Today I am confident. Today I am forging ahead with the righteous blindness of Francisco Pizarro.
Speaking of Francisco Pizarro, let's talk....TOMATOES,,, my God how ripe tomatoes are one of my vices,,,I am sure that have tomato sauce in my
veins,,,, and Parmesan cheese between my toes. The tomato,,,,, a fruit that children dislike except in ketchup or on pizza originated in The Americas. Some claim it for Peru and others for Mexico. At any rate even though this is a story about the discovery of the tomato in Europe. Let's not forget that by 500 B.C. the tomato was being used by the Aztecs in many of their dishes,,,, and the Aztecs were latecomers to indigenous culture in the Americas. The tomato was unknown in Europe until the Spanish encountered the fruit during the conquest of Mexico and returned home with a case of Moctezuma brand tomato puree and a sack of seeds.
The tomato arrived in the "Old World" perhaps in the 17th century. When tomato seeds were brought to Spain and cultivated as something exotic from the New World the small round fruit didn't impress anyone. In France and Italy the tomato was shunned especially by the upperclass who thought it poisonous for its resemblance to deadly nightshade and the peculiar reaction tomato acids had with pewter plates,,, the preferred dishes of the uppercrust. Tomato acids leeched the lead from pewter. However, the fruit didn't react with the flatware of the poor,,, wood,,, so as was often the case with the lower castes, especially poor Italians, the penny stinkers werewell positioned in the vanguard of "nuova cucina". In the culinary history of mankind, the poor are responsible for so much flavor. They recognize a good thing, then seize and exploit the moment,,,,, all before the rich co-opt it and tax it. The poor, especially Italians were genetically selecting and gorging themselves on ripe tomatoes two hundred years before the rich Europeans realized the flavor of red gold.
The tomato was popuarlized first by the Italians,,,who have always known a good thing when they tasted it,,,,mama mia si,,,,and for me,,,, a former back to the lander and resident of rural North America who at one time was up to his ankles in suckling mud,,,,,,,,,cultivating 7 different heirloom varieties of solanum lycopersicum what a journey they have taken those seeds. From the halls of Moctezuma to Maine.
Here's what might have happened 500 years ago. Atahualpa passed his dark hand over that of Francisco Pizarro, the former an illerterate swineherd now conquistador, and some seeds fell onto Pizzaro's palm,,,,,, or Perhaps Moctezuma offered Hernan Cortes, the ruthless notary, a small cotton sack of small whiteish pome. These seeds were of course not for what they searched. They wanted solid ingots as many as they could swallow and then some more. Pizzaro and Cortes may have been distant cousins but they were of one gold plated mind.
We don't know if either Cortes or Pizzaro actually received tomato seends or what they did with them if they had but perhaps there is room for imagination here given the fact that the Italians popularized the tomato in Europe,,, and of course inevented pizza, which in itself has shown itself to be more valuable than all the ingots painfully extracted from the the sweat and bowels of the "New World". Since I live in Mexico let's fly with Hernan Cortes.
The fantasy behind the legend:
Cortes passed the sack of these strange seeds to Andres de Duero, his provisioner. aboard ship , Duero didn't know what to do with small cache so he secreted
them, unforgotten in a jar, where they remained until the return to Spain where a Napolitano ship boy named Mariano Cociarelli stole the jar. Mariano returned to his beloved Napoli just in time
for spring planting. His mother, Gilda Maria, who was not adverse to trying new things,,,for after all she had gone through four husbands,,, three of whom died in fist fights that turned deadly. Gilda Maria planted the seeds, fertilizing them with care and compost, and eccole´ after a month or more a vine became laden with something magical, small round scented cherries. Mama Gilda had the patience to wait until the fruit ripened
and on July 16, 1630 when the first of the crop was firm yet perfect she called to her third idiot son named Pierino to taste this
strange little red ball. Mama Gilda hadn't survived this long without some
cautions built into her character,,,if we lost Pierino well then.....that would be blood
under the bridge. Pierino, a slovenly creature, eagerly shoved one into his cavernous mouth and after
a short mastication slobbered out "dolce, dolce, amabile, sono dolcezzas
mama" and he would have eaten all of the one and only crop of continental europe's tomatoes when his mother slapped him upside the head real good sending him out
of the kitchen.
It is at these moments when bodies cross paths with circumstance history is created, and potential recognized. Those sweet acidy tomatoes had a flavor that dreams are made of. Mama Gilda Maria could already taste the sauce and the infinite combinations. Questo ha un potenziale So she worked her magic in the kitchen using mediterranean herbs, meats, and cheeses. Her family, was overjoyed at the new sensation,,,,salsa di pomodoro Napolitana de Mama Gilda. Immediately she devoted a great portion of her garden to the tomato. Tomato plants came up all about the house, they grew
up the sides of walls, and trees, in clay pots, and over tombs, and soon became a staple
sight in all the Italian countryside. The Italians became immortalized for
their conquering of the world's palate as the Spanish went on to be remembered for having taken a more reviled route. Mama Gildas in all their collective
kitchens about Italy worked their Alchemy. Then finally the tomato returned to the Americas, specifically the USA through the great Italian wave of immigration near the beginning of the 20th century. . Italians came in droves to the shores of New York and the tomato with all the accompanying recipes came with them.
The Idiot Pierino, who lived to the ripe ofd age of 90 exclaimed to anyone who would listen,to have been the discoverer of this food,
now inseparable from Italian cuisine,,,, but let us not forget from where this fruit originally sprouted and how it was first used in the Americas and how it still is an inseparable part of Mexican cuisine.
Buena fortuna! Buona Fortuna!
