LOVE TOMATO
You may pronounce it ‘tuh-MAH-toh’ or ‘tuh-MEY-toh’, but you don’t dent that the luscious
TOMATO is way up there in popularity with potatoes and onions. But when people first saw it, they had two questions: was it poisonous or edible and was it a fruit or a vegetable?
Spanish adventurer Hernando Cortez brought back tomato seeds from South America to Europe but the plants were initially grown as ornamental curiosities. In fact, the
tomatoes were shunned as it belonged to the deadly nightshade family. Till the end of the 18th century, physicians warned that tomatoes could cause appendicitis and even cancer!
Then it was found that its leaves and stems were poisonous but the fruits were delicious to eat. Once it was accepted, the tomatoes raced to the top of the popularity chart. The French thought it kindled passion and named it Pomme d’amour or apple. The Italians and Spanish, who were first to cultivate it extensively, called it Pomi d’oro or golden apple since the kind they grew was yellow.
To answer the second question, the tomato is botanically a fruit. In 1893, when an American importer claimed that it was a fruit to avoid the
vegetable tax, the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato was a vegetable. It had always been used as a vegetable; never as a fruit -so it was taxable! Tomatoes can be big, measuring 10cm in diameter, or a tiny 2cm wide. Some are red and green while others are
yellow and orange. They can be perfectly round or pear-shaped. Cherry and grape tomatoes are eaten whole or in salads, while the bigger ones are made into soup, paste or sauce. Some rare kinds came in black, pink, brown and purple colours.
Today, tomatoes rank sixth in the list of ten most cultivated vegetables with a global production of 125 million tones. China is the biggest producer while India comes fourth.
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