Talk:Tomato

The pronunciation conundrum

what a stupid section this is! So much info needed and in a fruit/vegetable article there's a section about pronunciation? Who cares how Americans and British speakers pronunce "tomato" in a vegetable article? BTW I'm not an native English speaker. And...In dispute?!?!?! bah!!!! -Pedro 22:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it's not all that important but I wouldn't delete it. I would, however, change the wording. It's more than just American verses British. We speak English in Australia too. I'm changing it to North American verses Commonwealth English unless there's any objection. - Jim 23May05

Now re-worded, with the word 'dispute' deleted and Commonwealth added - MPF 1 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)

Quote in this section: (note though that Gershwin's spelling "to-mah-to" does not match British English pronunciation) Um, what? I (BrE speaker) see no difference between the 'to-MAA-to' in the paragraph just above this statement in the article and the 'to-mah-to' within. Is there a difference between 'maa' and 'mah' in AmE?(!?) 87.115.228.253 09:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 'h' in Gershwin's spelling indicates aspiration which is not present in UK English pronunciation - MPF 23:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Ah" in casual American phonetics wouldn't imply aspiration. Rhymes with cot or sock (at least in the "TV dialect"), but probably not in the UK. SB Johnny 14:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't imply any aspiration at all. The <h> is simply part of a digraph, <ah>; which, as a whole, indicates a vowel. It matches British (Commonwealth) pronunciation perfectly in "causal phonetics". Using <aa> instead is just a matter of preference: it would indicate the same vowel ... or should Gershwin have been using the IPA? --Jimp 08:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, this is an article about the vegetable, not the word, so the pronunciation section shouldn't be here. Voortle 14:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's a famous cultural reference to the vegetable. Certainly not doing any harm to the article to mention it. SB Johnny 14:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since we don't have an article dedicated to the word (cf. Orange (word), this information belongs here. You could create an article for the word, but in the case of Orange, there is a lot to discuss since it has many more meanings, like the color as well as the fruit. I don't think a separate article on the word Tomato is necessary, since it has only one basic meaning, and the information on the word isn't that long enough to fill an article, then by default, this page becomes an article about both the Vegetable AND the history of the word. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The bit about pronunciation belongs somewhere on Wikipedia. There's no better place. It's not worth its own article. --Jimp 08:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there's a third pronunciation, not yet mentioned: [təˈmæto] ("to-MATT-o"). I'm pretty sure that pronunciation is fairly common in Canada, though I don't have any sources for it just yet. User:Angr 11:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the difference of pronounciation, for the *ALMIGHTY TOMATO* has many different ways for prouncing it, differing by a persons parlance and way of speaking. --Da.Tomato.Dude 14:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From Canada, unless it's a regional thing I'm used to to-MAY-to; to-MATT-o sounds British to me. WLU 22:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poisonous

I knew that were regarded as poisonous, but I thought that because of genetic variation, some early strains may have actually been slightly poisonous. Is this wrong? Vintermann

In addition to this, how poisonous is it? Ie. is it just an irritant, ie. like poison ivy, or very lethal? I mean, what about the leaves at the top of a tomato? -- Natalinasmpf 22:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that tomatoes are very closely related to another type of plant, called nightshade, which is infact very poisonous. Because of the similarity between the two plants, most people were at first hesitant to eat the tomato.

I will say this, though - there is such a thing as a tomato allergy. My mother, for instance, cannot eat them raw, or the skin in her mouth reacts very badly to it, breaking out in painful rashes (oddly, she CAN eat them cooked or processed - fried, or in ketchup for instance - with no problem at all). She's had this allergy since childhood, as has her younger brother. It's possible that people that had that allergy tried it, and due to the allergic reaction, declared it poisonous. Would not surprise me. EDITED SECOND TIME TO ADD LINK (though I did not write the above post, I thought it was worth adding the link, though I did not want to edit another's post, so here it goes): nightshade. 169.139.190.6 20:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The leaves of the tomato plant are poisonous. I believe it mainly just makes people sick, rather than being lethal. The only edible part of the plant is the fruit. --Kaz 22:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also recall seeing a reference to the tomato being called 'poison apples' in colonial america, but I don't have a cite for it. There was another thought (but I don't know how accurate it was), that this was because of the acidity of the tomato interacted with the lead pans (Did colonists use lead cookware at that point in time?)
~ender 2006-12-24 10:59:AM MST

South America

I wonder about the history of cultivation of the tomato before the discovery of the Americas by Europeans. Nothing said about consumption of tomatoes in South America before that event, which I think is weird.

