Food: The Joy of Tomatoes

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The Joy of Tomatoes
Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Although people throughout the world attempt to grow tomatoes, they are native to the very warm, humid climates in Mexico and other parts of Central America as well as South America. Tomatoes, known for their normally bright red color, are members of the nightshade family of fruits. The word tomato is itself from the Aztec word tomatl.

The fruit is an annual, which means that it flowers and dies in one season. That means that if you plant tomatoes, you must purchase new plants, or germinate seeds from your old ones, every year. The tomato plant is very woody. The stalk grows very quickly and can reach up to three meters long. The long stem of the plant is why most gardeners use wooden stakes to hold up the plant so that it does not overrun the other plants in the garden.

The plant will flower first. The yellow flowers will remain for days and then turn into the berry that is edible. In the wild, tomatoes are only one to two centimeters wide, but in the cultivated forms on modern farms, they grow several times that size.

You can eat tomatoes right off the vine. There is no need to cook this delicious fruit. Most people slice them and have as a side dish, or they put them in salads. You also can deep fry tomatoes, especially the harder green variety. In addition, they work in stews and soups, pasta sauces, casseroles, and other dishes. Tomatoes have an acidic taste, which makes them undesirable for some people. Their taste is rarely tempered by other ingredients, so be sure that everyone at the table enjoys the intense flavor before you cook up a great tomato dish.

Although many people consider tomatoes vegetables because of their flavor and the way we cook them, they are technically a fruit because of the heavy seeding and soft flesh on the inside of the berry. In fact, tomatoes are made up of a significant portion of water.

In the United States, the Supreme Court decided in 1887 that tomatoes are in fact a vegetable. While that decision may seem unimportant, it was very important to discussions of tax breaks in the nineteenth century. Imports of fruits were taxed heavily to encourage the fledgling U.S. fruit market. Growers who imported tomatoes from the West Indies wanted them considered a vegetable to avoid the tax, but the Supreme Court declared them a fruit, making them subject to the fruit import tax.

Tomatoes are a heart-healthy food. They have no saturated fat and no sodium, meaning they are an excellent choice for people with hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also are low calorie all around and add nothing to your daily cholesterol intake. On the vitamin side, they are a significant source of Vitamin A, which helps your eyes, and Vitamin C.

The fun history and nutritious value of tomatoes is all interesting, but you don't need to worry about all of that when you sit down to the dinner table with a tomato on your plate. You will get lost in the sweet and sour of this ancient berry sitting in your own kitchen.

by Julia Mercer

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