From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Thu Jul 11 2002 - 23:44:43 MDT
Mike Lorrey:
>For hundreds of years, europeans commonly thought that
>tomatoes were poisonous for no other reason than that they were reddish
>orange and berry-like.
Amara Graps to Mike Lorrey
>?????????????
>the 'Golden Apple' ??
Mike Butler to Mike Lorrey
>Not quite.
>The main reason naturalists (not just common folk, but serious followers
>of Linnaeus) thought they were poisonous is that they're in the
>Nightshade family.
Yes, it was something that could have been easily checked. "European" ?
*Which* "European" ? What a provocative and erroneous statement!
The Spanish introduced the tomato, and were enthusiastically enjoying it.
Some of the Northern European cultures thought it was poisonous
because of the Nightshade connection.
Any culture(s) that describes something as the "Love Apple" (the French,
describing the tomato when it was introduced) or the "Golden Apple" (the
Italians, about the same thing) is _not_ afraid of that particular item
- in fact, they adored it.
Giving attention to culture, with a good dose of curiosity and
respect goes a long way.
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -Thomas Edison
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