The great question of life, just behind which comes first, the chicken or the egg? We are going to solve the mystery, of the tomato, of course, the egg thing is left to science. Many people are confused between vegetables and vegetables, so when the tomato comes in things get out of control because if it is used as a vegetable, it will be a vegetable or a vegetable, right? Well, not entirely, there is a lot to tell about whether the tomato is a fruit or not.
When we think of fruits, we think of a dessert, a cake, something sweet, or refreshing and when we think of the tomato we place it in sauces, creams, gazpachos, salads, hamburgers, etc. But we want to go further and it is that we must differentiate between vegetables and fruits.
Among the vegetables are vegetables and vegetables and according to the RAE vegetables are green leafy vegetables. In turn, according to the RAE, they also serve edible plants that are normally grown in gardens. In this way, legumes and cereals are excluded.
On the other hand, there are the fruits and it is that according to the Spanish Food Code better known as CAE, the fruit comes from a seed. Just like a child comes from an egg. That is, it is the fruit of the flowers that have reached maturity. So the tomato was considered (and is considered) fruit, but in this story there is much more to tell.
A debate that has been open for several centuries
The funny thing about this is that the debate began around 1886 when a large shipment of imported tomatoes docked in the famous port of New York City. That’s where the problem began, because the United States had recently passed a law to increase taxes on imported vegetables.
It was then that the merchants and companies that worked with the tomato began to criticize the decision since the tomato, according to its definition, was not a vegetable, but rather the tomato is a fruit. It was there that a hunt began against the tax and against the product itself.
The companies, companies and workers decided to consult with biologists, scholars, encyclopedias and others to demonstrate how the tomato arose and that the tomato is truly a fruit. All this guerrilla did not matter at all, since the law was approved and the tomato was considered a vegetable simply because it is not consumed as a dessert. Thus, there was no choice but to abide by the law and face taxes.
Several decades later, the debate reopened when the European Union said yes, that tomato is a fruit . He argued that from the botanical point of view the tomato is a fruit because of the way it is grown and that it is the only part of the plant that is consumed.
In fact, when the tomato made an appearance in Europe, it arrived as a complement and for decorative purposes, not as a gastronomic ingredient to be consumed. And today tomatoes are part of the Mediterranean diet and if we stop to observe we will see that we eat tomatoes practically every day.
