Excerpt
Strawberry (from the Fruit Chapter)
Tomato (from the Vegetable Chapter)
Doubtless God could have made a better berry,
but doubtless God never did.
—William Butler
Strawberry
(Fragaria virginiana, F. vesca, F. moschata)
Fraga was the ancient Latin name and refers to the fruit’s wonderfully enticing fragrance. The term virginiana means “from Virginia”; vesca means “weak” or “thin”; moschata means “having a musky scent.” The etymology of the English name strawberry is often disputed: one group claims that it came about because straw was used between the rows to keep the berries clean and to protect them in wintertime; another explanation is that in Europe ripe berries were threaded on straws to be carried to market; a third contingent claims that the name was originally strewberry because the berries appear to be strewn or scattered among the leaves of the plant.
General Information
Strawberries are probably the most popular of all the berries, and indigenous to both the Old and the New World. There are approximately seventy-five varieties of wild strawberries found in the United States alone, all of them edible. The commercial fruits we know today are the result of an 1835 cross between one of the small, wild strawberries native to Europe and North America and a walnut-sized strawberry of Chile. A French spy on a mission to Chile had smuggled the large Chilean strawberry home to France, and in King Louis XV’s garden at Versailles the plant was crossed with another strawberry, F. virginiana, which Virginian colonists had sent back to England. Although the cross produced a berry of good size and flavor, wild strawberries have a flavor that is unequaled by any commercial berry. The alpine strawberry (F. vesca) is a form of wood strawberry, the wild strawberry of antiquity. It was discovered about three hundred years ago east of Grenoble in the low Alps, and since the fruit was larger and the plant bore continuously throughout the growing season, it soon surpassed other wood strawberries in popularity. Some strains of alpine strawberry produce fruits colored creamy white or yellow, slightly larger than the red, and with just a hint of pineapple flavor. The musk strawberry (F. moschata) is larger than the alpine strawberry and grows wild to a limited extent in the shaded forests of central Europe, north into Scandinavia, and east into Russia. The strawberry itself is an unusual fruit in that its seeds are embedded in its surface rather than protected within. The sweetest and most nutritious strawberries are those that have been sun-ripened on the plant, because the amount of vitamin C increases the longer the berries remain unpicked in the sun. California provides 80 percent of the nation’s fresh and frozen strawberries. Strawberries are one of the foods permitted irradiation.
Buying Tips
All berries should be unblemished, fully and deeply colored without any runny or bleeding spots, slightly soft, and fragrant, with their stems intact. Avoid those with green or white tips as well as overly large varieties, since they have not had enough sun to ripen thoroughly and develop their full sweetness. Both alpine and musk strawberries are flavorless until becoming dead ripe, at which time they become extremely soft and aromatic (plus hard to ship). Strawberries should be refrigerated but taste best at room temperature. Don’t take off the cap until just before eating.
Culinary Uses
At their best, strawberries have a musky aroma and are sweet but acid, almost pineapple-like, in flavor. Fruits of the alpine strawberry have an intense, wild strawberry flavor, while the musk strawberry tastes like a combination of strawberry, raspberry, and pineapple. Wash them just before using, if at all, and remove the stems and hulls. An American favorite is strawberry shortcake, but the berries also appear on Belgian waffles, in jams and jellies, and as an adornment for various dishes. A natural complement to strawberries is cream in various forms, whether whipped into clouds, slightly soured, clotted as in Devonshire cream, or enriched with egg into a custard.
Health Benefits
pH 3.00–3.50. Strawberries are highly rated as a skin-cleansing food, even though skin eruptions may increase at first as they rid the blood of harmful toxins. Hives or other allergic reactions to the berries are most likely a result of eating them in their unripe state or when they have not been fully vine-ripened. Strawberries are recommended as essential for cardiac health and offer good nutritional energy that is easy to digest and process. All berries, but especially strawberries, are good sources of the anticancer compound ellagic acid. They are among the highest organic sodium fruits and thus are eliminative and good for the intestinal tract; however, the seeds can be irritating where there is colitis or inflammation of the bowel. Their considerable vitamin properties are mostly lost during cooking, so that although strawberry jelly, jams, and preserves may taste good, they have only a fraction of their original natural vitamins. The addition of sugar renders them acidic and detrimental to the body. Strawberry leaf tea has many of the same properties as raspberry leaf tea and may be used to ease diarrhea, increase the flow of milk after birth, and restore strength. A cut strawberry rubbed over the face after washing will whiten the skin and remove a slight sunburn. Research has determined that strawberries have a slight tranquilizing effect; that’s why surgical gloves for dentists and masks for children’s anesthesia are often perfumed with a strawberry scent. A kitchen remedy to remove tartar and strengthen teeth is to rub a halved strawberry on the teeth and gums and leave on for forty-five minutes, then rinse with warm water.
