Somewhat like that constant debate in the world about whether the chicken came first or the egg, the tomato’s identity has also been quite debated. More about that debate later, but first let us discover about this mass of red pulp.
This species is said to have originated in the South American Andes, in the region that is marked as Chile, Bolivia and Peru today. Initially it was known as the Peruvian apple, while the French later termed it the love apple.
The Mexicans are credited with the beginning of its usage in food and we owe it to the Spanish colonisation of the Americas for taking it far and wide across the world. Can you believe that a long time back it was looked at with great deal of suspicion and thought to be poisonous (the leaves are)? Here is another nugget from history books — somewhere around the year 1544, an Italian botanist and physician suggested that it was just a new type of eggplant which was red or golden in colour. As a result in Iran the earliest name given to the tomato was closer in meaning to eggplant. What were they called? Armani bademjan or the Armenian eggplant.
Are you wondering how it came our way? Well, for that the credit must be given to the Spaniards again, who distributed it among all their colonies in the Carribean and took the tomato to the Philippines from where it made its way to south east Asia and from there to the whole of the Asian continent. The English word — tomato comes from the word tomate in the Spanish language.
Another interesting fact about the tomato is that it was initially grown for its ornamental value in Italy. The Britishers began to use tomatoes only around the mid 18th century before which they were largely considered poisonous as mentioned earlier.
Today the culinary world seems to be unable to do much without tomatoes. The rich history and the various ways in which it is used — eaten raw, used in dishes, drinks, soups and salads give the tomato a certain charm.
Now we move on to some health benefits of tomatoes:
■ They are a rich source of lycopene, the carotenoid pigment which gives tomatoes and many others their red colour. Lycopene is considered to ward off the risk of certain kinds of cancerous growth in human bodies.
■ Tomatoes are hailed for the high content of anti-oxidants in them.
■ Scientists have associated tomato consumption with decreased levels of cholesterol declaring it heart-friendly.
I am sure the scenes of the La Tomatina festival that you must have seen in a film some years back must be in your mind now.
La Tomatina is held every year on
the last Wednesday of August in the town of Bunol in Spain where people throw squashed tomatoes at each other for fun.
And now before I sign off, let me tell you about the debate that I mentioned at the beginning of this article.
Back in 1893 an importer contended that it was a fruit because it is pulpy and has seeds. He argued so to save a tax of 10 per cent that the Port Authority of New York levied on vegetables as tariff and, as you must have guessed, tomatoes were considered veggies. The matter reached the Supreme Court where it was decided that tomatoes — owing to their use as a vegetable and not a fruit, which is used in desserts — counted as vegetables, and the importer had to keep paying the tariff.
Yet botanically speaking tomato remains a fruit!