Did audiences throw tomatoes at performers they disliked? There is a frequent trope in movies and television where audiences throw rotten tomatoes at performers they don't like (for instance, the Onceler in the Lorax has tomatoes thrown at him). This goes back quite a ways in fiction; I seem to remember _Huckleberry Finn_ containing a scene where people planned on throwing rotten vegetables at performers. It is claimed by this site that: > Pelting unlucky victims with rotten produce is one of our oldest forms of expression, older even than tomato cultivation. Rotten tomatoes are often associated with Shakespeare's Globe Theater in Elizabethan London, but in actuality, tomatoes were still uncommon and weren't even mentioned in the first English cookbook until 1752, nearly 150 years later. Are there published, factual accounts of audiences throwing tomatoes at performers?

**Yes** , this is a case of art imitating life since early theater patrons were quite rambunctious. An article from October 28, 1883 that was published in The New York Times describes an incident as follows:

> He probably would have succeeded had not a great many tomatoes struck him, throwing him off his balance and demoralizing him. It was some time before the audience could induce him to go on with the performance.

The New York Times also summarizes some more recent incidents in a 1998 article.