If you TRULY love tomatoes, I'm gonna need you to write a 5,000 word essay on the advantages of tomatoes in today's society as well as its detailed history in the influence of the world. Include its effects on famines and taste in food. Do NOT use ChatGPT (I will check). Write in Times New Roman font 12. You may use Pastebin. You have exactly until the epoch timestamp hits 1695058062. (September 18th) If you fail to do this, you just proved to yourself that tomatoes SUCK!!!!
Not to also forget, how many different varieties oof tomatoes there are and their own unique names, and if you love tomatoes you gotta be best friends with mushrooms too tomatoes think mushrooms are fun guys
The tomato (/təmeɪtoʊ/ or /təmɑːtoʊ/) is the edible berry of the plant Solanum lycopersicum,[1][2] commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America.[2][3] The Nahuatl word tomatl gave rise to the Spanish word tomate, from which the English word tomato derived.[3][4] Its domestication and use as a cultivated food may have originated with the indigenous peoples of Mexico.[2][5] The Aztecs used tomatoes in their cooking at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and after the Spanish encountered the tomato for the first time after their contact with the Aztecs, they brought the plant to Europe, in a widespread transfer of plants known as the Columbian exchange. From there, the tomato was introduced to other parts of the European-colonized world during the 16th century.[2] Tomatoes are a significant source of umami flavor.[6] They are consumed in diverse ways: raw or cooked, and in many dishes, sauces, salads, and drinks. While tomatoes are fruits—botanically classified as berries—they are commonly used culinarily as a vegetable ingredient or side dish.[3] Numerous varieties of the tomato plant are widely grown in temperate climates across the world, with greenhouses allowing for the production of tomatoes throughout all seasons of the year. Tomato plants typically grow to 1–3 meters (3–10 ft) in height. They are vines that have a weak stem that sprawls and typically needs support.[2] Indeterminate tomato plants are perennials in their native habitat, but are cultivated as annuals. (Determinate, or bush, plants are annuals that stop growing at a certain height and produce a crop all at once.) The size of the tomato varies according to the cultivar, with a range of 1–10 cm (1⁄2–4 in) in width.[2] Grape tomatoes on the vine for sale at a market History Solanum lycopersicum var. lycopersicum: the oldest surviving tomato fruit and leaves. Page from the En Tibi Herbarium, 1558. Naturalis Leiden. The wild ancestor of the tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium, is native to western South America.[7] These wild versions were the size of peas.[7] The first evidence of domestication points to the Aztecs and other peoples in Mesoamerica, who used the fruit fresh and in their cooking. The Spanish first introduced tomatoes to Europe, where they became used in Spanish food. In France, Italy and northern Europe, the tomato was initially grown as an ornamental plant. It was regarded with suspicion as a food because botanists recognized it as a nightshade, a relative of the poisonous belladonna.[3] This was exacerbated by the interaction of the tomato's acidic juice with pewter plates.[8] The leaves and fruit contain tomatine, which in large quantities would be toxic. However, the ripe fruit contains a much lower amount of tomatine than the immature fruit.[9] Mesoamerica The exact date of domestication is unknown; by 500 BC, it was already being cultivated in southern Mexico and probably other areas.[10]: 13 The Pueblo people are thought to have believed that those who witnessed the ingestion of tomato seeds were blessed with powers of divination.[11] The large, lumpy variety of tomato, a mutation from a smoother, smaller fruit, originated in Mesoamerica, and may be the direct ancestor of some modern cultivated tomatoes.[10]: 15 The Aztecs raised several varieties of tomato, with red tomatoes called xictomatl and green tomatoes called tomatl (tomatillo).[12] Bernardino de Sahagún reported seeing a great variety of tomatoes in the Aztec market at Tenochtitlán (Mexico City): "large tomatoes, small tomatoes, leaf tomatoes, sweet tomatoes, large serpent tomatoes, nipple-shaped tomatoes", and tomatoes of all colors from the brightest red to the deepest yellow.[13] Bernardino de Sahagún mentioned Aztecs cooking various sauces, some with and without tomatoes of different sizes, serving them in city markets: "foods sauces, hot sauces; fried [food], olla-cooked [food], juices, sauces of juices, shredded [food] with chile, with squash seeds [most likely Cucurbita pepo], with tomatoes, with smoked chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce, yellow chile sauce, hot chile sauce, with "bird excrement" sauce, sauce of smoked chile, heated [sauces], bean sauce; [he sells] toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce, sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce."[14] Spanish distribution Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first to transfer a small yellow tomato to Europe after he captured the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, in 1521. The earliest discussion of the tomato in European literature appeared in a herbal written in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, an Italian physician and botanist, who suggested that a new type of eggplant had been brought to Italy that was blood red or golden color when mature and could be divided into segments and eaten like an eggplant—that is, cooked and seasoned with salt, black pepper, and oil. It was not until ten years later that tomatoes were named in print by Mattioli as pomi d'oro, or "golden apples".[10]: 13 After the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish distributed the tomato throughout their colonies in the Caribbean. They also took it to the Philippines, from where it spread to southeast Asia and then the entire Asian continent. The Spanish also brought the tomato to Europe. It grew easily in Mediterranean climates, and cultivation began in the 1540s. It was probably eaten shortly after it was introduced, and was certainly being used as food by the early 17th century in Spain. China The tomato was introduced to China, likely via the Philippines or Macau, in the 1500s. It was given the name 番茄 fānqié (foreign eggplant), as the Chinese named many foodstuffs introduced from abroad, but referring specifically to early introductions.