Lore and Legend
The early Greeks had a taboo against eating any red foods, including wild strawberries, and this added mystery to the fruit, leading many to believe that it possessed great powers. Strawberries are often associated with fairy folk, and in Bavaria a basket of the fruit is sometimes tied between a cow’s horns to please the elves so that they bless the cow with abundant milk. During the Middle Ages, pregnant women avoided the berries because they believed their children would be born with ugly red birthmarks if they ate them. In art and literature the strawberry is usually a symbol of sensuality and earthly desire.
Tomato
(Lycopersicon esculentum)
It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.
—Lewis Grizzard
Lycopersicon is the latinized nickname “wolfpeach,” given the tomato by the French botanist Tournefort during the mid–sixteenth century, when it was often mistaken for the wolf peach written about by Galen thirteen centuries before. Peach was for its luscious appearance, wolf for its presumptive poisonous qualities, in analogy to pieces of aconite-sprinkled meat thrown out as bait to destroy wolves. The term esculentum means “esculent” or “edible.“ The English word tomato is a Spanish rendering of the Nahuatl (Mexican Indian) tomatl.
General Information
The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that came originally from western South America, where small-fruited wild forms, described by botanists as weedy and aggressive, still proliferate. The invading Spaniards saw the tomato growing in Montezuma’s gardens in 1519 and described it recognizably, though in less than glowing terms: they found the sprawling vines scraggly and ugly. Still, Cortez brought tomato seeds back with him to Europe, along with the more spectacular plunder, and tomato plants were soon growing as curiosities in the sunny gardens of Renaissance Spain. In 1544 the Renaissance botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli called them pomi d’oro—golden apples—so presumably it was a yellow variety he knew. However, he also called them mala insane (unhealthy fruit), and for centuries there was much confusion about the tomato’s goodness and healthfulness. There are thousands of known tomato varieties, which differ greatly in color and shape, with cultivars adapted to any number of climates. The most common shapes are the large, round varieties such as Jersey and Beefsteak; the small, pear-shaped plum or Italian Roma tomatoes, which make such good sauces; and the small, round cherry tomatoes. Yellow varieties tend to be the least acidic. By cultivation and use the tomato is a vegetable, but botanically it is a fruit and can be classified as a berry, since it is pulpy and contains one or more seeds that are not stones. As the result of a tariff dispute, when an importer contended that the tomato was a fruit and therefore not subject to vegetable import duties, the plant was officially proclaimed a vegetable in 1893 by the U.S. Supreme Court. They ruled it should be classified a vegetable because it was most frequently served in soup or with the main course of a meal, as a vegetable would be. Joseph Campbell brought out his famous canned tomato soup in 1897, shortly after chemist John Dorrance, at a weekly salary of $7.59, worked out the formula for condensing it. After potatoes and iceberg lettuce, tomatoes are the most commonly consumed vegetable in the United States. But tomatoes rank above all produce in the popular fervor they inspire; they are considered a dietary necessity.
Buying Tips
Choose firm, plump tomatoes with an aromatic tomato fragrance. Avoid soft, overripe tomatoes with blemishes, bruises, soft spots, or growth cracks. As they are extremely fragile when ripe, most commercial tomatoes are picked and shipped green and then artificially ripened in ethylene gas chambers. They may need a little help to finish ripening—keep them upside down at room temperature, out of direct sunlight, until they turn richly red. Those tomatoes whose skins are red but whose seeds or internal parts are still green were picked too soon; when a tomato is fully ripe, the seeds inside are brown. Fully vine-ripened tomatoes are sweet and juicy, with a slight tang. Because they are best when picked straight from the vine, even people who are not avid gardeners like to grow them. Hydroponically grown tomatoes may be cosmetically perfect, but they tend to lack flavor. Researchers at the USDA found that vine-ripened tomatoes grown outdoors in sunlight are twice as rich in vitamin C as their greenhouse counterparts. Store tomatoes in a warm location but not in direct sunlight. They will keep for about a week. Do not refrigerate tomatoes as this drains their flavor and gives them a mealy texture.
Culinary Uses
Tomatoes add flavor and color to a wide variety of both raw and cooked dishes. They are used in more spicy sauces, canned in more soups, drunk in more juices, added to more salads, and spread on more pizzas than any other vegetable. No other fruit or vegetable has such mass appeal. Cherry tomatoes, because of their small size, are perfect for tossing whole into salads. Sun-dried tomatoes have an explosively concentrated flavor that provides a tremendous boost to many dishes. One other very important application for the tomato (or tomato juice) is as a neutralizer for butyl mercaptan, the nose-shriveling prime ingredient in the defense spray of skunks.
