Weekly Reflection 1

Alonso Lopez

Professor Villa

13 October 2015

Making the Mediterranean—Weekly Reflection #1

            I find it ironic that just yesterday, October 12^th, we ‘celebrated’ Columbus Day in the United States on the same week that we are asked to write about while the Columbian Exchange. While many celebrate his ‘discover’, many more vilify the effects that his voyages have caused not only to the Americas, but also just as much to the African continent. I will first point to a few main negative consequences of the Colombian Exchange, they being the diseases brought to the Americas and the forced migrations most heavily concentrated from Africa. As our reading on the exchange for this week depicts, “The list of infectious diseases that spread from the Old World to the New is long; the major killers include smallpox, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria…it is estimated that upwards of 80-95 percent of the Native American population was decimated within the first 100-150 years following 1492” (Ninn and Qian 2010, 165). The devastation of the American native population led to the African continent consequence, and perhaps a main reason why it is the most underdeveloped continent in the world today: “Between the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, over twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas during the transatlantic trade, the largest involuntary migration in human history. The trade was fueled by the high demand for labor in the Americas, which was driven…by two aspects of the Columbian Exchange: The first was the spread of Old World diseases to Native Americans…The second was the cultivation of highly prized Old World Crops, such as sugar and coffee” (Ninn and Qian 2010, 181). This brings me to the positive one positive effect that I will focus on in this reflection: the introduction of new crops to both worlds, more specifically, for the purpose of this paper and the Italian case, the introduction of tomatoes to the Old World: “The first documented authentic recipe in Italy appeared in 1692 in an early Italian cookbook” (Ninn and Qian 2010, 172). This quotation exemplifies the authenticity of Italian cuisine as being deeply rooted in tomatoes and its associated products. However, as we discussed in class during week one’s Thursday lecture, such adaptation to the European diet was a slow process due to negative connotations associated with the tomato upon its initial arrival to the Old World.

            It took nearly three centuries for the tomato to be accepted as nutritionally valuable food product in Europe and, more specifically, a staple food in Italy. As Gentilcore David states, “We [may’ naturally assume that Italians liked tomatoes right away, but in fact quite the opposite is true. The tomato took more than three hundred years to enter Italian mainstream cultivation and consumption” (David 2010, 2-3). I am an example of such natural assumption as an American. Before gaining this knowledge about tomatoes’ initial rejection, I thought tomatoes were joyfully accepted when first brought from the new world. This image of quick adaptation gained further solidification within me upon my arrival in Florence through my experiences in all of the restaurants I ate at during my first weekend here. The reason is that most dishes on every menu offered tomato or tomato sauce with its cuisine; if it wasn’t on pasta it was pizza and many more. David states the tomato’s initial suspicions: inadequate climate in Europe made tomatoes hard to grow (perhaps the reason why tomatoes were described as gold rather than red); their trailing habit was inauspicious, as proximity to the ground tended to suggest low status; their association to toxic and inedible varieties (presence of an alkaloid called tomatine found in unripe tomatoes); they had no obvious functions to recommend them; they could not satisfy the vast hunger at the time  (David 2010, 26). The change of perception came when it began to complement and enhance the flavors of existing foods, after the assumption that it was toxic was disproved, it was used for medicinal/health purposes like aiding digestion. Furthermore, it was cheap and available during the summer months when little other fruits/vegetables weren’t available. Such acceptance is seen in the Matilede reading: “The copper saucepans and pastry pans sparkled, and the oven was always lit; all kinds of pizza could be found there: pizza with tomato” (Matilde 2012, 2).

           In conclusion, through my observations and experiences in Florence so far, I can see tomatoes’ prevalence in Italian recipes and cuisine as a whole. And, as stated in class, I can see how tomato and its products may stimulate the appetite with delicate and pleasing foods. Every time I take a bite out of a tomato, I have an urge to chase it with another food type, something more pleasing. I, myself, have never been a big fan of tomatoes but I’m trying to build a taste for it here in Italy since it’s a staple food and has many health benefits, at least according to class.  I am now entitled to close with my tomato shopping experience at Conad just yesterday. I had never seen so many varieties and shaped of tomatoes in one store. I went with the most oddly shaped, red ones, since those usually entail their organic genetic makeup. Its texture was soft but its flavor was a bit bold, which made me think that maybe it was not as organic as I thought it was (flavorless tomatoes back in the United States usually entail this). But perhaps the taste just has to do with the type of tomatoes that I selected, whose name I cannot recall. It therefore becomes clear how and why Europeans became to associate the crop with negative connotations upon its initial introduction to the Old World.
 

These are my bold-tasting tomatoes
(Photo was taken from my iPhone)