How Tomato PILLS advanced the acceptance of tomatoes in America

[packman]

In the 1830's two competing tomato pill manufactures:

... Archibald Miles, a Cleveland-based merchant claimed that his pills had been scientifically tested and painstakingly developed over years to treat everything from indigestion to syphilis. Shortly thereafter, a Dr. Guy R. Phelps (an actual, Yale-trained physician) began doing brisk business selling his own Compound Tomato Pills and promising similar medical results.

And thus started the Great Tomato Pill War - which eventually ended but had brought to the forefront the acceptance of this fruit

...fewer ads circulating and some physicians publicly denouncing tomato pills, the buzz abated and sales dwindled. And yet, tomato pills had piqued Americans’ interest in the scarlet fruit. Even as the tomato pill craze fizzled, Americans continued to gobble up tomatoes at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Tomatoes were served as main courses and side dishes, and with eggs, meat, and fish. There were savory tomato pies and sweet tomato tarts. Tomatoes were made into soups, jams, jellies, and ketchup. One journalist wrote in 1842 that he liked his tomatoes “fried in butter, and in lard, broiled and basted with butter, stewed with and without bread, with cream and butter.” A writer for the London Observer described the many tomato-centric meals he consumed while staying at a Wisconsin hotel in 1841: “At breakfast we had five or six plates of the scarlet fruit pompously paraded and eagerly devoured … At dinner, tomatoes encore, in pies and patties, mashed in side dishes, and dried in the sun like figs; at tea, tomato conserves, and preserved in maple sugar … ”

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tomato-pill

[The Wielding Truth]

1. I think that this is one thing that you really have to give to the Italians. When spagetti was

introduced in America tomatoes became indispensable.

[left-of-center2012]

2. You may be right, except about the spaghetti

Tomato History

"... tomatoes were only eaten by poor people until the 1800's, especially Italians.

What changed in the 1800's? First, and most significantly, was the mass immigration from Europe to America and the traditional blending of cultures.
Many Italian-Americans ate tomatoes and brought that food with them. But also, and perhaps equally as important, was the invention of pizza.
There is no pizza without tomato sauce, and pizza was invented around Naples in the late 1880's.

The story goes that it was created by one restaurateur in Naples to celebrate the visit of Queen Margarite, the first Italian monarch since Napoleon conquered Italy.
The restaurateur made the pizza from three ingredients that represented the colors of the new Italian flag: red, white, and green.
The red is the tomato sauce, the white was the mozzarella cheese, and the green was the basil topping.

Hence, Pizza Margarite was born, and is still the standard for pizza.
And what could have led more to the popularity of the tomato than pizza!"