Tomato sketch - Mercorabilia

This month's catch-up starts with an observation on the simple act of eating a tomato. Was it always this simple?

Judge: Goody Badwife – you have been found guilty of the heinous crime of witchcraft and you have been sentenced to the most hideous of punishments – death… by tomato.
Crowd: <gasps>
Prisoner: No! Please! Anything but that!
Judge: Silence! The tomato, as we all know, is a member of the deadly nightshade family and thus an extremely poisonous plant. It will leave you writhing in hideous agony until your agonising and excruciating death.
Prisoner: No! Please! Give me another chance! If only I could…
Judge: Enough! Executioner – bring forth… the tomato.
Crowd: Ooh. Aah. Ohhh.
Judge: Now… eat!
Prisoner: <chewing> Er. Oh. Ugh. Ah!
Judge: Yes, that’s the poison now coursing through your veins as the agony takes hold of your body. Tell us now - how do you feel?
Prisoner: Er…. I feel fine actually. This is actually really good. Little bit unripe maybe.
Judge: What?!? That proves it – she must be a witch. No human could eat a tomato and live!
Villager: Uh… actually I have.
Judge: You have?
Villager: Yes. And she’s right – they’re rather nice actually.
Judge: Why didn’t you say anything?
Villager: Well, when you said they were so poisonous I figured maybe what I’d eaten hadn’t been a tomato after all. Turns out it was.
Judge: But this is preposterous! We can’t sentence someone to death and only have them eat a slightly unripe vegetable.
Prisoner: Well, I don’t really mind to be honest.
Judge: You don’t count. You’re the condemned party. We’ll have to come up with something else instead.
Prisoner: Oh, well. In the meantime have you got a napkin or something to wipe this tomato juice off with?
Judge: Napkin?!? We don’t waste napkins on witches. Executioner – chuck her in that lake to wash the juice off while we think of another punishment for her.
Prisoner: What? No! Wait! Please! I can’t swim!
<Splash>
Prisoner: Gurgle. Glug. Glug. Glug.
Judge: Hmm. It seems we’ve found our new method. 

From The Mind of Merc - New Ideas

(Note to self: next time I go away for the weekend, remember to take a laptop with me - otherwise blog posts don't get uploaded) Anyway...

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today (or, to be more accurate, 2 days ago) I was thinking about peculiar decisions our predecessors have made. This follows along similar lines to my previous questions post but is slightly different as it’s more – how did these seemingly bizarre events become normal to us?

For example: milking a cow– who thought of it first?
It’s such a seemingly innocuous and normal thing to do nowadays. But who was the first person to think ‘See those dangly things hanging underneath that cow over there? I’m going to go and squeeze them and drink whatever comes out’ (And before you think ‘ew’, thanks to that individual, we all do it)

Secondly, eating an egg. Eggs are a good healthy source of protein and used in many different dishes in many different ways. But who could look at a chicken’s bum and think ‘There’s a good source of food’.

Thirdly, tomatoes. For several centuries (even after its introduction to Britain) tomatoes were believed to be poisonous as they are a member of the deadly nightshade family. So what was going on in the mind of the person who decided to eat one? Did they not care? Did they do it for a bet? Were they on death row – their sentence being ‘Death by Tomato’? (If so, I bet the executioner was disappointed).

And finally, whoever thought cigarettes were a good idea?
Basically you take a leaf, crush it up, wrap it in paper, set it on fire(!) and then put it in your mouth. And not only that but you inhale the smoke – what possible harm could that do?
You have to wonder whether the person responsible was really that hard up for entertainment? Was setting fire to them the best thing they could find to do with them? And, if so, why put them in your mouth?
Also, did they experiment with different leaves? Or did they only have tobacco leaves to hand? Had people for years been smoking hawthorn leaves until the miraculous tobacco leaves arrived?

Makes you think...