Tomato or not: Pureedby prices, sliced by past

Only two things that money can't buy/And that's true love and homegrown tomatoes." That's Guy Clark's popular song 'Homegrown Tomatoes' released in the summer of 1981. Looks like in the Monsoon of 2023, tomatoes are still burning a hole in our pocket. Of late, tomatoes have become a staple of every household. It's a must for Indian curries, Maggi (admit it, it is the reality of modern houses), sandwiches and pastas. Not to mention tomato chutney that is so peremptory with pakoras during rain.
The question that intrigues me isn't about the existential fruit-versus-veggie debate on tomatoes. But the history of its entry into the country and eventually our kitchen.
According to noted food historian KT Achaya, tomatoes weren't part of the food exchange between the Old and New worlds, called the Columbian Exchange that happened in the late 15th centuries and later.
Tomatoes entered India through the Portuguese in the early 16th century. But they were introduced as a berry around areas of their dominion - modern-day Mumbai and Goa - and never made it to the plate.
In his 'A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food', Achaya says the vegetable came to India via England at an uncertain date around 1850.
In its earliest known history, tomatoes were harvested and consumed by Aztecs in Mexico. They called it 'xitomatl' (which means 'fat water with a navel'). After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century, the vegetable reached Europe.
The acceptance of the vegetable was slow though. It was met with suspicion because of people's beliefs about its apparent aphrodisiac properties. People in Florence, Italy, used tomatoes as tabletop decoration until the late 17th century. Americans believed tomatoes were poisonous and didn't harvest them until 1835.
Like the Aztecs, who named the vegetable after its appearance - xitomatl, meaning 'fat water with a navel' - tomatoes elsewhere got no definite names. While Spanish called it 'tomate' and it readily found favour with the local cuisine, the Italian welcomed it into their kitchen as 'pomodoro', which came from 'pomo d'oro', or golden apple. The Arabic term for the vegetable is 'tamatim' and it is called 'tamatar' in Hindi.
Because of the tomato plant's relationship with poisonous plants, like belladonna and mandrake, its acceptance in England was even slower.
In India, as late as 1880, tomatoes were grown chiefly for the European population, writes George Watt in his 'Dictionary of Economic Products of India' (1893). Watt, however, mentions that Bengalis were beginning to appreciate tomatoes and added them in their curries. Now, you know how 'shorshe macher jhol' got its colour and tanginess.
Similarly, originated as a fast lunchtime dish for textile mill workers in British Bombay, pav-bhaji must have led to the earliest acceptance of tomatoes in west Indian food.
In the North, tomato made its entry into the restaurant menus driven by the need of the British gentry to enjoy an Indian curry without facing the consequences the following morning. Butter chicken was thus born.
In the South, thakkali rasam (tomato rasam) soon became a ready fix.
Looking at today's tomato consumption in an Indian household, it is so difficult to believe that the vegetable, still alternatively called Bilati Begun (foreign eggplant) in Bengali, is so new to us.
Perhaps because of its ability to add both texture and colour to the curry, tomato became a hit everywhere. Not to mention, the presence of glutamate in tomatoes. Glutamates are excitatory neurotransmitters that send messages between nerve cells (neurons) in your brain and are basically flavour enhancers.
Like American writer Laurie Colwin said, "A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins", it's time we faced the music for our newfound love for tomatoes.