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Rev. Joey N. Welsh. July 9, 2006. Consider lowly wolf peach ANOTHER ANGLE: the occasional musings of a Kentucky pastor Is an opinion right just because it is popular? Consider the lowly wolf peach By The Rev. Joey N. Welsh joey_e_welsh@hotmail.com (Reprinted from The Hart County News-Herald, July 31, 2005) Every time I hear people say that a dissenting outlook on an issue should be stamped out because it's not a particularly popular opinion at the moment, I remember the strange history of the wolf peach. A relative of the poisonous nightshade plant, the wolf peach was native to Central and South America. It was noted by European explorers in the 16th century, and specimens were taken back to Spain, Portugal and Italy. At first cultivated as an annual ornamental plant with large, supposedly poisonous, fruit, the plant spread around the Mediterranean region as a source of summer color, with tiny blooms and summer fruit varying in color from pink to red to yellow. English viewed plant with suspicion By the 18th century, brave Greek and Italian cooks were picking the large summer fruits and working them into a variety of recipes. The English, however, still viewed the plant with suspicion, telling their children to admire the bright colors of the wolf peaches but never, ever to touch. This view of the wolf peach as an evil, poisonous but tempting plant was prevalent in the British colonies. Thomas Jefferson grew the plant at Monticello, and Jefferson household recipes that used it in his day are still in print. Neighbors of Jefferson viewed his eating habits with suspicion, though. Jefferson was close to being a vegetarian and was known to say that he ate meat only as a condiment for his vegetables; this did not seem quite All-American to some of Charlottesville, Virginia's more carnivorous denizens. For most people, the wolf peach remained a pretty, but dangerous, decorative annual. Colonel Robert Gibbon destoyed the myth Legend has it that a resident of southwest New Jersey, Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson, decided to destroy the myth that the wolf peach was poisonous by picking a basketful and eating them publicly in Salem. Johnson announced that September 26, 1820, was to be the day, and at the appointed hour a crowd of over 2,000 had gathered to watch him eat and die. As he stood on the Salem County Courthouse steps and took his first juicy bite, women screamed and fainted while men looked away, but Johnson kept eating and eating. He finished his basket load, stuffed but still alive. Thus, we are told, the popular myth was shattered, and the plant was thereafter cultivated primarily for food, first in New Jersey then in other states. (Historians doubt some of the specifics of this story, but the tale is so vivid that I tend to agree with the newspaper writer at the end of John Ford's classic western film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as he says, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.") New Jersey became an important supplier What do we now call this relative of the deadly nightshade plant? Evidently growers thought that wolf peach was an unappetizing name for the plant, and they adopted its Mediterranean name, tomato. New Jersey had become an important supplier for tomatoes by the time of the Civil War, and the Campbell Soup Corporation began canning tomatoes and tomato juice at its founding in Camden, New Jersey in 1868. (The tomato was also subject of a legal dispute over whether it and its juice should be called a fruit or a vegetable; an 1893 ruling decided that tomatoes are vegetables.) Canned tomato soup was introduced by the company in 1895. In Hart County, though, it is not the canned version of the tomato that matters. Rather, it is the fresh, real tomato that helps us to mark the glorious days of summer. Those things that are sold in stores the rest of the year may be called tomatoes, and they may even look like tomatoes, but anyone who loves tomatoes knows that anything not grown and eaten here and now is mostly an illusion. So go on and enjoy tomatoes (or wolf peaches) while you can. The days will pass all too quickly. "If popular opinion were final arbiter of truth, none of us would be enjoying tomato today" And just remember, if popular opinion were always the final arbiter of truth, none of us would be enjoying the tomato days of summer. Thank goodness for the unpopular dissenting opinion of Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson and for his courage in making the point in such a brave and public fashion. He and his advocacy of an unpopular idea are a real blessing to us. It makes me wonder which unpopular minority opinions of our own time will be thought of as blessings in generations yet to come. Do peoples'ideas deserve to be eradicated - like some tomato pest - just because they don't follow the majority? Ponder that with your next bite of this summer's tomato harvest. This story was posted on 2006-07-09 04:07:34
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Rev. Joey N. Welsh. Another Angle July 2, 2006 Proclaim Liberty ANOTHER ANGLE: June 26, 2006: Of Trees and Thankfulness Rev. Joey N. Welsh. June 18, 2006. For Father's Day LETTER from Submit a Story: Reader can't find misspelled sign Rescue Squad Chief Wendell Taylor makes plea for organization Welcome to Columbia, Adair CO, Micropolitan Campbellsville, KY, USA? Bird-Hunting-Mule made a great bird dog for hunters Smile, your house or business may be on satellite camera right now Lamentations from Ohio: Homesick and hungry, Cyrus is fading fast How to search and find subjects by name or events View even more articles in topic Commentary |
 
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