1. Until the 18th century, the tomato was more often called the love-apple in English.
2. That name derived from the fact that the tomato was once seen as an aphrodisiac.
3. The Aztecs called the tomato xitomatl, meaning “plump thing with a navel”.
4. In 1893, the US Supreme Court ruled, for the purpose of levying a tariff, that the tomato was a vegetable. Botanically, it is in fact a fruit.
5. US President Ronald Reagan disliked tomatoes and is said not to have eaten one for 70 years.
6. Over 650million bottles of Heinz Tomato Ketchup are sold around the world each year, with annual sales of more than £1billion.
7. Tomato juice is the official state beverage of Ohio and the tomato is its state vegetable.
8. “A world devoid of tomato soup, tomato sauce, tomato ketchup and tomato paste is hard to visualize,” (Elizabeth David).
9. In the UK, we eat 6oz (160gm) of fresh tomatoes per person per week.
10. The annual La Tomatina Festival in Buñol, Spain, in August attracts some 20,000 visitors who throw 125,000kg of ripe tomatoes at each other. It claims to be the world’s largest food fight.