There is no use trying to dispute as to how to say it in English since it is not an English word. Tomatl, chocolatl are words that come from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. They made hot sauces with them, now called in Spanish, salsa.

Species name

I looked it up in ITIS and found Lycopersicon lycopersicum and L. esculentum esculentum - but no L. esculentum. That species is listed under Solanum. What gives? -phma

Now covered at Tomato#Botanical classification. L. esculentum esculentum is the same as L. esculentum, they are not different names. - MPF 1 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)

Killer tomatoes

Moved from the article as non-encyclopedic:

"The reputation of tomatoes has been severely damaged by their appearance in the Killer Tomatoes movies. Few, if any, actual tomatoes have been found to be homicidal." 209.149.235.254 20:10, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

LOL. I think tomatoes are rather suicidal than homicidal. When they become mature, they fall down and crush in the ground. -Pedro 14:10, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's not "suicidal", it's reproduction. Tomatoes carry seeds, and the flesh of the fruit, as with most or all fruits, is meant to provide fertilizer for the seeds. That is why they fall to the ground when the tomato matures - because the seeds grow in the ground, not the air. 169.139.190.6 20:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Gibbon Johnson story

Re: Robert Gibbon Johnson: some people say that this legend is apocryphal. Googling "Robert Gibbon Johnson" shows that some people believe this occurred in 1830, not 1820. Finally, in at least some versions of the anecdote it took place in Salem, NJ, not Salem, MA; the former seems more likely to me. In short, I don't know what's going on, but something seems wrong.

I agree - I've always heard Salem, NJ, but I haven't done any research on it. This is on the front page today, Sept. 28, 2004, so now it's really noticeable. Spalding 16:54, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed it while it was still on the front page, based on the number and my perception of the quality of the results in a web search. Spalding 11:54, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Added sentence casting doubt on the story, based on searches. Spalding 02:56, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Fruit or vegetable

Good article this morning on WBUR (http://www.wbur.org) about whether a Tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Conclusion was that botanically it's a fruit, legally (in the US) it's a vegetable. -Bernfarr

This debate seems kind of stupid, since all fruits are also vegetables, aren't they? --P3d0 18:22, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

yeah. You just put them in different places in the refrigerator and you use them differently. -Pedro 14:01, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm! I think it is important! The article says that tomatos are berries, which I KNOW isn't true. I'm going to change that.

I don't think that all fruits are also vegetables. fruit is a botanical term, meaning part of the plant. vegetable is a nutritional/culinary. term. vegetables can be from the fruit, leaf, stem, flower, or root, or another part of the plant.

Vegetable is also used as a literary term for any plant: vegetable matter, vegetable kingdom.- I guess that's probably what you meant when you said all fruits were vegetables

Wait how is a tomato legally a vegetable? PatPeter 23:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This may come as a shock, but tomatoes are actually neither fruit nor vegetables - they are terrorists.

"Early" History

The tomato is a new-world fruit. What do we know about its uses in pre-colonized America? The article says: "The first traces of use of tomato as food date back to South Europe in the first half of the 18th century. Only in the second half of the 19th |]] – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 03:30, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

We know the tomato was eaten in Mexico, but we don't know if it was eaten in Peru. If I were to guess, I would guess it was eaten in Peru, but there is no proof. There seems to have been an exchange in pre-history when Mexico got the tomato and Peru got corn. Zenyu 20:38, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

These two sentences seem contradictory to me: "Smith states that the earliest reference to tomatoes in British North America is from 1710, when herbalist William Salmon reported seeing them in what is today South Carolina." & "This may also be why the first reported use of the tomato in the U.S. was in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1812, because of the French influence in that region." Mbrewer 00:10, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Better info please

What's the usual size of a tomato plant in metres? In the article we have the tallest but what about the usual? How long do the plants live, one year? How they like the soil? rich in what, pooer in what? they like a lot of water? -Pedro 13:35, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph at the start giving general details of the species, which were (surprisingly!) not given at all before - MPF 1 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)

Tomatoes need a lot of water but too much will lead to fruit cracking when fruit has set. They prefer well drained sandy loam soils over claylike soils to prevent root rot and aid aeration. It's best to mix organic matter to clay-like soils to give better drainage and stuff. Being fast growers, they like a LOT of nitrogen. There are also two ways it grows: determinate and indeterminate (okay three some cultivars grow something in between). More info is available here: [1] (click on the links). It has an interesting bit of trivia as well:

Proper coloring of the fruit is also temperature dependent. Lycopene and carotenes are not synthesized above 85 degrees F and lycopene is not synthesized below 50 degrees F, precluding normal color development in ripening fruit.

