Fresh Tomato Day – April 6, 2025

History of Fresh Tomato Day

The tomato is said to have descended or evolved from the “Solanum pimpinellifolium,” which is also known as the currant tomato or wild tomato, native to western South America. These wild tomatoes were smaller than the tomatoes we have in today’s times and they were usually about the size of peas. The domestication, so to speak, of tomatoes, traces back to the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples, who used the fruit fresh and employed its use for cooking. Tomatoes came into Europe through the Spanish, and they became a very regular feature of Spanish food. In other European countries such as France, Italy, and others to the North of Europe, the tomato was initially grown as an ornamental plant, like flowers.

The tomato was met with skepticism as a type of food based on the fact that it was thought to be nightshade by botanists. This skepticism and suspicion were compounded by the acidity of the tomato juice. The tomato was even nicknamed the “poison apple,” because it was believed that it caused aristocrats to get sick and die after eating them. The possible reason for these reactions was that wealthy Europeans of that time, used pewter plates, which were rich in lead, and because tomatoes are so high in acidity, the fruit would leach lead from the plate upon coming in contact with it, eventually leading to led poisoning and eventually death.

Limited knowledge made it impossible for anyone at the time to connect the dots between plate and poison at the time and so the easier alternative was to blame the tomato. The leaves of the tomato and its immature fruit contain tomatin, which could be toxic in large amounts. However, the ripe tomato fruit does not contain tomatin.