The story is widely known about how the cook sent by the British tried to poison George Washington with tomatoes, which in those days were considered toxic berries. We checked if it was true.

This is what this curious story looks like in presentation Sputnik radio observer Olga Bugrova:

“The thunderstorm was strong, but ordinary for the beginning of summer. No one would remember her if lightning had not hit the old oak. He burned. It turned out that in his hollow 43 years lay an iron bank with a note. From it followed: tomatoes can be eaten. The bank was found on June 28, 1820. In the USA. It was a dying note of the personal cook George Washington. The cook was an English spy. In 1777, he was instructed to poison Washington - an American general in the war for US Independence from Great Britain. The spy chose the poison, which he read about in the "Gardening Guide": "The fruits of tomatoes are crazy for those who eat them."

The poisoner was called James Bailey. Until the beginning of the 19th century, he was not alone in Europe and North America, who still considered tomatoes poison. They were grown "for beauty." And if you tasted small green berries, they suffered vomiting and diarrhea until cramps. Bailey decided to act for sure. He took the tomatoes of the largest sizes (already red), extinguished the hot with them and began to watch George Washington. The general had a strong runny nose. He felt neither taste nor smell and indifferently silent a portion. The cook woke up a conscience. He went beyond the oak, near which stood the camping tent of Washington (military operations were in the vicinity of Philadelphia). He began to write a repentant note: "After a few hours, the general will not be alive, he will die in torment. I do not want to wait for revenge and intends to take my life." After that, Bailey was cut by a kitchen knife, which he sharpened himself. And the one who found his message in 1820 realized: you can eat mature tomatoes, since George Washington not only did not die, but did not even go crazy and became the first president of the United States! .. ”

History for many decades has been walking through books and periodic publications. Among these, for example, the book of Andrei Makarevich "I grew up on your songs", publications in "Kommersant" and magazines such as "Knowledge is power" (No. 7, 2005), "Science and Life" (No. 3, 2003). In the older issue "Science and life" (No. 2, 1970) It is presented in sufficient detail. Write about this case and on West.

Let's start with the fact that Homeland Tomatoes just America are true, southern. The first to dominate these fruits of Aztecs and other peoples of Central America ("Tomatl" - the Aztec word denoting a green variety), and the conquistador Ernan Cortes in 1519 brought the seeds to Europe. And while in the south of Europe, in particular in Italy, exotic berries quickly Stressed And they were periodically consumed, in the more northern countries of the continent, the attitude towards them remained wary. In many ways, the work of the Englishman John Gerard is to blame for this "Herbalist, or the general history of plants" (1597), which has gained great popularity in the foggy Albion, although it was not very skilled tracing paper of the Dutch Dodunes and Cluzius. Gerard, the barber and surgeon in the main profession, did not do without error even in the word Lycopérsicum, which is included in the scientific name of the tomatoes, and he called the fruits "stench, with toxic leaves and stem." The dubious glory of the tomatoes, formed by Gerard, prevailed in the UK, and then in the North American colonies over the next 200 years. And although William Salmon in his work Botanologia (1710) mentions the cultivation of tomatoes in Carolin, and in a number of other American regions by the middle of the 18th century the fetus was considered quite edible, but we must remember that the colonies were then very fragmented and every of its own lives lived.

In some places, the myth of the poisonousness of tomatoes was fed by news about real poisoning. The fact is that aristocrats used plates from Pueter - An alloy with a high content of lead, the danger of which was then not suspected. Tomato juice due to its acidity reacted with lead on the surface of the plate, the latter stood out of the alloy, which really led to deaths. He killed people, of course, not juice, but lead, but only enlightened people, like the future third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, who in the early 1780s, knew about such details. I tried it Tomati in Paris and, admiring, sent the seeds to his homeland, and since 1809 he had grown fruits in his Monticello estate.

Thus, it can be allowed that one specific cook could not know about the safety of tomatoes for the human body. However, if we try to find the story of an insidious employee and his courier plan in the sources of the XVIII - XIX centuries, we will find ourselves with nothing. Because it appears for the first time only in 1959 - in the April issue of the detective magazine Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine "Murder of George Washington" The authorship of Richard M. Gordon.

The story is a letter from the Loyalist chef to his distant chef. In it, the attacker states that he took advantage of Washington’s cold, which greatly weakened his taste sensations, and put into stew “the scarlet pulp of one of the most deadly fruits”. Putting the dish in front of the future victim, the cook adds to the letter a postscript, in which he swore to commit suicide: “Like a cook, I have a prejudice to death from the poison, I am too embarrassing to hang myself, but because of my calling I masterfully own a cutting knife.”

That's the whole truth, only artistic. The documents do not know the cook named James (the original story indicates the beginning of the name - jas.) Bailey in the service of the military leader, and later President George Washington. Some details like an oak with a note could appear in subsequent transfers. It can be assumed that the author of the story was familiar with the older legend About Fibi Francis, the 13-year-old daughter of an American restaurateur, who in 1776 allegedly learned about the polka dessment of George Washington Yada and threw the plate out the window, as a result of poisoning local chickens. However, this legend is considered fiction.