Green Grape Tomatoes

Since I was hanging out with my good friend, B Mann, in Oberlin, OH and then driving back to Indiana today, here is a painting a few weeks old of Green Grape Tomatoes

This is another illustration for SESE.
The other day my partner, Juneau, asked me where tomatoes originated. And I thought I remembered reading in some Michael Pollan book that they came from North America. To which he said, "I wonder what Italian food was like before the tomato." I wonder too. No pizza, no spaghetti, or at least they were very different than they are today.
Anyway, I was wrong about where they came from to begin with. Wikipedia tells me it was South America, and that they were brought to the rest of the globe by the Spanish after the colonization of the Americas. And for a long time European people thought tomatoes were poisonous, but my mid-18th centrury they were widely eaten in Europe... And now there is pizza :)
And now I get sleep.