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| Tomato |
| 08.16.07 (11:12 pm) [edit] |
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Tomato
Tomato plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family, as are its close cousins tobacco, chili peppers, potato, and eggplant, which is native to Central, South, and southern North America from Mexico to Peru. It is a perennial plant, often grown outdoors in temperate climates as an annual plant, typically reaching to 1–3 m (3 to 10 feet) in tallness, with a weak, woody stem that often vines over other plants. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate, with 5–9 leaflets, each leaflet up to 8 cm long, with a serrated margin; both the stem and leaves are densely glandular-hairy. The flowers are 1–2 cm across, yellow, with five pointed lobes on the corolla; they are borne in a cyme of 3–12 together. The utterance tomato derives from a word in the Nahuatl language, tomato. The specific name, lycopersicum, means "wolf-peach"
According to Andrew F Smith's The Tomato in America, the tomato probably originated in the highlands of the west coast of South America. Smith notes there is no evidence the tomato was cultivated or even eaten before the Spanish arrived. Other researchers, however, have pointed out that this is not conclusive, as many other fruits in continuous cultivation in Peru are not present in the very limited historical record. Much horticultural knowledge was lost after the arrival of Europeans.
There is a competing theory that says the tomato, like the word "tomato", originated in Mexico, where one of the two apparently oldest "wild" types grows. It is entirely possible that domestication even arose in both regions independently.
In any case, by some means the tomato migrated to Central America. Maya and other peoples in the region used the fruit in their cooking, and it was being cultivated in southern Mexico and probably other areas, by the 16th century. It is thought that the Pueblo people believed those who witnessed the ingestion of tomato seeds were blessed with powers of forecast. The large, lumpy tomato, a mutation from a smoother, smaller fruit, originated and was encouraged in Central America. Smith states this variant is the direct ancestor of some modern cultivated tomatoes.
Two modern tomato cultivar groups, one represented by the Matt's Wild Cherry tomato, the other by currant tomatoes, and both originate by recent domestication of the wild tomato plants apparently resident to eastern Mexico.
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