tomatoes

Much like potatoes in Northern Europe, tomatoes are such a staple of Mediterranean cuisine that it's easy to forget they only started eating them after the Columbian exchange. Up until very late 15th century - at the absolute earliest - there were no tomatoes in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece...

In the late 16th century, English barber-surgeon John Gerard wrote a non-fiction book titled Herbal. In it, he also described tomatoes, still a novel plant in Europe back then. Despite having plagiarised a lot of his notes from continental literature, his book became succesful and immensely...