[15] Italy The San Marzano is a well-known plum tomato highly prized for making pizza. The recorded history of tomatoes in Italy dates back to at least 31 October 1548, when the house steward of Cosimo de' Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany, wrote to the Medici private secretary informing him that the basket of tomatoes sent from the grand duke's Florentine estate at Torre del Gallo "had arrived safely".[16] Tomatoes were grown mainly as ornamentals early on after their arrival in Italy. For example, the Florentine aristocrat Giovanvettorio Soderini wrote how they "were to be sought only for their beauty", and were grown only in gardens or flower beds. The tomato's ability to mutate and create new and different varieties helped contribute to its success and spread throughout Italy. However, even in areas where the climate supported growing tomatoes, their habit of growing to the ground suggested low status. They were not adopted as a staple of the peasant population because they were not as filling as other fruits already available. Additionally, both toxic and inedible varieties discouraged many people from attempting to consume or prepare any other varieties.[17] In certain areas of Italy, such as Florence, the fruit was used solely as a tabletop decoration, until it was incorporated into the local cuisine in the late 17th or early 18th century.[18] The earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources.[10]: 17 Unique varieties were developed over the next several hundred years for uses such as dried tomatoes, sauce tomatoes, pizza tomatoes, and tomatoes for long-term storage. These varieties are usually known for their place of origin as much as by a variety name. For example, Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio is the "hanging tomato of Vesuvius", or the well known and highly-prized San Marzano plum tomato grown in that region.[This paragraph needs citation(s)]
Britain Tomatoes for sale in a UK supermarket Tomatoes were not grown in England until the 1590s. One of the earliest cultivators was John Gerard, a barber-surgeon. Gerard's Herbal, published in 1597, and largely plagiarized from continental sources, is also one of the earliest discussions of the tomato in England. Gerard knew the tomato was eaten in Spain and Italy. Nonetheless, he believed it was poisonous (in fact, the plant and raw fruit do have low levels of tomatine, but are not generally dangerous; see below). Gerard's views were influential, and the tomato was considered unfit for eating (though not necessarily poisonous) for many years in Britain and its North American colonies.[10]: 17 However, by the mid-18th century, tomatoes were widely eaten in Britain, and before the end of that century, the Encyclopædia Britannica stated the tomato was "in daily use" in soups, broths, and as a garnish. They were not part of the average person's diet, and though by 1820 they were described as "to be seen in great abundance in all our vegetable markets" and to be "used by all our best cooks", reference was made to their cultivation in gardens still "for the singularity of their appearance", while their use in cooking was associated with exotic Italian or Jewish cuisine.[19] For example, in Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal, it is described under the name "Love Apple (Amoris Pomum)" as being consumed with oil and vinegar in Italy, similar to consumption of cucumbers in the UK.[20] Middle East and North Africa The tomato was introduced to cultivation in the Middle East by John Barker, British consul in Aleppo c. 1799 to 1825.[21][22] Nineteenth century descriptions of its consumption are uniformly as an ingredient in a cooked dish. In 1881, it is described as only eaten in the region "within the last forty years".[23] Today, the tomato is a critical and ubiquitous part of Middle Eastern cuisine, served fresh in salads (e.g., Arab salad, Israeli salad, Shirazi salad and Turkish salad), grilled with kebabs and other dishes, made into sauces, and so on.[citation needed]
Breeding This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The Tomato Genetic Resource Center, Germplasm Resources Information Network, AVRDC, and numerous seed banks around the world store seed representing genetic variations of value to modern agriculture. These seed stocks are available for legitimate breeding and research efforts. While individual breeding efforts can produce useful results, the bulk of tomato breeding work is at universities and major agriculture-related corporations. These efforts have resulted in significant regionally adapted breeding lines and hybrids, such as the Mountain series from North Carolina. Corporations including Heinz, Monsanto, BHNSeed, and Bejoseed have breeding programs that attempt to improve production, size, shape, color, flavor, disease tolerance, pest tolerance, nutritional value, and numerous other traits.[citation needed] Fruit versus vegetable See also: Vegetable § Terminology Tomatoes are considered a fruit or vegetable depending on context. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, tomatoes are a fruit labeled in grocery stores as a vegetable due to their taste and culinary purposes.[3] Botanically, a tomato is a fruit—a berry, consisting of the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant.[61] However, the tomato is considered a "culinary vegetable" because it has a much lower sugar content than culinary fruits; because it is more savoury (umami) than sweet, it is typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, rather than as a dessert.[62] Tomatoes are not the only food source with this ambiguity; bell peppers, cucumbers, green beans, aubergines/eggplants, avocados, and squashes of all kinds (such as courgettes/zucchini and pumpkins) are all botanically fruit, yet cooked as vegetables.[63] The confusion on whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetables has led to legal dispute in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruit, caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. In Nix v. Hedden, the U.S. Supreme Court settled the tariff controversy on 10 May 1893, by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use—they are generally served with dinner and not dessert.[64] The holding of this case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff of 1883, and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other purposes.
