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Building Dream Homes Since 2004 Page 1
Father’s Day Gift Guide Kid-Friendly Summer Activities! Page 2 Understanding Closing Costs Grilled Corn and Ricotta Dip Page 3
The Salem Tomato Trials Page 4
FALSELY ACCUSED AND CONDEMNED THE SALEM TOMATO TRIALS
town courthouse, made to answer for their toxicity. But, there’s always one who goes against the grain. Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson, a farmer and historian, refused to believe that the tomato was harmful and ate them on a regular basis. In fact, he even hosted tomato competitions, granting a prize to the person who could grow the largest tomatoes. People thought he was simply mad.
Surely, you’ve heard about the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, but did you hear how the people of Salem, New Jersey, put tomatoes on trial in the 1800s, believing that they were poisonous? It sounds like a fictional movie plot, but it really happened! Even back in the 16th century, people were very suspicious of tomatoes. As if enough confusion didn’t already surround the tomato — is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? Deemed a fruit but treated as a vegetable,
To prove his point and redeem his reputation, he showed up at the Salem tomato trial with a giant basket of tomatoes, frantically eating them in front of the
the tomato is a bit of a contradiction. To make matters worse, in the 1800s, it was discovered the stems and leaves of tomatoes contained tomatine, a toxin. Within the fruit itself, a small amount of the toxin exists in a much lower
crowd. He ate the entire basket full and stood before everyone, as healthy as can be, hoping to coax the crowd into dropping the
“charges” on the healthy fruit. When he maintained his health days, weeks, and even months later, tomatoes were no longer regarded as evil and poisonous. Today, the tomato is actually the fourth most popular “vegetable”; after all, how could we live without salsa and marinara sauce?
concentration. However, people feared being poisoned if they were to consume any part of a tomato. Today, we know there isn’t nearly enough of the toxin to create a problem for us.
In 1820, wary of the poisonous red fruit, tomatoes were put on trial in the
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