We're gonna pull a plant right now so I can show you guys what we do every day.

So, you can see here, you can see some tomatoes on top, right? It looks nice.

But where the real magic is, under here.

That's where you really see everything.

It's so nuts how many tomatoes there are. I'm really shocked.

You guys want to hold it? Sure. Oh my god. It's a good workout for sure. There's a lot of tomato.

Wow, that weighs a ton. It's like buried treasure. Nikki and I had each hefted a massive tomato plant into the air, and we were loaded up to our elbows in bright red fruit.

It was truly amazing.

And what made it even more amazing was this was just two plants in a field full of them, all covered in perfect red plum-shaped tomatoes.

But you could hardly see any of them until you lifted the plants up into the air. From the surface, it was just a carpet of green.

We were visiting this tomato field because we promised you a full episode all about canned tomatoes.

We, of course, are Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. I'm Cynthia Graber. And I'm Nicola Twilly. And after having so much fun

getting into the story of fresh tomatoes and how they lost their flavor last summer, we are back

with a winter-themed take on our favorite fruit that's really more of a vegetable. What do the Civil

War and Galapagos turtles have to do with the development of this pantry

staple? And are San Marzano's all there cracked up to be?

This episode is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the public understanding

of science, technology, and economics.

Gastropod is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Itter.

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