Tomato Casual » The Tomacco: One Simpsons Episode Comes to Life

Tomacco By Vanessa Richins

If you are a Simpsons fan, you may have seen the episode where Homer Simpson crosses tomatoes and tobacco with the aid of plutonium.

The result was dubbed a “tomacco”. It tasted horrible, being loaded with nicotine, and produced instantaneous addiction.

While the fruit as envisioned on the show does not exist, this is closer to reality that you may have thought.

Tomatoes and tobacco are both members of the Solanaceae family, so they can be crossbred and grafted. The first successful “tomacco” plant was reported in a 1959 edition of Scientific American. The scientists had grafted tomato tops onto tobacco roots. The resulting plant was tested and nicotine was detected in the leaves.

After this episode of the Simpsons aired, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, OR decided to try it for himself. He remembered seeing the 1959 article and used the same method of grafting described to produce his plant. He was afraid to eat the results, fearing it may have contained more than the lethal dose of nicotine - 50 to 60 milligrams.

A local laboratory offered to test the tomaccoes for free. Results concluded that the tomacco itself did not contain nicotine, though the leaves did have some. One tomacco was given to a Simpsons writer and another one auctioned off on eBay. An engineer from Xerox ate one with no ill effects. The plant lived for eighteen months.

While I certainly would not suggest creating a tomacco plant for yourself, it is still fun to see how a cartoon show episode inspired one man to experiment with tomato plants.