I can’t find the sourcing for this but what I read was that contemporary descriptions of the taste of tomatoes were outright wrong from certain people, but would make sense if you were indeed eating tomatoes with metal.

This combined with an idea that eating tomatoes makes you sick that persisted… same deal! Tomatoes will make you sick if you’re poisoning yourself in the process.

Now I remember reading this on a pretty barren old fashioned web page so…maybe complete BS

EDIT: this article seems to substantiate my claims a bit https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-the-tomato-w...