This monster arrived in today's veggie box - one pound fourteen ounces - the biggest tomato I've ever seen. It has a ways to go to beat the heaviest tomato ever (7 lb 12 oz, grown by Gordon Graham, of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986), but it'll make enough tomato sauce for a decent dinner for the two of us tonight. With the going price of organic tomatoes at $4.99 this week, this sucker would have set me back almost ten bucks!
Did you know tomatoes are also called "Love Apples"? That comes from the French, 'pomme d'amour'... leave it to the French to come up with a romantic name for just about anything. How about, "Wolf Peaches" - that 's the meaning of the word "lycopersicum".
More facts you shouldn't have to live without:
-Tomatoes are fruits, not vegetables
-Tomatoes were long thought to be poisonous, because they're members of the Nightshade family
-Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes
-Tomatoes were grown by the Aztecs in Mexico who called them "xitomatl", meaning "plump thing with a navel"
-There are about 7500 varieties of tomatoes
-Tomatoes, along with zucchini, are one of the most common garden fruits grown in the United States. and, like zucchini, have a reputation for outproducing the needs of the grower.
Ah... isn't Google wonderful...?! I'm allowed to waste time today because I went to the ophthalmologist this morning and had the eye-dilation thing done, so all I can do is sit in my dark computer room and wish I were outside in the bright sun watching my tomatoes outproduce my needs!
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