The history of tomatoes has an exciting and strange story.
About 50,000 people ask this question on Google every month, and there has always been a strange question: Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables? So, the answer is worth considering. Fortunately, the Britannica encyclopedia provides a good answer in the form of a short sentence: Tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable.
In this article, Arenafood company points of the history of tomatoes
Tomatoes are a popular vegetable
Tomatoes are the most popular fruit in the world! In many countries, they are used as raw food materials. Avidly consumed by people from Asia to America, tomatoes are undoubtedly very popular in countries like India and China, as more than 43 million tons of tomatoes are produced in these countries every year.
Of course, remember that Arena Food is a tomato paste manufacturer; they use fresh tomatoes for this purpose and export aseptic tomato paste.
What is the secret of this popularity?
Tomatoes, cooked or raw, or as tomato sauce or tomato paste, are very popular. Tomatoes have become the most popular vegetable category, with a cutting volume of at least 170 million tons per year.
For example, you can use raw tomato in a salad, and in omelete, use cooked tomato.
History of tomatoes
In the history of tomatoes, the first people to plant seed tomatoes were the Maya and other Central American tribes. The Spaniards imported tomatoes from Mexico in 1520 and made them their culture. Then, the British colonists took them to the United States. It took some time for tomatoes to enter the food culture of the American public.
During this period, people generally believed that tomatoes were poisonous. But the reality was that wealthy Europeans ate it on thin, lead plates. The acidity in the tomatoes drove the lead out of the plates, causing many aristocrats to die from lead poisoning, with tomato survivors blaming the incident.
In the past, people believed that tomatoes were harmful, But a man named Robert Gibbon Johnson lived in New Jersey and grew tomatoes and believed that tomatoes were healthy and safe. In South America, he ate tomatoes in public to show that this delicious product is healthy and dispel the rumor.
When Johnson first dipped his teeth into a tomato, people shook with shock and even fainted. But, after Johnson survived the adventure, the American people began to eat tomatoes safely. As more people started growing and eating tomatoes, restaurants added them to their menus.
Tomatoes are a staple of Italian cuisine
The history of tomatoes, however, does not end there. Tomatoes were used in Europe long before they became common in the United States. The Italians began growing tomatoes around 1550. However, what made tomatoes the focus of Italian cuisine did not happen until 1889.
It was at this time that Naples pizza expert Rafael Esposito prepared a meal in honor of Queen Margarita of Savi. This dish is the same as Margarita pizza. What made this pizza so famous was its ingredients, which were reminiscent of the Italian flag and were popular at the time because Italy had only been a united country for 28 years. In fact, the history of tomatoes and pizza is intertwined!
The place of tomatoes among the people of Spain
As mentioned, the Spaniards were the first to bring tomatoes to Europe. Tomatoes are so popular among the Spanish people that it has become the largest tomato festival in the country.
Every year, on the last Wednesday in August, the people of Buñol in the Valencia region prepare for La Tomatina, the world’s largest traditional food-throwing festival. Due to the festival’s popularity and the presence of up to 45,000 people, La Tomatina is now a big event for which the authorities have planned tickets to limit attendance.
Holding a tomato festival
The festival Spin Tomato began in 1945 after a street fight near a vegetable store in Buñol. It was so attractive to the young people of the city that the following year, they brought tomatoes from home and threw them on the street.
In this festival, cheap and low-quality tomatoes with lousy taste are used. In this way, participants will not feel remorse for wasting food resources.
Tomatoes on the Iranian table
Now that you have read the history of tomatoes let’s look at Iran. Tomatoes were brought to Iran during the reign of Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar and gradually became popular, so much so that now it is rare to find Iranian food that does not use this delicious fruit or its paste. Iran is the seventh country in the world in terms of tomato production.
The popularity of tomatoes in Iran is so high that in addition to using tomato paste as a seasoning for most Iranian stews, even raw tomatoes are used in breakfast and dinner with cheese and cucumber.