Which explains why tomatoes in my country aren't normally red. Sorry I'm not typing it myself, maybe in the future. Responsiblebum 06:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cherry and grape tomatoes?

Heaven knows I'm no vegetable expert, but I think this page could benefit from some info about the smaller varieties of tomato, the cherry and grape varieties. Does anyone have some knowledge in that area? --Marcg106 22:09, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

They have at least a brief mention now - MPF 1 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)

Surely you mean cherry and grenade? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.3.0.12 (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Extensive Rewrite

I've made substantial changes to the history here based on Andrew F. Smith, "The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery." Smith's book is an extensive discussion of tomato history, including extensive archival research. His timetable for tomato introduction and use, and his refutation of some of the legends are quite convincing.

I've also removed a couple of things. For example, I've taken out the statement that the tomato is related to nightshade. Smith makes no reference to this; on the contrary, he says that the classification fo the tomato was unclear well into the 20th century. If the tomato is related to the nightshade (reference?) it might be worth having in the article; however, this relationship does not seem to have had much, if anything, to do with the belief that the tomato was poisonous (which, in any case, was not very extensive.)

I also plan to remove or greatly decrease the discussion of Jefferson, which was overblown in the earlier version as far as I can tell. If someone has a reference for surviving tomato recipes from Jefferson's daughters, that might be useful; Smith has no discussion of this, which makes me suspect that it may not be accurate. NoahB 5 July 2005 16:26 (UTC)

I ended up mentioning Jefferson, but didn't see that an extensive discussion of his tomato cultivation was necessary -- he wasn't really a pioneer; other people were raising tomatoes as well, and a list of all references to tomato raising in all parts of the country up to the present seems unnecessary and unwieldy.

One thing the article really could use (in my opinion, anyway) is a more extensive discussion of tomato cultivation and distribution in Asia. I don't have time to do it myself, but as it is, the history section is very Western oriented.

The relation of the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) to the nightshades (Solanum nigrum, S. villosum, S. dulcamara, etc.) is simply that they are in the same genus Solanum (so of course is the potato S. tuberosum). As mentioned, Linnaeus realised this back in 1753, though for a large chunk of subsequent botanical history the tomato was shoved off into a separate genus of its own, until recent genetic studies put it back in Solanum. PS I've moved the Smith publication details down to References, I think it's better there than in the text, so only his name is mentioned in the text. - MPF 5 July 2005 20:04 (UTC)

Of the pronunciation comparison, there's a bit of a problem; the written words of Gershwin's song presumably say 'tomahto', whereas the actual UK pronunciation is 'tomaatoe' (no aspiration before the 't', it is '-aat-', not '-ht-'); I earlier corrected the UK pronunciation but left the Gershwin spelling, then an anon editor changed the spellings "to be the same throughout" (which looks neater, but is inaccurate). For the time being, I've changed both to '-aat-', though this leaves the Gershwin spelling wrong. Maybe the Gershwin spelling should be returned to the original, but the '-ht-' shouldn't be in the UK pronunciation. - MPF 5 July 2005 20:04 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up about your changes MPF. They look fine as far as I'm concerned; there's a couple things I need to double check in the Smith book, but I'll probably do that tomorrow. I agree that the info about the nightshade is interesting and worth using. If it were me, I think it might work better in the botanical classification section. You could even mention there that it might be one reason that the tomato was occasionally considered poisonous (if someone could find a source that said that, it would be great, but it might be worth putting in there even without it.) NoahB 7 July 2005 00:35 (UTC)