Health Benefits
pH 3.50–4.90. Tomatoes are over 93 percent water. A natural antiseptic, fresh raw tomatoes contain a great deal of citric acid, which has an alkaline reaction if digested when no starches or sugars are present. Their chlorine content increases the alkalinity of the blood and helps to stimulate the liver in its function as a filter for body and toxic wastes. Raw tomato (both whole and juice form) is especially effective in reducing liver inflammation from hepatitis and cirrhosis. Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin A as carotene—not beta carotene but a different kind, called lycopene. Studies have found that Hawaiians who ate a large number of tomatoes had a lower risk of stomach cancer, Norwegians who ate lots of tomatoes had a lower risk of lung cancer, and Americans who ate much of this fruit had a lower rate of prostate cancer and lower death rates from all cancers. Another large population study in Wales found that tomatoes ranked high in protecting people from acute appendicitis. The highest vitamin content is in the jelly that surrounds the seeds, so de-seeding tomatoes reduces their food value. Never eat raw green tomatoes, as they contain a toxin known as solanine and the acids in the green tomato are very detrimental to the body. Cooked or canned tomatoes have many of their nutrients destroyed.
Lore and Legend
Although the early Aztecs of Mexico considered the tomato a “health” food and reverently offered it to their gods of healing, Europeans shunned it because of its association with known poisonous plants, and because its bright shiny colors—red, orange, yellow, and white—were highly suspicious. The turning point for the pro-tomato faction in America, according to time-honored legend, occurred on the steps of the Salem, New Jersey, courthouse on September 26, 1820. That was the day when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate, in public and without ill effect, an entire basketful of tomatoes. Colonel Johnson, an enthusiastic gardener, had earlier introduced the tomato to the farmers of Salem after a trip abroad in 1808, and each year offered a prize for the largest fruit grown. A forceful individualist and notorious eccentric, the colonel wanted his introduction to be regarded as more than an ornamental bush, so when he announced that he would in public eat not one, but a whole basket of “wolf peaches,” a large crowd of some two thousand curious people from miles around gathered to watch him commit certain suicide. Dressed in his habitual black suit with impeccable white ruffles, a tricorn hat, black gloves, and gold-topped walking stick, the colonel made an imposing figure as he ascended the courthouse steps at high noon to the accompaniment of a dirgelike tune played by the local firemen’s band. Selecting a tomato from his basket, he held it aloft and launched into his spiel:
The time will come when this luscious, golden apple, rich in nutritive value, a delight to the eye, a joy to the palate, whether fried, baked, broiled, or eaten raw, will form the foundation of a great garden industry, and will be recognized, eaten and enjoyed as an edible food . . . And to help speed that enlightened day, to help dispel the tall tales, the fantastic fables that you have been hearing about the thing, to show you that it is not poisonous, that it will not strike you dead, I am going to eat one right now! —Hendrickson, Foods for Love, pp. 188–189
Colonel Johnson bit into the tomato, and the juicy bite could be heard through the silence, until he bit again, and again—at least one female spectator screaming and fainting with each succeeding bite. The crowd was amazed to see the courageous colonel still on his feet as he devoured tomato after tomato. He soon converted most onlookers, but not until the entire basket was empty did the band strike up a victory march and the crowd begin to chant a cheer. The colonel’s personal physician, Dr. James Van Meeter, had taken a dim view of the proposed tomato eating and had been quoted as saying, “The foolish colonel will foam and froth at the mouth and double over with appendicitis. All that oxalic acid! One dose and you’re dead.” Barring immediate effects, it was feared that the tomato skins would stick to the lining of the stomach and eventually cause cancer (tomatoes were generally held to induce cancer until nearly the end of the nineteenth century). Dr. Van Meeter stayed, black bag in hand, until the whole basketful of tomatoes had been devoured, and then quietly slunk away. The colonel, undaunted, continued to live in undisputed health to the ripe old age of seventy-nine.
Ketchup started out at ketsiap, a sauce developed in the seventeenth century by the Chinese that would never have appealed to westerners. It was a tangy potion of fish entrails, vinegar, and spices, and was used mainly on fish. Exported to Malaya, where it was called kechap, the strange purée was sold to English sailors in the early eighteenth century. Back in England it caught on quickly, but English cooks substituted mushrooms for the fish entrails. The first printed recipe, from Richard Brigg’s 1792 cookbook The New Art of Cookery, called it catsup and included tomatoes as an ingredient (a rarity for the time, because tomatoes were still considered poisonous). Henry Heinz was the first to use the term ketchup when he started advertising the product in the early 1900s; he liked the unique spelling. Other competitors slowly followed suit, the last making the change in 1988. Ketchup is now consumed at the rate of seven 14-ounce bottles per person annually.
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