Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Tomatoes

The tomato is Germans’ favorite vegetable: But is the tomato even a vegetable, or is it perhaps a fruit? And where does it actually come from? What’s the story behind yellow and black tomatoes—and why are they so popular in Italian cuisine anyway?

Would you like to learn these and other interesting facts about tomatoes? Then be sure to keep reading.

By the way: There are about 23,000 varieties of tomatoes. That makes it hard to always find the right one for a particular authentic Italian dish. We’ve taken a closer look at five popular tomato varieties for you.

If you want to cook authentic Italian food, you need plenty of amore and pomodoro. The most famous Italian dish is probably ragù alla bolognese. By the way, traditional spaghetti doesn’t go very well with this well-known pasta dish. Instead, farfalle, penne, or tagliatelle are better served with this flavorful ground meat and tomato sauce. That’s because the sauce doesn’t cling well to the smooth, thin strands of spaghetti.

Pizza comes in all kinds of variations, with different toppings, frozen or homemade. But whether it’s from a pizzeria or homemade, pizza just tastes bueno. Homemade pizza made according to an original Italian recipe is quick to make, and you don’t need many ingredients. Why not give it a try with our recipe for homemade pizza?

Just like zucchini, squash, cucumber, and eggplant, the tomato belongs to the category of fruit vegetables, meaning it’s a “cross between” fruit and vegetables. The tomato plant is herbaceous. This means that it grows in thickness but does not become woody. There are annual, biennial, and perennial herbaceous plants—and tomato plants come in all three varieties. After flowering, herbaceous plants die off, which distinguishes them from perennial plants that can flower multiple times, such as shrubs and trees.

If you’d like to grow your own tomatoes, there are a few things you should keep in mind. We’ve put together some important growing tips for you.

One of the most important rules: Tomatoes like it nice and warm and are very sensitive to rain, because their leaves don’t like water. That’s why they’re often planted in a greenhouse. The tomatoes for ORO di Parma, however, are grown outdoors.

You can start growing tomatoes in the spring as soon as the ground is no longer frozen (around mid-May). You can grow tomatoes on your balcony or in your garden, but it’s important to make sure the plants are protected from rain.

You can either get a young tomato plant at the market or a garden supply store and plant it—or you can buy seeds. You can start the plant indoors first, since it’s protected from the weather and pests there and stays nice and warm. Tomato plants prefer temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius or higher; 24 degrees Celsius is ideal.

Many tomatoes prefer temperatures between 12 and 16 degrees Celsius when stored. Some varieties, such as vine tomatoes, prefer a slightly warmer range of 13 to 18 degrees Celsius. To avoid compromising their flavor, it’s important not to let the temperature go above or below this range. If you store these red gems in a place that’s too warm, they’ll rot faster.

Tomatoes are true all-rounders. Not only are they especially delicious, but they’re also naturally low in calories, fat-free, low in sugar, and high in protein. These red vitamin-packed fruits naturally contain lycopene and are a source of vitamin C. They’re 95% water, making them excellent sources of hydration. Their high water content is also an advantage in cooking, especially when making sauces, since tomato sauces are often very creamy due to this high water content.

Tomatoes naturally contain lycopene, which is also found in processed tomato products. The amount of lycopene in a tomato depends heavily on the variety, the degree of ripeness, and growing conditions, such as sunlight exposure. Lycopene belongs to the class of carotenoids, which are phytochemicals. Carotenoids give tomatoes—as well as carrots and watermelons, for example—their red color. Lycopene is generally considered a potent antioxidant and free-radical scavenger. The potential effect of lycopene on cardiovascular diseases is currently under discussion. Researchers believe that lycopene from processed and heated products has higher bioavailability than that from raw, unprocessed fruits.

When tomatoes are heated, the lycopene they contain is released from the broken-down plant cells and is therefore more readily available. According to current research, adding a small amount of fat or oil further enhances this effect.

According to Stiftung Warentest, tomatoes are the most popular vegetable (fruit vegetable) among Germans. And this is not least because they are so versatile: whether in salads, served with meat or fish, or even as a dessert, such as tomato sorbet. Tomato products in particular—such as tomato juice, strained tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato ketchup—are especially popular among Germans. This results in a per-capita consumption of 31 kilograms of tomatoes per year.

The tomato isn’t just Germans’ favorite “vegetable”—there are even idioms involving this red vitamin-packed fruit. When we call someone a “treacherous tomato,” we’re referring to someone who doesn’t keep their appointments or is generally unreliable. Most of the time, however, the expression is used not in a negative but rather in a humorous context. The exact origin of the expression “unfaithful tomato” is not entirely clear. It could be related to tomato cultivation itself, which was very unpredictable in the early 19th century due to a high number of crop failures. Another theory is that the phrase “unfaithful tomato” dates back to World War I. The Italians, who were already known for their tomato cultivation at the time, sided with the Allies in 1915, thereby breaking their word to their allies, Germany and Austria. As a result, the Germans used the derogatory term “tomato” to refer to Italians.

The idiom “Does he have tomatoes on his eyes?” is often used, for example, by soccer fans when the referee has made a “bad call.” It means that a person can’t see properly and overlooks important things. The idiom comes from people who have just woken up and still have sleepy, sometimes red eyes. These red eyes resemble tomatoes. Also, people who have just woken up are usually not yet fully alert and therefore often overlook important things.

If this has whetted your appetite for tomatoes, we’ve got some authentic Italian recipes for you to try. Buon appetito!