11 Things You Never Knew About Tomatoes

According to Smithsonian Magazine, in the 1700s, some Europeans feared the tomato because aristocrats were getting sick after eating them, and in some cases even dying. The tomato even earned the nickname the "poisonous apple." The problem wasn't the tomatoes, however, but the pewter plates on which the tomatoes were served. Tomatoes are high in acid, which makes them potentially hazardous when they come in contact with heavy metals and pewter. As the FDA explains, highly acidic foods may leach when touching certain metals, like pewter. Thus tomatoes served on pewter plates in the 1700s occasionally caused people to fall ill or die from lead poisoning, and people falsely attributed this to tomatoes. Luckily people eventually came to their senses and figured out the lead was to blame -- not the tomatoes.

The U.S. is second. Given that tomatoes do not factor heavily into Chinese cuisine, we find this confusing too. China exports much of its crop and also processes a lot of it into products like tomato paste.

California is responsible for 96 percent of the processing tomato output and one-third of the fresh crop. Florida comes next, with Florida and California making up two-thirds to three-fourths of all commercially produced fresh-market tomatoes in the country.

About half of that consumption comes in the form of tomato sauce and ketchup. Yeah, that's a lot of ketchup.

The scientific name for tomatoes is Lycopersicon lycopersicum, which means wolf peach!

The cold air in the fridge stops the tomato from ripening, and ripening is what gives tomatoes more flavor. The cold temperature will also alter the texture of the tomato, breaking down the membranes inside the fruit walls and turning it mealy. Word to the wise: keep your tomatoes out on the counter if you want them to taste good and retain their wonderful texture.

Thanks to the acid in tomatoes, you can use tomato pulp to clear up blemishes, apparently! Applying some tomato pulp to your face can also help diminish oily skin. (Too bad we just want to eat all the tomatoes and not use them for beauty treatments.)

No, tomatoes are not from Italy. They were first cultivated by the Aztecs and Incas, dating back as early as 700 AD.

The first tomatoes were small and yellow, which likely explains the Italian word given to them when they were brought to Europe: pomi d'oro, which translates to yellow apples.

That's a lot of different kinds of tomatoes. So you better start eating now. Some of the more fun names include Baby Cakes, Banana Legs, Cream Sausage, Gremlin, Jolly Elf and Mr. Ugly.

Wait a minute. Didn't we just clear this matter up: tomatoes are fruits, right? Yes, botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits. But in 1893, the Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes could also be called vegetables. In "the common language of the people," a tomato is a vegetable, which at the time of the case, meant that the Tariff Act, which taxed important vegetables, could legally apply to tomatoes. The government abandoned the Tariff of 1833, but the legal opinion still stands. You say tomato, I say tomato.