Section 4
The tomato is a popular vegetable, which figures and cuisines in many countries around the world. It is particularly prominent in Italian cooking.
But it was unknown in Europe until Spanish explorers brought it back from the Americas.
The tomato was originated in the highlands of Peru. From there it eventually found its way to Mexico, where it was cultivated by the Aztecs.
The Aztec tomato wasn't the large, red vegetable we know today; rather, it was small and yellow.
When the small round fruit arrived in Italy, it was named"golden apple", for its bright yellow colour.
You'll notice that I just called it a fruit. That's because a tomato is botanically a fruit, even almost everyone calls it a vegetable.
The actual wordtomato comes from the Aztec name for the vegetable meaning "plant thing".
The tomato was arrived in Europe in the 1500s, and quickly became a popular food in Spain and Italy.
In the late 1600s, the Italians began publishing recipes that used tomatoes.
The British, however, had a different attitude toward the vegetable.
It was grown as an ornamental plant in Britain in the 1600s, but it wasn't eaten, because it was thought to be poisonous.
It wasn't until the 1700s that tomatoes became part of the daily diet in Britain.
In the United States, tomatoes were also used as ornamental plants rather than as foods for a long time.
This attitude began to change in the 1800s. In 1806 a gardener's calendar mentioned that tomatoes could be used to improve the flavour of soups and other foods.
Thomas Jefferson did much to enhance the tomato's reputation as a food.
He first served tomatoes to visitors at his home in Virginia in 1809.
Then in 1820, a man named Robert Gibbon Johnson decided it was time to discard once influence all the idea that tomatoes were poisonous.
To prove his point, he ate one kilo of ripe tomatoes in public.
2000 people gathered to watch this feat, which took place on the steps of courthouse in Salem, Massachusetts.
Amazing enough, Johnson survived this stunt. The popularity of the tomato as a food began growing rapidly.
Soon people all around the country were eating tomatoes. By the 1830s, the American newspapers and magazines were publishing thousands of tomato recipes.
However, all those recipes involved using tomatoes in some cooked form.
Tomato salads and sandwiches were still not unknown.
It wasn't until a century later in 1930s that they became popular for people to eat raw tomatoes.