A South American fruit that Europe treated as an ornamental for two centuries and then built half its cooking on — and the most concentrated common source of savoury glutamate outside meat.
Where it comes from
Tomatoes were domesticated in Mesoamerica from wild ancestors in the Andes and reached Europe in the sixteenth century. They belong to the nightshade family, and that association is the usual explanation for the long European suspicion of them; they were grown as curiosities long before they were eaten widely.
Southern Italy adopted them first and hardest, and the association is now so complete that it is easy to forget there was no tomato in any Italian dish before about 1600 — nor in any Indian curry, Spanish sofrito or Hungarian goulash.
Varieties
- Plum / San Marzano type — Dense, low in seed and water, high in solids. The tomato for sauce and for canning.
- Round / slicing — The general-purpose tomato. Juicier, milder.
- Cherry and cocktail — Highest sugar and acid, best raw, and reliable even when large tomatoes are not.
- Beefsteak — Large, meaty, low acid. Slicing and stuffing.
- Heirloom varieties — Bred for flavour rather than transport. Odd shapes, thin skins, no shelf life.
- Green tomatoes — Unripe, firm and tart. Fried, pickled, or made into chutney.
- Preserved forms — Passata, concentrate, sun-dried, canned whole. Concentrate is the one that adds savoury depth rather than tomato flavour.
In the kitchen
Tinned tomatoes are usually better than fresh out of season, because they are picked ripe. This is one of the few cases where the tin genuinely beats the fresh.
Tomatoes are acidic enough to slow the softening of onions, beans and potatoes. Cook those first, add the tomato after.
Tomato concentrate cooked in fat for a minute before liquid is added tastes completely different from concentrate stirred into a simmering pot — it needs the heat to lose its raw metallic edge.
Choosing and keeping
Never refrigerate a tomato you intend to taste. Below about 12°C the enzymes that make its aroma compounds shut down, and the damage does not reverse at room temperature.
Dishes with tomato
ChojínChopped radish salad with crisp chicharron, mint and lime
GibnutStewed lowland paca, dark gamey bush meat with recado and riceMalaysiaRoti JohnSplit baguette fried with minced meat and egg, sauced with chilli and mayonnaise
MontucasSweet-corn tamales with pork, wrapped in corn husksParaguayChipa guazúFresh-corn and cheese casserole, classic asado companionMauritaniaCherchemCracked wheat cooked with beans and mutton and scented with dried herbs
Tamal en cazuelaSoft corn porridge cooked with pork in a pot instead of a husk
MoyoFresh tomato-onion-chili sauce spooned over fried fishTomato is tagged on 1,168 dishes from 185 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.