Q 01/05

Botanically, what kind of fruit is a tomato?

A) A berry

B) A drupe

C) A pepo

D) A pome

Answer · why

A) A berry

A berry: botanically the tomato is a fleshy fruit formed from a single ovary with its seeds embedded in the pulp, the definition of a berry, as are gr...

Q 02/05

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

A) Nightshade

B) Gourd family

C) Rose family

D) Legume family

Answer · why

A) Nightshade

Nightshade: the family Solanaceae also includes deadly nightshade and mandrake, which is why many early Europeans assumed the new fruit was poisonous ...

Q 03/05

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

A) Arabic

B) Quechua

C) Nahuatl

D) Latin

Answer · why

C) Nahuatl

Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, gave Spanish 'tomate' from 'tomatl'; Nahuatl speakers distinguished the large red fruit as 'xitomatl'.

Q 04/05

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

A) The Caribbean

B) Central Mexico

C) The Amazon basin

D) Western South America

Answer · why

D) Western South America

Western South America: the currant-sized wild species grows along the Pacific coast of Peru, Ecuador and northern Chile; domestication probably passed...

Q 05/05

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

A) Hernán Cortés

B) Hernando de Soto

C) Pedro de Alvarado

D) Francisco Pizarro

Answer · why

A) Hernán Cortés

Hernán Cortés took Tenochtitlan in 1521; the friar Bernardino de Sahagún later described Aztec markets selling large, small, sweet, serpent and nipple...