[rtpg]

There’s something funny about becoming so wealthy that you decide to set a private generator up in your home (slowly poisoning you in the process). I would say tragic but I don’t know how much sympathy I have for titans of industry.

Reminds me of how rich Italians hated tomatoes cuz silverware interacted with the tomatoes meaning you were slowly ingesting metal (compared to poorer people with wooden utensils and the like)

[cperciva]

I think it's more than just a matter of acid leeching from metal utensils and plates. Italy -- rather like early America -- consisted of a relatively urbanized and wealthy North and a poorer and more rural South. Tomatoes (and pizza!) were a staple of Southern Italian cuisine but snobby Northerners ate more pasta and meat.

[rtpg]

I don’t think it’s just that!

I can’t find the sourcing for this but what I read was that contemporary descriptions of the taste of tomatoes were outright wrong from certain people, but would make sense if you were indeed eating tomatoes with metal.

This combined with an idea that eating tomatoes makes you sick that persisted… same deal! Tomatoes will make you sick if you’re poisoning yourself in the process.

Now I remember reading this on a pretty barren old fashioned web page so…maybe complete BS

EDIT: this article seems to substantiate my claims a bit https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-the-tomato-w...

[jacobolus]

Everyone at the time already had private coal furnaces in their basements poisoning their own homes.