Cultivation The tomato is grown worldwide for its edible fruits, with thousands of cultivars.[65] A fertilizer with an NPK ratio of 5–10–10 is often sold as tomato fertilizer or vegetable fertilizer, although manure and compost are also used.[citation needed] On average there are 150,000 seeds in a pound of tomato seeds.[66] Diseases For a more comprehensive list, see List of tomato diseases. Tomato fruitworm feeding on unripe tomato Tomato bug feeding on tomato plant sap A split heirloom tomato, caused by fluctuation in water availability Tomato cultivars vary widely in their resistance to disease. Modern hybrids focus on improving disease resistance over the heirloom plants. Various forms of mildew and blight are common tomato afflictions, which is why tomato cultivars are often marked with a combination of letters that refer to specific disease resistance. The most common letters are: LB – 'late blight'[67] V – verticillium wilt F – fusarium wilt strain I FF – fusarium wilt strain I and II N – nematodes T – tobacco mosaic virus, and A – alternaria. A common tomato disease is tobacco mosaic virus. Handling cigarettes and other infected tobacco products can transmit the virus to tomato plants.[68] Another particularly dreaded disease is curly top, carried by the beet leafhopper, which interrupts the lifecycle. As the name implies, it has the symptom of making the top leaves of the plant wrinkle up and grow abnormally.[citation needed] Bacterial wilt is another common disease impacting yield.[69] Wang et al., 2019 found phage combination therapies to reduce the impact of bacterial wilt, sometimes by reducing bacterial abundance and sometimes by selecting for resistant but slow growing genetics.[69] Pests Some common tomato pests are the tomato bug, stink bugs, cutworms, tomato hornworms and tobacco hornworms, aphids, cabbage loopers, whiteflies, tomato fruitworms, flea beetles, red spider mite, slugs,[70] and Colorado potato beetles. The tomato russet mite, Aculops lycopersici, feeds on foliage and young fruit of tomato plants, causing shrivelling and necrosis of leaves, flowers, and fruit, possibly killing the plant.[71] After an insect attack tomato plants produce systemin, a plant peptide hormone. Systemin activates defensive mechanisms, such as the production of protease inhibitors to slow the growth of insects. The hormone was first identified in tomatoes, but similar proteins have been identified in other species since.[72] Other disorders Although not a disease as such, irregular supplies of water can cause growing or ripening fruit to split. Besides cosmetic damage, the splits may allow decay to start, although growing fruits have some ability to heal after a split. In addition, a deformity called cat-facing can be caused by pests, temperature stress, or poor soil conditions. Affected fruit usually remains edible, but its appearance may be unsightly. Companion plants See also: List of companion plants and List of beneficial weeds Tomatoes serve, or are served by, a large variety of companion plants. Among the most famous pairings is the tomato plant and carrots; studies supporting this relationship have produced a popular book about companion planting, Carrots Love Tomatoes.[73] The devastating tomato hornworm has a major predator in various parasitic wasps, whose larvae devour the hornworm, but whose adult form drinks nectar from tiny-flowered plants like umbellifers. Several species of umbellifer are therefore often grown with tomato plants, including parsley, Queen Anne's lace, and occasionally dill. These also attract predatory flies that attack various tomato pests.[74] Borage is thought to repel the tomato hornworm moth.[75] Plants with strong scents, like alliums (onions, chives, garlic), mints (basil, oregano, spearmint) and French marigold, (Tagetes patula) are thought to mask the scent of the tomato plant, making it harder for pests to locate it, or to provide an alternative landing point, reducing the odds of the pests from attacking the correct plant.[76] These plants may also subtly affect the flavor of tomato fruit.[77] Basil is popularly recommended as a companion plant to the tomato. Common claims are that basil may deter pests or improve tomato flavor. However, in double-blind taste tests, basil did not significantly affect the taste of tomatoes when planted adjacent to them.[78][79] Tomato plants can protect asparagus from asparagus beetles, because they contain solanine that kills this pest,[citation needed] while asparagus plants contain asparagusic acid that repels nematodes known to attack tomato plants.[80] Marigolds also repel nematodes.[81][82][83]
