50 Fun Facts About Tomato

Botanically, what kind of fruit is a tomato?

It is eaten as a vegetable, and in 1893 the US Supreme Court agreed to treat it as one, at least for tariffs.

The tomato belongs to which plant family, alongside potatoes, tobacco and chili peppers?

Early Europeans assumed the new fruit was poisonous for exactly that reason and grew it as an ornamental.

From which language does the word 'tomato' ultimately come?

Spanish 'tomate' came from the Aztec 'tomatl'; the Aztecs called red ones 'xitomatl'.

The wild ancestor of the tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium, is native to which region?

It grows in Chile, Peru and Ecuador; the domesticated plant was probably first a cherry-sized tomato.

Which conquistador's 1521 capture of Tenochtitlan set the tomato on its way to Europe?

Bernardino de Sahagún described Aztec markets selling large, small, sweet, serpent and nipple-shaped tomatoes in every colour from red to yellow.

Who wrote the earliest known European mention of the tomato, in a 1544 herbal?

He thought it was a new kind of eggplant; ten years later he named it 'pomi d'oro', golden apples.

What does the Italian word for tomato, 'pomodoro', literally mean?

The first European tomatoes described were often yellow; English herbals called it the 'love apple'.

The earliest known cookbook with tomato recipes was published in 1692 in which city?

The author seems to have taken the recipes from Spanish sources; in Florence the fruit stayed a table decoration until the 1700s.

The San Marzano tomato is grown near which volcano?

Legend says the first seed arrived in 1770 as a gift from Peru to the Kingdom of Naples; it carries an EU protected designation of origin.

Which two tomato types are the only ones permitted for 'true Neapolitan pizza'?

Both come from the volcanic soils around Naples.

In Nix v. Hedden (1893), the US Supreme Court ruled the tomato a vegetable for the purpose of what?

The 1883 Tariff Act taxed vegetables but not fruit; the court said tomatoes are served with dinner, not dessert.

Which justice wrote the unanimous Nix v. Hedden opinion?

He held that 'fruit' and 'vegetable' in the Tariff Act carried their ordinary, not botanical, meaning.

What percentage of a raw tomato is water?

Carbohydrates make up most of the rest, at about 4 percent.

Which pigment gives ripe tomatoes their red colour?

Unusually, cooking tomatoes increases the amount of it your body can absorb.

Which mildly toxic alkaloid is found in tomato leaves, stems and green fruit?

Domestication selected for fruit that converts the bitter compound away as it ripens; large amounts of foliage can be toxic to dogs.

Which country led world tomato production in 2023, growing about 36 percent of the 192 million tonnes?

In the US, Florida and California dominate thanks to long, hot growing seasons.

Which Ohio plant breeder introduced the Paragon in 1870, the first of many commercial tomato varieties?

His hometown of Reynoldsburg holds an annual Tomato Festival and calls itself the Birthplace of the Tomato.

Which US state made the tomato its official fruit in 2009 and tomato juice its official beverage in 1965?

Arkansas hedged, declaring its pink tomato both state fruit and state vegetable in one law.

Which state made its Vine Ripe Pink Tomato both state fruit and state vegetable in one law?

The law cited both the culinary and the botanical classification.

What was the first commercially available genetically modified food, licensed in 1994?

Calgene engineered it for longer shelf life; costs sank the company and Monsanto bought it.

Which Californian company developed the first GM tomato in the 1980s?

It used a modified Agrobacterium to insert an antisense gene that blocked a rotting enzyme.

Which tomato cultivar had its complete genome published in Nature in 2012?

The ketchup company's own processing variety was chosen as the reference plant.

Modern uniformly red tomatoes carry the 'u' mutation. What did it cost the fruit?

The mutant chloroplasts make less sugar, cutting it by 10 to 15 percent, in exchange for no green shoulders.

Who moved the tomato into its own genus in 1768, naming it Lycopersicon esculentum?

Genetics later proved Linnaeus right to keep it in Solanum, and it is Solanum lycopersicum again.

