tomato
noun

- a round, red fruit with a lot of seeds, eaten cooked or uncooked as a vegetable, for example in salads or sauces
 
- a glossy red, or occasionally yellow, pulpy edible fruit that is eaten as a vegetable or in salad.

- the South American plant of the nightshade family that produces the tomato. It is widely grown as a cash crop and many varieties have been developed.

-  the bright red colour of a ripe tomato

The Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford Languages

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WORD ORIGIN

The term "love apple" for tomato dates back to the late 16th century, with the earliest known use in English from 1578. It became more common in the late 18th century, with Merriam-Webster citing the first known use in 1785.

When tomatoes were introduced to Europe in the 16th century, they were exotic and unfamiliar. The French called them "pommes d'amour" (apples of love), while Italians used "pomi d'oro" (golden apples).

While "love apple" is still recognized, it's considered an old or alternative name for tomatoes, with the term "tomato" being far more common today.

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DEADLY TOMATOES

Tomatoes started out as weeds in the Andes Mountains in modern-day Peru and Ecuador. The plant was domesticated by the Aztecs, who called it tomatl. In 1519 when Hernán Cortés reached Mexico, the plant had been turned into a high-yield crop producing multiple varieties of the fruit.

Initially the tomato became a bit hit in Europe, but as Europeans learned to utilize the tomato’s flavour and texture in cooking, aristocrats began collapsing and dying after consuming the fruit, spreading fear that the tomato was a danger. Tomatoes were only part of the cause of death, however. The real culprit was the lead plates the wealthy were eating off of. The acidity in tomatoes leached up lead to deliver lead poisoning to the unfortunate diners.

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FUN FACT

Schools in Canada have developed space tomatoes. Some 600,000 tomato seeds were sent to the International Space Station before being grown in classrooms across Canada, an experiment to learn the effect of weightlessness on seed development. The project was dubbed “Tomatosphere”.

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SYNONYMS

Apple of love, apple of paradise, cherry tomato, garden fruit (peach), globe tomato, golden apple (nugget), grape/heirloom tomato, green zebra, LOVE APPLE, love fruit, nightshade fruit, paradise/pear/plum tomato, pomme d'amour, pomodoro, red fruit, red gold, Roma (tomato), San Marzano, Solanum lycopersicum, tomatillo, tomatl, vegetable fruit, wolf-peach

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Hey, how about we make a Scottish roasted LOVE APPLE and wine soup this evening?”

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