Praise The Mighty Tomato

Tomatoes are one of the most important vegetables (fruits actually) in today’s cuisine. Very versatile, they can be incorporated into almost every food preparation: raw in salads and sandwiches, roast or broiled as a vegetable, and of course, stewed for soups and sauces. In the first half of this century tomatoes were even used in confectionery, to make tomato cake. And above all, in these health conscious 90’s, tomatoes are good for you. High in vitamin C, the average tomato (1 cup chopped) is more than 90% water and contains approximately 35 calories.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the attraction and universal appeal that the humble tomato has. There is nothing quite like plucking a tomato straight from the garden and biting into it while it is still warm from the sun. It is one of the world’s most popular vegetables and has greatly changed some of the most influential cuisines. The U.S. is still the largest producer of tomatoes in the world. We eat, on average, per person, 18 pounds fresh and 70 pounds processed tomatoes each year. And between 25-40 million people in our country plant tomatoes in their gardens each year.

Believe-it-or-not though, it wasn’t until Columbus stumbled upon America and took some of its rich bounty back to Europe that Italy, Spain, France--or all of the Mediterranean for that matter--saw its first tomato. It then took more than a century before they were actually eaten; tomatoes were originally thought to be poisonous and used as ornamental plants only. Today tomatoes play an important role in cuisines around the globe. Before the arrival of the tomato in Europe the food there was drastically different. Gazpacho, for example, is said to have existed in Spain for more than a millennium, but prior to the 15th century it didn’t contain tomatoes and wasn’t red, it was originally green with fresh herbs, or white with garlic and breadcrumbs. A version of this ancient white gazpacho still exists today and is referred to as ajo blanco (white garlic). Italy did have pasta but not with tomato sauce. It was generally tossed with spices, nuts, herbs and chicken -- methods and seasonings borrowed from the Greeks and Arabs. And the famous Mediterranean soups such as bouillabaisse, soupe de poissons or zuppa di pesce also existed, but they were probably white and, more likely than not, thickened with egg and lemon as with the Greek avgolemono. Today it’s almost impossible to imagine any of these cuisines without the tomato. The Italians called it pomodoro (golden apple, while the French originally called it pomme d’amoure (love apple); the name, tomato, is actually derived from the Aztec name tomatl.

Interestingly, it took the tomato two trips across the Atlantic before it was accepted into American culture--the British colonists initially rejected it as a poisonous fruit and refused to eat it. In 1822 Robert Gibbon Johnson, the president of the Salem County Horticultural Society in New Jersey, ate a raw tomato on the steps of city hall in front of a horrified and skeptical crowd of people…and he lived to tell about it. Imagine. It wasn’t until immigrants from the Mediterranean basin arrived in this country, and brought the tomato back to its homeland, that it was accepted into modern cuisine.

Though tomatoes are available the year round, they are at their peak during the months of July, August and September. The rest of the year canned tomatoes are far superior for sauce making, and for salads use sundried tomatoes during the winter months (sundried tomatoes were born out of necessity, not trendiness). Look for tomatoes that are plump, juicy and seem heavy for their size. Also, tomatoes should be stored at room temperature, the cold air of the refrigerator robs them of flavor.

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