The journey of the word 'tomato'

What happened ? #2

Nov 06, 2020

In France, tomatoes are present in almost every household and many recipes use it. Today we will see how this vegetable, which came from the other side of the world five centuries ago, has become an essential ingredient in our European cuisine and how the name ‘tomato’ traveled with it.

Initially, the tomato originated in northwestern South America.

It was introduced in Europe by the Spanish colonizers at the beginning of the 16th century. However at that time tomatoes were not eaten! In fact, they were used as an ornamental plant to decorate the houses because people believed at first that tomatoes were not edible. Indeed, immature tomatoes contain glycoalkaloids, toxic molecules, which can cause digestive, nervous and sometimes even cardiac disorders. The Europeans of that time had reason to be wary of them!

But once mature, there is nothing to worry about, tomatoes contain only traces of them and are therefore not dangerous.

It was only around the 17th and 18th century that tomatoes began to be used in cooking, almost a century after their importation! What is interesting is that because of this unique origin, there are very few etymological variations around the word "tomato" in Europe.

We have tomato in English, tomate in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese (be careful not to use the same pronunciations each time!), tomată in Romanian, tomat in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Estonian, tomaat in Dutch, tomaquet in Catalan, domates in Turkish, …

In fact, the colonizers who arrived in South America did not overtax themselves. They just took the Aztec word and gave it a Spanish tone. So tomatl, in Nahuatl the Aztec language, became tomaté in Spanish. When the tomato arrived in Europe, the Spanish word, derived from Aztec, spread everywhere.

But there is another variation in Europe. Indeed, in Italian it is called pomodoro and in Polish it is pomidor.

So why is there such a big difference? An Italian text from Constanzo Felici, a doctor and naturalist, in 1572 describing tomatoes gives us an explanation.

In it, tomatoes are called Pomo de Oro which can be translated as golden apples and are described as having an "intense yellow or bold red color". One of the hypotheses of the researchers is that the text referred to two varieties of tomatoes of different colors and that the term "gold" was kept in Italian.

In Europe, between the 16th and 19th century, there was still a third name for tomatoes: the term "love apple". Apparently scientists of the time were convinced that tomatoes had aphrodisiac virtues and would have given this name accordingly!

In France, even though the tomato was imported in 1598, the word "tomato" did not enter the dictionary until 1835, 300 years later! It definitely took them a long time to decide between tomato, golden apple and love apple!

Thank you for your attention ! Let me know what you thought !

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