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Taste of Life: When eating tomato was considered ‘anti-religion’, plant leaves poisonous
On March 19, 1938, an unusual assembly was held at the Servants of India Society Hall on the newly opened Laxmi Road in Poona
On March 19, 1938, an unusual assembly was held at the Servants of India Society Hall on the newly opened Laxmi Road in Poona. It was convened by Dr Tara Chitale, one of the first female physicians in the city. Two physicians and a gynaecologist addressed the gathering along with Chitale. Of the three male doctors, two were Parsee and the other a Brahmin, reported “Jnanaprakash”. It did not mention their names.
Chitale had observed that men and women, especially women, were reluctant to consume the modern medicines she prescribed. She would try hard to convince them that the medicines were “vegetarian” and that they were indeed beneficial for their health. While some agreed, others did not. But she had a bigger problem on hand that had made her consult her fellow doctors and convene the meeting.
Some medicines she prescribed were supposed to be taken with tomato juice. The beverage had gained some popularity in the United States and the UK in the early 1930s. It was drunk either plain or in cocktails like Bloody Mary. While the scientific literature from the early twentieth century does not talk much about the health benefits of tomato juice, commercial manufacturers had started preaching its health benefits. Vitamin C was then discovered and chemically produced on a small scale. Tomatoes were found to contain the vitamin which was believed to cure a common cold, scurvy, and iron deficiency. European and American doctors would prescribe medicines to be taken with the juice. Indian doctors followed suit.
When Columbus brought the luscious fruit back to Europe from the New World, they looked at it with suspicion and named it “poma amoris” – the love apple. It was a mere decorative plant then carrying the forbidden fruit-red, oozing juices, and flavoursome. Some considered it an aphrodisiac. But the Europeans soon realised that the new plant was similar to a plant they called mandrake, also known as “Satan’s Apple”.
Mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids which cause delirium and hallucinations. The shape of their roots often resembles human figures. No wonder the plant and the fruit have been associated with several religious and spiritual practices, magic, and sorcery.
Even though tomato and mandrake belong to the same nightshade family and produce bright red or yellow fruits, the two are quite different from each other. But the Europeans promptly snubbed the tomato for almost 150 years. It was not until the eighteenth century that the fruit started getting some attention.
But still, the fruit was considered immoral. It did not receive the warm welcome accorded to the potato. The potato was not accused of “inflaming passions” as the tomato was. Rich Europeans liked potatoes because they fed the poor. The tomato had no such redeeming quality. “There is nothing eviler than foods that are covered in drugs (spices) from America”, wrote the moralist Abbot Chairi in the early 1700s.
Tomato first gained acceptance as a sauce which was used to garnish or glorify the dish. The sauces too were considered sinful because they made the dish attractive and encouraged gluttony which made many stay away from it. But the nineteenth century saw the commercial production of tomato sauce and, in a few decades, tomato and its products were being commercially sold in India, albeit on a small scale.
In the Bombay Presidency, the tomato was mainly used to garnish dishes. Culinary publications from the first half of the twentieth century advised English housewives in India and the UK to substitute Indian green mangoes and guava with green apples, rhubarb, and tomatoes. European women living in India slowly started using tomatoes in Indian “curries”. By the 1930s, they were expected to have mastered chutneys and kinds of ketchup. Magazines and newspapers had now started printing recipes for “Green Tomato Chutney” which had gained great popularity. “Red Tomato Chutney” with plums and apples came a close second. Tomato hash was cooked for celebratory dinners, but rarely eaten by devout guests. “The Bombay Chronicle”, in July 1946, mentioned that the sale of canned tomato products (tomato soup, tomato & mushroom soup, tomato ketchup) had increased in Poona and that the fruit was also being sold “nicely” in the markets of the city.
Though in the twentieth century, the fruit brought by the conquistadors overcame the initial repulsion and prejudices among the Europeans, Indians were hesitant to include it in their palate. It is then not surprising that according to Prajnasundari Devi, the high priestess of Bengali cuisine, the recipe of the famed tomato chutney was first perfected and popularised by the Europeans of Bengal.
Consumption, beyond the natural need of human beings to eat, is restricted by a set of rules. These rules punctuate society’s life and reveal a lot about its identity. Indians, especially Brahmins, had chosen to stay away from the fruit since it had entered India in the seventeenth century. The so-called “higher caste” is divided from the so-called “lower castes” by the logic of “superiority of purity”. Brahmins typically treated all food coming from outside as taboo and most of the food items tabooed were considered relatively unimportant in quantitative terms. The “foreignness” of fruits and vegetables like tomatoes implied the unknown threatening character from outside as it caused confusion and disruption in a conventional system.
Tomato leaves were considered poisonous. The natives of Poona knew that they were soaked in water along with stalks and the infusion was used to water the plants if the seedlings were attacked by insects. This infusion was particularly used to kill the Red spider, a reddish mite which infested the lower side of the leaves and formed a kind of web over its eggs, causing the leaves to curl up. The dried stem of the plant was prohibited from burning because it was believed that the smoke summoned the devil. That the fruit was poisonous and eating it was akin to eating flesh was the popular belief. Families eating the tomato were usually considered “modern”, “liberal”, and “anti-religion”. And so were the doctors.
Doctors who prescribed tomato juice found few Indian patients. It was very difficult for Chitale to convince men and women to consume tomato juice.
That evening at the gathering the doctors made an impassioned appeal to the assembled to give up the prejudice against the fruit. Food does not cause “pollution”, no food is “impure”, they said.
I do not know if footfall increased at the doctors’ clinic after the assembly. Chitale was arrested in 1942 for unfurling the Indian flag at a rally and she likely closed her clinic after that.
The restaurateurs from Punjab and Sindh taught many Indians to use tomatoes in their daily cooking. More Indians started eating out and tomato ketchup became a staple in almost every household. It has been long forgotten that once upon a time, eating tomatoes could attract social ostracisation.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com
