Tomatoes were cultivated by the Aztecs in the Americas—then brought to Italy by the Spanish in the 1500s—but people thought they were either poisonous or an aphrodisiac. In France, tomatoes were called pommes d’amour—“apples of love”—due to the belief that they had aphrodisiac properties; In Italy, tomatoes were called pomi d’oro—“golden apples”—because the first tomatoes in Europe …
