What is the tomato?

What is the tomato?
To study the tomato, we must first question the words. Do we know what the word tomato means? Where does the term come from? Does it have the same name in the scientific sphere as it does colloquially? In this chapter we will attempt to throw some light on the concept, from a lexical-semantic, conceptual and comparative perspective.

We will begin by delving into the complex etymology of the term and then look at its evolution in the Spanish language to arrive at the meaning it has today, viewed through different perspectives: academic, gastronomic and botanical. This chapter also includes some of the scientific and colloquial names.

These designations provide uniformity to all the varieties on the market, although most of them are very different.

Tomatoes come in different shapes, sizes and colours. A tomato is not the same for a farmer as it is for a botanist or a chef. This is where we interpret what a tomato is for different professionals so we can obtain a holistic understanding of this concept.

Then, we will situate the tomato in the gastronomic world through a comparative study, where we will relate our object of interest to other fruits based on different criteria: texture, shape, colour, molecules, and others.

More information can be found in the book Tomato Sapiens.