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Onion and tomato have taken over my kitchen entirely. Call it an obsession or habit, I add tomatoes in almost every dry or curry dish that I make. My love for this red coloured fruit (yes, it's not a vegetable) is not measurable. Today, it is being used worldwide for culinary purposes but that was not the case in the past. In fact, tomatoes were considered poisonous and people believed that tomatoes would turn blood into acid if eaten. Still, it was cultivated in some regions but purely for decoration. The misconception about tomato being poisonous was due to its association with the Nightshade family of which a few spices are actually poisonous. Moreover, the unpleasant odour of the tomato plant’s stems and leaves also contributed to thinking that this fruit was unfit for eating.
Tomatoes (Picture Courtesy: Pixabay)
Believed to be originated in South America, tomato got its name from the Spanish word ‘tomate’ which came from the Nahuatl word ‘tomatl.’ Nahuatl was the language that Aztec spoke. Tomatoes slowly reached the lands between Mexico and north Cosa Rica where several Pre-Columbian societies flourished until the arrival of Europeans. One of those societies integrated tomatoes into their cultural cuisine. That culture was Aztecs.
You will be surprised to know that even though tomato's origin is in the Andes, the fruit was unknown as food for a long in America until it became a commonly eaten thing in Europe.
Tomatoes (Picture Courtesy: Pixabay)
It was Christopher Columbus, who became the first European to have come in contact with tomatoes. He possibly encountered it in 1493. However, it was Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés who saw potential in tomatoes as being an eatable fruit when he visited Aztec city. He then took the seeds of tomato to Europe. Later, the Spanish government began encouraging its cultivation seeing that tomatoes can grow without any problem in a warm Mediterranean climate. By the early 17th century, the tomato became one of the widely grown fruits in Spanish fields.
Picture Courtesy: Shutterstock
The rest of the European nation took time to adopt tomatoes. They used them only as tabletop decorations till the later 17th and early 18th centuries. It faced a similar fate in England too. English people also saw tomatoes as unhealthy and unfit for human consumption. This perception changed in the mid-18th century. The fruit finally arrived in Asia in the early 19th century under the guidance of the British consul in Syria, John Barker. Gradually, tomato cultivation started happening on a wide scale in Syria, Iran, and China.
Currently, China is the largest producer of tomatoes in the world followed by the United States and India.