Do not go around radically changing articles based on a single source. You can't assume Smith is correct and all-inclusive, any more than anyone else. The oversight regarding the tomato definitely being in the nightshade family is a prime example; Smith, you say, didn't even mention this, yet it's been a famous bone of contention since the plant got to Europe. If I had time, I'd go back and see what else you messed up. As it is, you need to learn how to do more thorough research. Authority worship is always bad.--Kaz 22:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kaz, many people on Wikipedia radically change articles based on no source at all. I checked websites as well, and collaborated with others on changing the article. Smith is a standard source; if you have sources that contradict him, please put them in the article and cite them (at least on the talk page.) In the meantime, you might consider that nothing is "always" anything, that scare quotes for emphasis are an unfortunate stylistic tic, and that the only thing sillier than worshipping authority is knee-jerk rejection of it. Take care, NoahB 13:49, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, authority-worship is a guaranteed wrong. It only coincides with the truth by accident. Think of it as being like the police conducting an illegal search; even if they find something, it should be thrown out as invalid. Again I note that this guy you cite didn't even mention the tomato being in the nightshade family. And, apparently, you couldn't even find a web-based source for this extremely well-known fact, though it seems to be mentioned on every second tomato reference site I visit. --Kaz 18:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Extremely well-known by whom? And why are you trusting those web sources? Or have you done original tomato research yourself? Authority is the basis for all historical and scientific statements, in one way or another. Your epistemology is extremely confused...but lecturing one another probably doesn't help the wiki much. If you have other authorities to bring to the table, be my guest. Take care. NoahB 01:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tomato Diseases

It is quite surprising that there is no mention of common tomato diseases like Tomato Mosaic and the like ... the article could do with some more material

Good point! And this being Wikipedia, just ask and ye shall receive. I just punched in Tobacco mosaic, the one disease I know of, and voila, up it came! A nice article. There should be a section devoted to culture, so I'll see what I can do. Spalding 16:35, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

These might help[2][3] Responsiblebum 06:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tomato pict

Is featured on commons as of 23:28, 10 November 2005 (UTC). Bawolff 23:28, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Non-Inclusive Leaf Description

"... each leaflet up to 8 cm long, with a serrated margin"

What about the potato leaf varieties? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.234.154.241 (talk • contribs) .

Picture

In this article, there's a picture with the caption: "A selection of tomato cultivars showing the variation in shape and color available".

Now, I'm no botanist, but to me, those look a whole lot more like [[bell pepper]s than tomatoes. Does anyone else agree?

No, those are tomatoes, mostly older, ribbed heirloom varieties in what looks like a farmer's market in France. They do look a bit like bell peppers in the thumbnail, but if you look at the full picture they are in fact tomatoes. Haikupoet 04:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tongue in cheek tomato statistics

I once read an article written about tomatoes being deadly. I don't know if this was in any way related to the previous belief that tomatoes were dangerous, but was a tongue-in-cheek article using statistics to "prove" that tomatoes were deadly. I don't know where to find this article, but if someone knows it, I think it would be a fun footnote to the controversies section. I am trying to find it and thought it might be here.

Doubt it would be a worthwhile addition. Look at DHMO for a similar, but much better, example. - MPF 09:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Opening wikibook chapter...

Many of the sections in this article are full of how-to information (good information, but how-to stuff is discouraged on WP). I've opened a chapter in the Wikimanual of Gardening, and will be moving some of that information over in the next few days. SB Johnny 16:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The chapter is on the build. I have removed the how-to information from this article. SB Johnny 12:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Units

Could someone add the Imperial units in parentheses after the SI units? This would benefit those among us who use inches, feet, etc.

Go ahead. Feel free to do it yourself. That's what Wikipedia is about. Personally, I prefer metric so I'm not about to do this. Of course, I've got not problem with its being done, however. Be careful, though, to keep in mind that some US units are different to Imperial ones.--Jimp 08:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

opening redirects

It seems silly to have separate links for Solonaceae and nightshade in the opening sentence, as they both go the same place!

Peruvian Apple

I've heard that the Tomato was once known as the Peruvian Apple.

Highly doubt that. Where'd you hear that one anyway? ~Ķíķìäţ~

TOMATO IN CHINESE

Ooooooh...in chinese tomato is called "fan che", pronounced "phan chie".

That Big???

Can I see a source or otherwise have explained to me how a tomato grows to be 1-3 METERS in height?

For comparison purposes, a 1m tomato is big enough to reach an average man's stomach.

I'm fairly sure it oughtn't be 1-3 centimeters either, as that seems a bit small for tomatoes. Help please?

1) remember to sign your name 2) they probably mean the tomato plant Kalak5 08:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)Kalak5[reply]

tomatine/solanine

How much tomatine/solanine do tomatoes have? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.138.32.24 (talk) 17:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Brought to Europe by Hernan Cortes

Read a snippet in _Salt_ that Hernan Cortes (missing the accent marks) brought the tomato to Europe.
~ender 2006-12-24 10:57:AM MST