Tomatoes

Years ago in my research I found written evidence of tomatoes growing in Lowcountry gardens long before any mention of them in the other of the original thirteen colonies. Several culinary historians have written the history of “love apples,” as they were once called. One bright sunny day in June, when the first tomato crop in the Lowcountry was at its height, I received in the mail a copy of a page from William Salmon’s Botanologia. The English Herbal: or, The History of Plants, published in London in 1710. Karen Hess, the American culinary historian, had sent me her wonderful find: not only an entire chapter on love apples, but the following: