You say Potato, I say Tomato
June 23, 2022 10:36 AM Subscribe
The tomato took a circuitous route to becoming the most popular garden plant in the United States. Originally cultivated in South and Central America 7000 years ago, the tomato quickly spread throughout the world by the 16th century.
But the tomato wasn’t an immediate hit in Europe due to its similarity in appearance to Deadly Nightshade. Naming didn’t help as the original scientific classification was Lycopesicon, most likely derived from the German wolfpfirsich, which translates into English as “wolf peach.” The now beloved fruit/vegetable (I’ll get back to that), finally started to grow into popularity as an aphrodisiac, the pomme d'amour. Eventually the tomato traveled to the States not from Mexico where it was cultivated for thousands of years, but from European immigrants in the 19th century.
Now is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Well the US Supreme Court has an opinion. In 1883, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, requiring a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit. The John Nix & Co. company filed a suit against Edward L. Hedden, Collector of the Port of New York, to recover back duties paid under protest. This led to Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893) . The Court's unanimous opinion held that the Tariff Act of 1883 used the ordinary meaning of the words "fruit" and "vegetable," instead of the technical botanical meaning.
Cladistic analysis of DNA sequence data confirms Lycopersicon as a clade that is part of a lineage of nightshades also including the potato (S. tuberosum). Ergo, you say potato, I say tomato.
But the tomato wasn’t an immediate hit in Europe due to its similarity in appearance to Deadly Nightshade. Naming didn’t help as the original scientific classification was Lycopesicon, most likely derived from the German wolfpfirsich, which translates into English as “wolf peach.” The now beloved fruit/vegetable (I’ll get back to that), finally started to grow into popularity as an aphrodisiac, the pomme d'amour. Eventually the tomato traveled to the States not from Mexico where it was cultivated for thousands of years, but from European immigrants in the 19th century.
Now is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Well the US Supreme Court has an opinion. In 1883, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, requiring a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit. The John Nix & Co. company filed a suit against Edward L. Hedden, Collector of the Port of New York, to recover back duties paid under protest. This led to Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893) . The Court's unanimous opinion held that the Tariff Act of 1883 used the ordinary meaning of the words "fruit" and "vegetable," instead of the technical botanical meaning.
Cladistic analysis of DNA sequence data confirms Lycopersicon as a clade that is part of a lineage of nightshades also including the potato (S. tuberosum). Ergo, you say potato, I say tomato.
Damn your knowledge of science, Aardvark Cheeselog! Damn it to hell!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:06 PM on June 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:06 PM on June 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
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You were trying too hard to get to that last sentence. Cladistic analysis of DNA sequence data also confirms that humans and redwood trees are in the same clade, if you pick a big enough clade.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:49 PM on June 23, 2022 [2 favorites]