Tomato (Morocco, 1671)

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WEST BARBARY...
by Lancelot Addison
Oxford: the Theater in Oxford
1671
(Early English Books Online)

Pg. 80:
   Besides the Sallad ordinary in other countreys, they have one sort rarely to be met with in Europe, which they call in a word, sounding Spanish _Tomatos_.  This growes in the common field, and when ripe is pluckt and eaten with oyle; (Pg. 91) it is pleasant but apt to cloy.  _Battagenas_, as in _Spain_, grow creeping like Cucumers upon the Ground.  These are boyled with Beef and Mutton, and of no vulgar estimation among the Moors.

(Yes, one page is 80 and the facing page is 91...OED has 1604, then 1775 for "tomato."  Andrew Smith wrote a book on the tomato, although it was the tomato in America...I think a copy of this book is in Yale...The online OED just decided not to work for me anymore...Too bad I can't get a commission from people who reach for a "tomato" at a "salad bar"--ed.)