Tom Tom Tomato

Tomatoes were born in South America and are actually a distant cousin of the potato, of the poisonous nightshade family. The Indians living in the Andes cultivated it as much as five thousand years ago. They, however, did not delve into its genetic pool and hence did not find out that it was actually a fruit, not a vegetable. It took the civilized modern world also a couple of centuries to come to this startling conclusion, that the tomato is a fruit, even though it is completely different in nature from its cousins in vegetables.

The luscious red fruit was first grown in home farms and eaten as a part of the staple diet in Mexico, nearly three thousand years ago. We assume that it was brought from South America to Mexico with the migration of native Indians. It is interesting to note that the first specie of tomato that was cultivated for domestic use was the cherry tomato, an exotic variety today.

When it came to the western world some four hundred years ago, the tomato was not as highly prized as it was in its native land. The reason was its tainted relationship to Solanaecea, a poisonous plant family. It is a distant cousin of such unlikely plants as the sweet pepper and aubergines, not to mention potatoes. After a lot of emotional struggle (we presume this because it must have been a difficult temptation for pleasure loving Italians and aesthetic French to not be able to eat something so juicy and lovely). It did not take long for he scales to fall in by 1550, Italians became the first people to accept tomato as one of their own, lovingly calling it pomi d’oro (golden apple), and they were hooked to its flavor. The French were the next to follow, calling it an even better pomme d'amour (love apple), and continue to love it to date. But we have to note that these tomatoes were a rich yellow in color, and the red variety was not introduced to Europe till the eighteenth century, along with the rest of the New World. Till today, tomato is an integral part of almost any Italian food.

The rest of the world took another two centuries to like and appreciate this fruit as much as these connoisseurs. It was only in the eighteenth century that America started eating and even liking the taste of the tomato. Even in Americas, New England was the last to start using it, while Chefs in southern cities like New Orleans had already started using it as a regular part of their cuisine. It was in 1830 that the Brahmins of New England accepted it and then the praises did not seem to have an end, the humble tomato was attributed with all kinds of magical properties, including medicinal cures, many of which we now know were false claims (one interesting one seemed to make it a powerful aphrodisiac).

Today, there are almost countless varieties of tomatoes available, with a great number of the familiar red salad varieties, there are yellow, orange and green tomatoes, as well as tomatoes that are striped, multicolored and even variegated. An easy to grow plant, the tomato can flourish almost anywhere on the planet, wherever there is sunshine and some amount of warmth. Its health benefits make it extremely good for human consumption.

The tomato’s red color is due to the presence of lycopene, which belongs to a family of food pigments called carotenoids, also found in vegetables like carrots. This substance is a proven anti-oxidant, protecting the human body from severely debilitating disease like cancer. Its function in the human body relates to maintenance of cell tissue and anti -oxidation of body cells. Here. One must remember that anti-oxidants effectively reduce the process of ageing by slowing down cell damage. The body by itself does not produce lycopene but can absorb the substance from fruits and vegetables and tomato happens to be a primary source of this elixir of youth. In act, tomato and its preserved products can supply up to 85% of our body’s requirement of lycopene. The lycopene content in processed tomatoes is higher than in raw tomato, so one must go for tomato sauce, paste or juice, in the fruits and vegetable serving’s part of our daily diet.

In addition to lycopene, tomatoes are very high in vitamin A and C content, apart from being completely cholesterol free. So much so that there are scientific studies to prove that cooked tomatoes reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer too. The vitamin C content is also adequate for keeping one healthy, in fact one tomato takes care of almost 50% of the human body’s Vitamin C requirement. Other nutrients such as organic sodium phosphorus, calcium, potassium, magnesium, malic and oxalic acid and sulfur are also found in magnanimous quantities in this tasty little fruit.

But the catch is that vine-ripened tomatoes are the main source of these nutrients, not artificially ripened ones. So almost universally it is a good idea to grow one’s own tomatoes and it is not difficult, considering they can be cultivated in little pots even inside small apartments, so long as they get light and sunshine.