lewd Women, who flourish whilst their Beauty is in the Prime, but die miserably so soon as that comes to decay.”
Presumably, the first eggplants produced white or yellow fruit, hence the name. The New Herbal, by Fuchs (1543) illustrates a small greenish white fruit. In 1552 the German priest and physician,Hieronymus Bock (Latinized to Tragus), recorded that the eggplant had recently reached Germany from Naples and lists both a white and a purple eggplant. By 1613 Besler illustrates three forms of the fruit in Hortus Eystettensis: white, yellow/orange and purple
By the 18th century it seems to be a fairly well known plant in England but it used almost exclusively as an ornamental. Bradley, in Dictionarium botanicum (1728), classes it as:
“Solunum pomiferum fructu oblongo. Commonly called in Spain, Berongello,or Mad Apples of Syria. Large long and round Fruit, as large as Cucumbers…either of a whitish-green , more yellowish, or of a Greyish-Ash Colour, mark’d strongly on the sunny Side with a dark-purplish Colour. This Plant we raise every Spring in hot Beds, and the Fruit being pared and sliced, is boiled in Soups, and fry’d, which is then accounted an excelllent Dish by the Spaniards, or Italian Gentlemen.”
In the middle of the 18th century Hill gives very much the same observation in Eden: or, A compleat body of gardening (1757): “Egg Nightshade, called the Mad Apple: This Plant demands a Place among those of Curiosity, from the great Singularity of its Fruit, which is the Bigness and Colour of an Egg…that being of the Nightshade Kind, thought in general poisonous, and characterised by so singular a Name, it had the Effect of causing Madness; but this is an Error; for the Fruit is perfectly innocent. It is eaten in many Parts of Europe, and the East; tho’ we raise it only for Curiosity.”
In 1771 Hanbury records in A Complete Body of Planting: “There are a great number of varieties of Egg Nightshade, all of which formerly came under the denomination of Mad Apples, being generally esteemed poisonous, or causing the effect of madness; but now they are known not only to be wholesome, but are cultivated in the East and most of the southern countries of Europe for the sake of the fruit, which the inhabitants esteem as a great delicacy. The English do not so well relish it, and it is cultivated with us merely as a curiosity.”
It is interesting that by this time both the pepper and tomato are being used by English chefs but the eggplant remains an ornamental. This is true well into the 19th century. Phillips records in History of Cultivated Vegetables (1822): that the eggplants: “Are used by the Italians, Spaniards, and French, in their sauces and sweetmeats…There are several varieties of them cultivated in the gardens of the West Indie. The French make great use of the purple variety of this egg-shaped fruit, which they call Aubergine, and which is as common as the love-apple in the vegetable markets of Paris.”
“In England, the egg plant is principally cultivated for its singular and curious appearance, few families even knowing that they are proper for aliment, excepting those who have resided on the Continent…They are rarely brought into the London markets, and then so eagerly secured by foreign cooks, that they are seldom seen exposed for sale.”
The eggplant seems to be virtually unknown in North America until late in the 18th century. The first definitive reference in Virginia comes in the diary of Lady Jean Skipwith of Prestwould in 1793 in which she records planting: “Brown Jolly, See Melangea.” She presumably acquired the eggplant from the West Indies as it was known there under the name of Brown Jolly, as recorded in England by Bryant in Flora diaetetica (1783): “In the West-Indies they call it Brown John or Brown Jolly.” The eggplant was sent to Jefferson in 1796 as recorded in a January 3 letter to Mr. Derieux: “P.S. I was so pleased with the egg-plants brought by Peter, and his dressing them according to the directions you were so good as to give, that I must ask some seed, and advice how to cultivate them.”
There is an intriguing entry in the Natural History (c. 1730) attributed to William Byrd II where he lists a “Guinea melon.” The Family Kitchen Gardener, written in this country byBuist(1861) records: “The Egg-Plant was introduced from Africa, and is called by some the Guinea Squash.”As the term squash was not used in Virginia until later in the 18th century, Byrd would have used the name melon, rather than squash if he was, indeed, referring to the eggplant.
The eggplant was probably used in America, to a limited extent, as a culinary crop by the 19th century although it was still considered solely as an ornamental by most gardeners. An advertisement for garden seeds placed in the Newport Mercury (Rhode Island) on April 1, 1800, lists eggplant under annual flowers. Gardiner, in The American Gardener, (1804) published in Washington D.C. suggests a culinary use for the eggplant in instructions for March: “Molengena or Egg Plant… The purple is preferable to the white kind…When the fruit is young it is fit for use.”
In the The Virginia Housewife (1824), Mrs. Randolph tells us: “The purple ones are best” and gives two ways to prepare them. However, the eggplant remains a fairly minor part of the American diet to this day. The Family Kitchen Gardener, written byBuistin 1861 seems to sum it up: “Many individuals are exceedingly fond of them, while others will not taste them in any form.”
The eggplant should not be used in Colonial Williamsburg gardens.
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