Which vegetable is the tomato's closest relative, forming a tight clade with it inside Solanum?

Lab hybrids of tomato and diploid potato are partially fertile, and a 2025 study suggests the potato line arose from a tomato-lineage hybrid.

Which insects are cultured in greenhouses to pollinate tomatoes?

Growers otherwise use artificial wind or vibrate the plants.

Handling which product can spread a common virus to tomato plants?

Tobacco mosaic virus wrinkles the plant's top leaves; tomatoes and tobacco are cousins.

Which type has few, very small locules (seed cavities), while beefsteaks have many?

Globe-shaped varieties usually have three to five, and small ones as few as two.

What is the term for open-pollinated, non-hybrid tomato varieties like Brandywine and Cherokee Purple?

Mortgage Lifter, Green Zebra and Black Krim are others; British growers say 'heritage'.

What is the traditional Californian method of growing Early Girl tomatoes without irrigation called?

The stress concentrates flavour; California grows tomatoes for both the fresh market and canning.

La Tomatina, the giant tomato fight, takes place in which Spanish town?

Franco banned it in the 1950s for having no religious meaning; it now caps tickets at 20,000 for a town of about 9,000.

What must be knocked off a greased pole before the La Tomatina tomato battle can begin?

The 'Palo Jabón' has revellers climbing on each other while being hosed with water.

Since 2013, La Tomatina has been limited to how many ticketed participants?

In 2025, the 80th edition, more than 22,000 people took part.

Which classic cocktail is built on vodka and tomato juice?

Made with gin it is a Red Snapper; with tequila, a Bloody Maria; with no alcohol, a Virgin Mary.

At the King Cole Room of which New York hotel did Fernand Petiot claim to perfect the Bloody Mary in 1934?

He said George Jessel's original was 'nothing but vodka and tomato juice'.

Which company popularised condensed tomato soup, introducing it in 1897?

Tomato remains one of Campbell's top three flavours, and its can became a Warhol icon.

Early ketchups were made from what, before tomatoes took over?

The word likely comes from a Hokkien term for pickled-fish brine; an 1817 tomato recipe still called for anchovies.

Ketchup is famously hard to pour because it is what kind of fluid?

Its viscosity changes under stress, which is why a shake or a firm squeeze suddenly sends it flowing.

Which 1824 cookbook by Jefferson's cousin Mary Randolph printed a tomato ketchup recipe?

Jonas Yerkes is credited as the first American to sell ketchup in a bottle.

Heinz introduced its iconic octagonal glass ketchup bottle in which year?

It was patented the following year and is still in use.

Heinz sold EZ Squirt ketchup in green, purple, pink and other colours until which year?

The colours also included orange, teal and blue.

The 1978 spoof Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was made for less than how much?

A real helicopter crash caught on camera was written into the film as a 'kamikaze tomato' strike.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) is set in which fictional Alabama town's cafe?

Fannie Flagg adapted her own 1987 novel; the film grossed $119 million on an $11 million budget.

Which cold Spanish tomato soup is served in hot weather?

Tomatoes reached Spain first of all European countries and went straight into the food.

What is the name of the film review site whose name evokes hurling produce at bad performers?

Its founder actually credits a scene in the 1992 film Léolo for the name.

Where may the largest single tomato plant ever grown have been located, as a 'tomato tree'?

Epcot's experimental greenhouses in Lake Buena Vista, Florida grew it.

Which taste, from glutamates, makes the tomato so useful in cooking?

It is why tomatoes anchor pasta sauces, curries, salsas and soups the world over.

Tomatoes were only gradually added to which cuisine's curries after Europeans introduced them?

Today they are a base for countless gravies.

What does the species name lycopersicum, first used by the ancient physician Galen, mean?

Galen's plant has never been identified; a 16th-century Italian merely guessed it might be the tomato.

The Chinese name for the tomato, fānqié, literally means what?

It arrived in the 16th century, probably via the Philippines or Macau.