Tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes are native to the Americas. That means that before Transatlantic trade, there were no hot peppers in China, no potatoes in Ireland, and not tomatoes in Italy.
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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That's why if you ask someone in Bologna how much tomato to add to your Bolognese they will chase you out of town with a kitchen knife.
Which is weird, considering the dish was only invented in the 19th century, so tomatoes were absolutely available.
Italian cuisine in general has way less tradition that people think.
That's documented serving. You don't seriously believe that a slow stew on the basis of meat, wine and misofritto only appeared in the 19th century?
No, but at what point would you start calling it bolognese then? It's every meat/wine stew from Bologna bolognese?
When do you call something a continent? Just vibes, I guess. All I am saying is that the dish has a much longer history than 200 years.
What did they use instead?
Tomaytos.
Oh hey is that like the Irish stew with Potaytoes instead of Potahtoes?
Just gotta let the meats dissolve
Imagine many common Indian dishes without tomatoes or chilis. How about the popular trope of a Native American on horseback? Horses went extinct in the US many thousands of years before Europeans arrived with a different kind. It's amazing how quickly the cultural exchange happened so long ago.
Tangential fact: syphillis originated in the Americas, likely from llamas. It's the only instance of a transmittable disease to be imported to the old world.
This also makes me a bit annoyed at the show 'Apothecary Diaries" as it depicts syphillis existing in China in the 700AD
They also depict a mushroom that only grows in Japan growing in China but the show is pretty anachronistic overall.
Alright, everyone, who banged tina‽
I thought Romans had syphilis and that's why they were bald
Tobacco would make a great name for a cat
And how majestic that cat looks!
Def the photogenic one in the family.
A pouch of snus is called a "prilla" in Swedish, and one of my friends named their cat that.
People always look at you weird when you call Salsa a "concoction of nightshade fruits".
Tbf, most of these would kind of suck in a salsa.
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wait, the cat is related?
Its a family photo, they don't need to be blood relatives.
so tobacco is not related?
Yes it is a nightshade. According to Wikipedia, nightshades are plants in the family Solanaceae, and
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus Nicotiana of the family Solanaceae.
I was shocked too. Maybe ToMacco wasn't so farfetched after all.
Yeah that one messes me up as well. Who of these birthed the cat? Who of these did the cat birth?
You never heard about mom having kittens?
ooh! that reminds me of that time a lady pretended to give birth to rabbits by shoving baby rabbits up her coochie and then pulling them out!
This is a default family in the Sims.
Fun fact potato berries are poisonous . They look just like black nightshade weeds which grows everywhere
I can see a deadly link for nightshade for a few of them (like when potatoes turn green) but I've never heard of poisonous tomato facts... Are there any?
Europeans used to think tomatoes were poisonous. They referred to them as poison apples.
That's because they used pewter containers which were pretty common back in the day. The acidity from tomatoes would leech the lead out of the pewter and into the tomato so anyone eating this lead infused tomato product was gonna be in for a bad time.
I remember hearing that but I'd forgotten the specifics! Thanks!
The poison apple thing is based on works of Galen, who, seeing how he lived in Europe in the 3rd century, has never seen a tomato, nor spoken to anyone who has. But he did describe a poisonous "wolf peach" that happened to match a tomato, so obviously that must be it.
Many parts of the tomato plant are deadly to pets. Same goes for all nightshade members.
any of the green parts of the tomato (even just the small bits inside the fruit) can kill small pets like hamsters or mice
Potatoes? One of the "family" just decided to be a tuber?
Get this, they're so closely related that botanists created a plant that grows tomatoes above ground and potatoes below.
Wild. TIL. Thanks.
There is more to a plant than just the fruit, you know. It just happens that the species (cultivar?) of nightshade that we grow for potatoes has tasty, starchy roots, while others have tasty, zesty fruits, and then one of them is eggplant.
Eggplant out here catching strays.
Potatoes have fruits as well - they look like little dark green tomatoes. Toxic of course, because nightshade.
Just be glad they didn't turn into crabs or cats.
... what? No, they're all nightshade plants. Not the same plant, mind, but still the same family.
And the devil's trumpet?
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