Tomatoes are a versatile and popular ingredient found in many different recipes and diets. While technically a fruit, it’s largely classed as a vegetable by nutritionists.
Tomatoes are a crowd pleasing favourite and are a staple ingredient in many meals in many cultures across the world. They also have many health benefits including being a source of vitamin C, potassium, folate, and vitamin K.
Tomato is an a-lister in the summer vegetable category. When in season, you see tomatoes sweeping across market tables in a variety of colours, shapes, and sizes. They are in all the crowd-pleasing dishes like pizza, pasta, salad, and curry. But how well do you know your tomato?
In this blog, we are going to outline the most fun and interesting facts you might not already know about tomatoes! Read on for more.
1. The First Tomatoes Were Gold And Considered An Aphrodisiac.
When tomatoes were first introduced to Europe in the 16th Century, they were small, golden and cherry sized. This appearance gave them the name ‘golden apples’. Many European countries took this as inspiration and named them with gold names, such as the German ‘goldapfel’. The French were also convinced tomatoes were aphrodisiacs and named them “love apples.”.
2. Tomatoes Are Not Always Red.
Believe it or not, tomatoes are not always red. Instead, they can come in a variety of colours including yellow, pink, purple, black and even white. We tend to only see red tomatoes in supermarkets due to quality standards, but if you head to your local farm shop or greengrocer, you may just find multiple colour varieties.
It may also interest you to know that, there are thought to be more than 3,000 varieties of heirloom or heritage tomatoes currently being grown globally, and more than 15,000 known varieties.
3. Tomatoes Were Poisonous In Britain.
British folk thought tomatoes were too similar to the wolf peach – toxic hallucinogenic nightshade thought to be used for witchcraft – so they deemed the plant poisonous. Pewter was also a popular dishware style in Britain, however, pewter has a high lead content. Acidic food, like tomatoes, would cause lead to leach out into food and cause toxicity. This is essentially the reason why tomatoes were not eaten by the rich until the 1800s.
4. There Is A Worm Specifically Named After The Tomato.
The Tomato Horn Worm is as green as the leaves on the tomato plant and is 3-4 inches long with a horn on its back. These worms can take over patches of tomato plants, eating all of your crops, and they can only be seen with a keen eye or a blacklight.
5. Over 40,000 People Partake In The Annual Tomato Fight.
La Tomatina is a food fight festival held on the last Wednesday of August each year in the town of Buñol near to Valencia in Spain. 150,000 tomatoes and one red stained street later, La Tomatina originated from a street brawl that continues to this day (with the exception of the 2020 cancellation for safety purposes.
6. Tomatoes Are Well Known For Heart Health.
Tomatoes contain some anti-inflammatory properties and are linked to general heart and brain well-being. Tomatoes are also a good source of potassium, which is linked with lowering elevated blood pressure in the body. Therefore, this works against preventing cardiovascular issues.
7. The Word Tomato Comes From Spanish.
The English word for tomato comes from the Spanish word tomate, which itself came from the Nahuatl, the ancient Aztec language, word tomatl. The Aztec name translated to “Plump thing with a navel.”
Tomatoes are great, ripe, juicy, succulent and a great source of essential nutrients.
