There's More to New Jersey than the Sopranos

12 Man Eats Tomato and Lives!

62 There’s More to New Jersey . . . History does not record how Baldwin came up with the money, or indeed what happened to him after his trial was over. But we do know that the abuses of the Alien and Sedition Acts helped to rally the nation behind the Republicans. In the election of 1800, the Republicans swept into control of the White House and Congress. It’s not hard to imagine old Luther hoisting a glass in honor of the new president, Thomas Jefferson , in some Newark tavern. The Alien and Sedition legislation expired, and along with them the Federalist Party. And today, as long as they do not threaten his life, Americans are free to make whatever tasteless remarks they feel like about the president’s anatomy. 12 Man Eats Tomato and Lives! The story of how Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate a tomato on the steps of the Salem County Court House in September 1820 is one of the most dramatic and colorful in New Jersey history. It seems that in the early years of the nineteenth century, Americans regarded tomatoes as “love apples,” charming to look at but poisonous to eat. Colonel Johnson, a leading citizen of Salem County and a man with a passion for agricultural improvement, became convinced that the tomato was a healthy food that could enrich the local economy. He boldly announced that he would eat tomatoes from the steps of the Salem County Court House. On the appointed day, hundreds of people gathered in the Court House square to watch as Johnson strode up the steps, carrying a bushel basket of tomatoes. He pulled one of the forbidden items out of the basket , and to the horrified gasps of the spectators, boldly bit into it. The crowd waited tensely for the colonel to fall to the ground in pain. But, amazingly, nothing happened. Man Eats Tomato and Lives! 63 From that day, the tomato took off in the United States, and soon became a staple of American cuisine. Thanks to the brave Colonel Johnson , our lives are enriched by pizza, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, Bloody Marys, and BLTs. There is only one nagging problem with this magnificent tale of courage in the face of ignorance: it isn’t true, from the stuff about the love apples to the business about Colonel Johnson. The whole sordid affair has been exposed by a modern historian, Andrew F. Smith, who in 1990 published an article entitled “The Making Colonel Robert G. Johnson There was a Colonel Robert Johnson, and he lived in Salem County, but there is no truth to the story that he was the first person to eat a tomato. Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries— New Jersey Portraits Collection. 64 There’s More to New Jersey . . . of the Legend of Robert Gibbon Johnson and the Tomato,” in the journal New Jersey History. According to Smith, there was indeed a Colonel Johnson who lived in Salem County early in the nineteenth century. He was indeed a leading citizen, and he established the Salem County Agricultural Society. And indeed, Salem County did become a center of tomato growing in the United States. But no diary, letter, newspaper, or other source from that era mentions any link whatsoever between Colonel Johnson and the tomato. Moreover, the tomato industry did not get started in New Jersey until almost half a century after the supposed event. It also turns out that tomatoes were well known and well eaten in the United States long before 1820. Colonial cookbooks, letters, and gardening manuals all mention the tomato. Thomas Jefferson, among other early Americans, regularly grew and consumed them. So the legend of Colonel Johnson eating tomatoes on the Court House steps is bunk. Was there a nugget of truth underneath the legend? It might just have happened that although tomatoes were being eaten by big shots like Jefferson , folks in rural Salem County eyed them with suspicion. And it may be that Colonel Johnson had something to do with their introduction. But on the other hand, there are two other local accounts about the origin of the tomato in South Jersey that are at least equally probable. In one, the vegetable was introduced by some Philadelphia ladies visiting Salem County; in another, tomatoes were first grown by a Cumberland County farmer in 1812. How did the Johnson legend get started? The first reference...