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Plant histories
The history behind a number of crop plants.
Looking at where they originated, their domestication, the introduction of these crops to Europe, how European attitudes to them changed over the centuries and ultimately how our changing demands have influenced the plants themselves.
Introduction
Wherever you are from, it is probable that you eat tomatoes in one form or another. Tomatoes originated in South America but are now found all over the world. Without tomatoes we would have no cheese and tomato pizza; no ketchup; no baked beans on toast; no lasagne or spaghetti Bolognese; no tomato soup; no BLTs; no mozzarella, tomato and basil salad; no tomato gazpachio; no tuna nicoise; no salsa; no tomatoes with our fried breakfast or any of the other hundreds of dishes that use this savoury fruit.
A selection of Greek starters. The Greeks eat more tomatoes per person than any other European nation. The average Greek eats 129 Kg (that is about 862 medium sized tomatoes) of tomatoes a year.
Copyright free
Although often thought of as a vegetable tomatoes are technically a fruit. They contain the seeds from which new tomatoes plants will grow.
A tomato fruit
Photographer: David Besa. Copyright: CC Attribution 2.0
Take this tour through the history of the tomato and find out what tomatoes are like in the wild, how they came to be on our plates, how they have changed over the centuries and some of the their strange uses in the past.
