For the past few weeks here at St. Catharine’s we have been blessed every day with delicious tomatoes with our meals – right straight from our garden.
When my siblings and I were children, our dad raised tomatoes every summer, and we would go out into the garden with a salt shaker, sit on the ground next to the plants, and eat them like apples.
Tomatoes originated in western South America and were cultivated by the Aztecs. During the Spanish Conquest, they were discovered by the Spaniards who introduced them to Europe in the 16th century.
The Italians first grew them for ornaments in their gardens before learning to cook them. The elongated plum variety are now used especially for pizzas.
Although a fruit, they are regarded as a vegetable, and biologically classified as a berry. They were not introduced to this country until the 18th century, and now numerous varieties are grown in temperate climates throughout the world.
At Walt Disney World in Florida, a tomato tree in its greenhouse has entered the Guinness World Book of Records by producing 32,000 tomatoes, and the largest known tomato, grown in Oklahoma, weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces!
I’ll happily settle for the delicious taste and vitamin C from our own homegrown red beauties that, unfortunately, won’t be lasting too much longer.
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