THE POISONOUS LOVE

Tomato tomatoes, don’t you just love them?

 If you do then this is exactly the blog for you! Have you ever wondered where or how it cameabout or where exactly did tomatoes originated? Well this blog is going to tell you everything about where tomatoes first came from, how it spread and what spread them around the world. Well here it goes. First of all, tomatoes were first found in Peru, South America around the 700 AD. There were many factors to how tomatoes were distributed. It all started with one country and it continued on like chains. In the Caribbean, after the Spanish colonization of America they disperse tomato throughout their colonies. The Spanish also took them into Philippines, where it spread to Southeast Asia and into the entire Asian continent. The Spanish did not only introduce tomatoes to the whole Asian Continent but also to Europe. In Britain however, it took a different path. In the early times tomatoes have bad reputation. They believe tomatoes were poisonous and people believed it is unfit to eat them. Then by the mid-18^th century, they were then widely eaten and used in many recipe. During the 1799 to 1825 Tomatoes were introduced in the Middle East and as what happened in with the Spanish, it continued on into Iran, Turkey and Armenia. North America was the last major place to where tomatoes were first scattered around. Sadly, there were still a fair amount of people thinking tomatoes are bad food for the body and mostly they were grown more as ornaments for lawns than for food. Just from these 4 locations, tomatoes were spread all around the world!

You may think this is it, the end of tomatoes introduction to the world, but NO. Cultivation took an important part as well. It was another method of how tomatoes were widely known, grown and eaten around the world. The system of cultivation first began in the 1540’s and people just start eating tomatoes shortly after it was broadly used.

After knowing how they were distributed you may still wonder, well how where they transported?  People were migrating and countries were colonizing, they brought tomatoes with them and from that spread them on to different countries. Tomatoes were transported by ships, but it was not so easily done because they are very easily spoiled and has to be kept from direct sunlight in order to extend its’ expiring time. Tomatoes could not stay fresh for more than a few days. Of course during the olden time, there weren’t refrigerator and many tomatoes were ruined (because of the traveling conditions, temperature and length of duration). However portions did ‘survive’ since some voyages are shorter than the other or some were safely kept in boxes. Now a day, tomatoes are planted in almost every countries and cities and they just need to be transported to factories by trucks and in boxes.

 For some specific cases of imported tomatoes, these are exported from their country through airplanes in refrigerators. Transportation by air may cost a lot but it takes up little time and assure in the freshness of tomatoes.

Tomatoes are now used in myriads of recipes and are widely grown and eaten. It has become an important extra flavor to people’s taste wherever they go. TOMATOES ROCK!!!!