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Old September 16, 2010   #8
carolyn137
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Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RinTinTin View Post
Columbus took tomatoes from America to Spain. His crew didn't like them, and apparently the Spaniards were not overly thrilled by them. From the accounts I have read, the tomatoes that were taken to Europe were green, not red.
Can you give me a link to that info? At that time, and in the Caribeean where Columbus was, the only tomatoes that could have been there were the wild currant ones that were distributed by Spanish Missionaries from Mexico as they traveled along the Gulf Coast to FL. And it's hard to see CC taking green wee fruits back with him when all that could have been there were the red currant ones.

And we can't discount bird tranmission either, since to this day it's not known how tomatoes got from the high plains of Peru and Chile to Mexico where some domestication started to occur in terms or retraction of the style and upsizing, which has been and is being studied at Ohio State Univeristy. You might remember a cover story of Scientific American with pictures on the cover and the article was written by someone I know at OSU whose work it was and is. I think her name is Dr. Esther Van de Knapp or something similar b;c I'm too lazy to go check my saved e-mails to confirm that.

The best source I know of as to tomato history is the book written by Andrew F Smith on the history, culture, etc., name origins, etc., of tomatoes.
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