this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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Explanation: For almost 200 years, it was commonly believed that the tomato (a plant from the Americas) was poisonous, because it is a member of the Nightshade family. For that reason, it was grown in Italy primarily as an ornamental plant until the late 17th century.
So there's a chance some starving Italians, who had nothing left to eat, decided to go for their sun dried ornamental tomatoes, putting olive oil and some herbs on them to try and save themselves from horrible flavour and....well it all makes sense now.
I always imagined it was more like "My dog got into the garden and ate like twenty of them and he survived, they can't be THAT deadly"
My dog is a lagotto romagnolo, and I can confirm that he loves to raid the garden for tomatoes and zucchinis.