The tomato is the world’s most argued-about fruit. Botanists say it’s a berry. The Supreme Court says it’s a vegetable. Italians say it’s the foundation of civilization. Everyone else just eats it.
Fruit, berry, vegetable
Botanically, a tomato is a fruit: it develops from the fertilized ovary of a flower and contains seeds. More specifically, it’s a berry, a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. By this definition, grapes and bananas are also berries, while strawberries are not.
In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Nix v. Hedden that tomatoes are vegetables under customs law. The reasoning: they’re served at dinner, not dessert. The court acknowledged the botanical facts but ruled on common usage. The case was about import tariffs. Vegetables were taxed; fruits weren’t.
From tomatl to tomato
The tomato originated in western South America but was first domesticated by the Aztecs in present-day Mexico, who called it tomatl. Spanish conquistadors brought it to Europe in the 1500s.
Europeans were suspicious. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), along with deadly nightshade and tobacco. Its leaves are mildly toxic. Wealthy Europeans who ate tomatoes from pewter plates sometimes got lead poisoning, as the acid leached lead from the tableware. The tomato got the blame.
For over 200 years, many Europeans grew tomatoes as ornamental plants. The Italians were among the first to eat them regularly, calling them pomodoro (“golden apple,” suggesting the first European tomatoes were yellow).
Italy’s unlikely love affair
Italian cuisine as we know it, heavy on tomato sauces, is surprisingly recent. Tomatoes didn’t become central to Italian cooking until the 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest known recipe for pasta with tomato sauce dates to 1790.
Pizza margherita, supposedly created in 1889 to honor Queen Margherita of Italy with the colors of the Italian flag (red tomato, white mozzarella, green basil), may be an origin myth. But the dish itself is real and became the template for Neapolitan pizza worldwide.
The San Marzano tomato, grown in volcanic soil near Mount Vesuvius, is considered the gold standard for pizza sauce. It has fewer seeds, thicker flesh, and lower acidity than most varieties.
The flavor crash
Modern tomatoes were bred for yield, disease resistance, shelf life, and uniform ripeness. Flavor was never a selection criterion. Researchers at the University of Florida found that modern commercial tomatoes have lost 13 volatile compounds that contribute to flavor compared to heirloom varieties.
The gene responsible for uniform ripeness (the u mutation) also reduces sugar and aromatic compound production. Growers chose pretty, evenly red tomatoes over tasty ones, and consumers paid the price.
Heirloom varieties like Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and Green Zebra retain the old flavor genetics. They bruise easily and have shorter shelf lives, which is why they’re mostly sold at farmers’ markets rather than supermarkets.