Thomas Jefferson and the Nightshades Quiz

Answer: Tomatoes

Nightshades consist of annuals, perennials, sub-shrubs, shrubs and climbers. They often have attractive fruit and flowers. Most are poisonous, but several nonetheless bear edible fruit or other parts such as the tomato, tobacco, potato and eggplant.

Answer: Tomatoes and Eggplants

Thomas Jefferson began growing tomatoes in 1809. He grew large ribbed Spanish tomatoes and his daughters created many recipes that involved tomatoes. He is said to have been the one to bring the eggplant to North America

Answer: South America

The tomato is native to South America and probably originated in the highlands of the west coast of South America. Some species were exported to Mexico where it was grown and consumed by prehistoric humans. The exact date of domestication is not known.

Answer: Tomatoes kept one's blood pure in the heat of summer.

In an 1824 speech Jefferson's son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, mentioned how tomatoes were virtually unknown ten years earlier, but by 1824 everyone was eating them because they believed they kept one's blood pure in the heat of summer.

Answer: Love Apple

Tomatoes were originally grown a decorative plants and were nicknamed Love Apples or Pomme D'Amour from the former belief in the tomato's aphrodisiac powers.

Answer: Paris

Thomas Jefferson is believed to have first eaten tomatoes in Paris. He subsequently sent some seeds home, knowing the tomato to be edible, unlike many of the less well-educated people of his time.

Answer: China

In 2007 China, the largest producer, accounted for about one quarter of the global output, followed by United States and Turkey, India and Egypt. China produced almost 34 Million tonnes of tomatoes in 2007.

Answer: Belladonna

Belladonna has a long history of use as a medicine, cosmetics and of course more famously as a poison. In the Middle Ages, it was used as an anaesthetic for surgery, and it was used as a poison by early man, including the ancient Romans and by Macbeth.

Answer: They were not poisonous

The tomato is closely related to the Deadly Nightshade a poisonous species a plant similar in appearance to the tomato and containing the substance atropine. It is believed that unripe tomatoes do contain poisonous alkaloids but that that these disappear as the fruit matures.

Answer: English pea

Jefferson grew fifteen types of the English pea. By staggering the planting of peas, Jefferson was able to eat them fresh from the garden from the middle of May to the middle of July.