The fruit of a vine from the nightshade family, native to South America, originally found growing wild in the Andes. According to food historians, its Latin name, Lycopersicon esculentum, which means "succulent wolf peach", reflects that the tomato was thought to be as inviting as a peach but dangerous, because it was thought to be poisonous. In fact, all parts of the plant, except the fruit, are toxic. By the 16th century, when the Spanish invaded, tomatoes were widely cultivated throughout Mexico and Central and South America. Hernán Ferdinand Cortés, conqueror of the Aztecs, sent the first tomato plant, a yellow variety, to Spain, where it took some time to be accepted. People did not take instinctively to this "golden apple", which is the Latin root of pomodoro, Italian for "tomato." In 1596, the tomato was introduced to England, and a year later, English botanist John Gerard found tomato plants to be "of a ranke and stinking savour", but admired the fruit for its ornamental possibilities, which helped make the tomato a popular garden adornment. It was also known in England, as well as France, as the "love apple", often given in a romantic gesture.
Spain was the first European country to use tomatoes in cooking, and Italy followed suit, but elsewhere, tomatoes were still treated with suspicion. The first red tomatoes arrived in Europe in the 18th century; a Moor carried tomato seeds from Spain to Morocco, where they became popular and grew abundantly. In his 1778 book Il Cuoco Galant (The Gallant Cook), Vincenzo Corrado provides a recipe for a tomato sauce, (not necessarily for dressing pasta, which came later) and also suggests a method for peeling them. Americans also resisted the tomato, but a failed act of treason came to be its salvation as a safe vegetable to eat. As the legend goes, some rivals had penetrated the White House and encouraged the cook to make President Abraham Lincoln some dishes with tomato; rather than die poisoned, as his enemies intended, the President became an enthusiastic fan, and word of the failed plot and the tomato's soundness spread. Today, tomatoes are the third largest crop cultivated for human consumption in the U.S.
