Hello! We hope you will be able to join us this week for our regular Pathfinder Produce market, Thursday afternoon at the Pathfinder Village Commons from 2 to 5 p.m.
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When I was a kid, there was nothing worse than the curse of the winter tomato. They were pale, hard globes which barely resembled their summertime counterparts. And I, an avowed tomato fan, avoided them like the plague.
I still tend to shy away from winter tomatoes, but lately have tried the vine-ripened tomatoes that are now offered at many markets, including our weekly Pathfinder Produce green grocery. They are not big, hearty beefsteaks, but they offer flavor, are pleasing to the eye, and add to most salads and sandwiches.
According to web sources, most vine-ripened tomatoes in the U.S. are picked when they are at stage two – just starting to turn from green to pink (there are six stages for ripening tomatoes). They are then shipped and exposed to ethylene, a colorless, odorless hydrocarbon gas that occurs naturally as fruit ages (and also through various combustion processes). Ethylene is responsible for the changes in texture, softening, and color. I’ve found that if I place a green tomato in a bag with a banana “a little on the brown side” that it hastens ripening. Apples are also good producers of ethylene, which of course, has led to the saying “one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.”
The tomato, widely associated with Italian cuisine, actually originated in the Andes, and was cultivated in Mexico prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. It is believed that Cortez brought the fruit back to Europe about 1520; it also quickly spread throughout lands that the Spanish conquered throughout the Caribbean. By the 1540s, it was being grown in Mediterranean countries as the plant thrived in the temperate climate. The first historical reference of tomatoes in Italy was in October 1548, when the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de’ Medici, referenced a basket of tomatoes in a letter to the family’s private secretary. Funnily enough, tomatoes were first valued there as ornamental plants, according to Wikipedia.
From the Mediterranean, the plant then traveled throughout Europe and then to the North American colonies by 1710. Because the plant is a member of the Nightshade family (Solanaceae) and because of folklore that associated the plant with witchcraft and werewolves, there were widespread suspicions of using tomatoes as food. According to many websites, the tomato was thought be poisonous -- wealthier people ate from pewter plates and utensils, and the acids in tomatoes would leach lead from the pewter, contributing to lead poisoning (It’s not a good idea to eat with anything made of pewter!). And there was a time in the mid-1800s, when the green tomato worm started decimating tomato gardens – the appearance of this big worm with a horn emanating out of its back caused other irrational fears, according to Smithsonian.com.
However, the tomato slowly gained traction as an edible, and two key developments, the development of modern pizza in Naples in the 1800s and the tomato canning process developed by Joseph Campbell in the 1890s, greatly increased the popularity of tomatoes as a regular part of our diet.
Botanically speaking, tomatoes are a fruit, and there are over 7500 varieties grown today. Most people consider them a vegetable, and the United States Supreme Court weighed in on the matter in its 1893 decision, Nix vs. Hedden. The Tariff Act of 1883 required a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit; the Nix family filed an action against Edward L. Hedden, then the Collector of the Port of New York, to recover back duties they had paid.
The court unanimously decided in favor of the defense and said that the tomato should be classified under the customs regulations as a vegetable, based on the ways in which it was used. Justice Horace Gray, writing the opinion for the Court, concluded that although tomatoes are botanically classified as a "fruit of the vine," for the purposes of customs, they should be classified as vegetables as they were usually eaten as a main course instead of as a dessert.
All legal precedents aside, there are so many tremendous ways to use tomatoes. Here’s a sampling from around the web for you to try.
We hope to see you at this week’s Pathfinder Produce on Thursday, from 2 to 5 p.m.
Lori
