WEIRD FOOD HISTORY
Poisonous Tomatoes
There’s a long-standing story that wealthy Europeans feared the tomato as poisonous in the 1700s. When tomatoes first arrived in Europe, they ate them in large quantities, piling them on their pewter plates. When they got sick, they assumed the tomato was the culprit. In reality, tomatoes are acidic and so, as the legend goes, when the tomatoes came into contact with these dishes, they leached out lead, making many people sick.
$8,000 Pineapples
A rare fruit in the 1700s, custom greenhouses were built in Englad to grow pineapples, requiring around the clock care, 3-4 years to bloom, and temperatures kept high using mountains of coal. The cost of a single pineapple was equivalent to $8,000 in today’s dollars. The wealthy would throw dinner parties and display a pineapple as the centerpiece, a symbol of their status and hospitality.
Prison Lobster
The trash food of Colonial America, lobster was fed only to prisoners, the poor, and servants. A sign of poverty was “lobster shells about a house”. Washing ashore in drifts up to two feet fall, it’s abundance and reputation for being the cockroach of the sea meant that lobster was something you fed to your livestock, not your dinner guests.
Conversation Lozenges
Conversation hearts are a beloved Valentine's Day treat with a rich history dating back to the 19th century. These sweet candies were originally known as lozenges and came in various shapes and were a lot larger to accommodate longer messages. The lozenges were passed with phrases such as "Don't be Jealous" and "I Love Only Thee" or "I Love Another."
All of the messages displayed here are referenced from actual conversation mottos previously printed.