The vegetable that was once considered deadlier than poison

From the 16th century until well into the 1700s, tomatoes were widely believed to be deadly across Europe, despite being a dietary staple in their native Mexico and South America. This wasn't mere superstition—wealthy Europeans were actually dying from poisoning after eating tomatoes, though the fruit itself was innocent. The real culprit was their tableware.

Aristocratic Europeans ate from pewter plates, an alloy containing high levels of lead. Tomatoes, being highly acidic, would leach lead from these plates during meals, causing lead poisoning that manifested in symptoms ranging from illness to death. The poor, who ate from wooden plates or trenchers, experienced no such problems, which only reinforced the upper classes' conviction that tomatoes were inherently poisonous—a "poison apple" as they were sometimes called.

This fear persisted even as tomatoes spread throughout Europe following the Spanish conquest of the Americas. They were grown as ornamental plants, admired for their bright red fruit but considered far too dangerous to eat. Some herbalists classified them alongside deadly nightshade, their botanical cousin, further cementing their toxic reputation. The Italian name "pomodoro" (golden apple) suggests they may have first encountered yellow varieties, which looked even more suspicious.

The tomato's redemption came gradually. Southern Italians and Spaniards began incorporating them into cooking by the late 1600s, and by the early 1800s, tomatoes had finally gained acceptance across Europe and America. The advent of ceramic plates helped, but it took generations to overcome centuries of deadly association. Today, it's almost impossible to imagine Mediterranean cuisine without tomato sauce—a reminder that some of history's most beloved foods once carried death sentences, at least when served on the wrong dish.