Tomato-Fruit or Vegetable?

TOMATO. Fruit or Vegetable?

The tomato fruit is consumed in diverse ways, including raw, as an ingredient in many dishes and sauces, and in drinks. While it is botanically known as a fruit it is considered a vegetable for culinary purposes.  The fruit is rich in vitamin C and known as healthy diet which may have beneficial health effects.

The tomato belongs to the family of nightshade fruits. The plants typically grow to 3–5 feet in height and have a weak stem that often sprawls over the ground and vines over other plants

Its leaves are more or less hairy, strongly odorous, pinnate compound, and grow up to 45 cm long. The flowers are yellow, 2 cm across, pendant, and clustered. Fruits vary in diameter from 1.5 to 7.5 cm or more and are usually red, scarlet, or yellow; they vary in shape from almost spherical through oval and elongate to pear-shaped. The fruit is a soft, succulent berry, containing two to many cells of small seeds surrounded by jellylike pulp. Most of the tomato's vitamin C is found in this pulp. The tomato is used raw in salads, served as a cooked vegetable, used as an ingredient of various prepared dishes, and pickled.

The tomato was introduced to Europe by the Dutch merchants taken with them from India in the 16th century. In Indian sub-continent, Indians  have been the first people to adopt it as a food, it has remained a staple of Indian cuisine.

It subsequently traveled to Italy where it grew in plenty on account of favourable climate for its growth. The Italians called the tomato pomodoro,  golden apple, which has given rise to speculation that the first tomatoes known to Europeans were yellow; similarly, it has been suggested that the French called it pomme d'amour love apple because it was thought to have aphrodisiacal properties.

Some scholars assert, however, that the tomato was at first taken to be a kind of eggplant, of which it is a close relative. The eggplant was called pomme des Mours  apple of the Moors because it was a favourite vegetable of the Arabs, pomodoro and pomme d'amour may be corruptions of this name.

In France and northern Europe the tomato was at first grown as an ornamental plant.             Since botanists recognized it as a relative of the poisons belladonna and deadly nightshade, it was regarded with suspicion as a food. The roots and leaves of the tomato plant are in fact poisonous; they contain the neurotoxin solanine. A large percentage of the world's tomato crop is used for processing; products include canned tomatoes, tomato juice, catchup, puree, paste, and "sun-dried" tomatoes or dehydrated pulp. China, USA, Turkey, India and Italy are chief                              tomato producing countries. The world production of tomatoes was around 200 million tons   in the year 2011.