Tomatoes: A Love Story

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The tomato is Gastropod’s favorite flavor of summer, and we’re not alone: today, it’s the most popular vegetable on the planet, despite the fact that it's technically a fruit. But, until a couple of hundred years ago, the tomato wasn't really anyone's favorite. In South America, where the tomato originates, no one even bothered to domesticate it; in Mexico, the Aztecs seem to have preferred tomatillos; Renaissance Europeans thought this member of the nightshade family was practically poisonous; and, until the 1830s, most Americans considered them an “acquired taste.” Even in Italy, where the culinary mainstays of pizza and pasta now depend on red sauce, it took centuries to catch on. So why was the tomato so unloved—and how did it end up converting the haters on its rise to glory? Listen in this episode for the story of how Italian block parties, snake oil pills, and the state of Florida played in a role in the tomato’s journey to global domination—as well as the epic tale of one man’s quest to make the industrial tomato taste great again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Yes, you like potato and I like potato.
0:05.7	You like tomato.
0:07.7	I like tomato.
0:09.7	Potato, potato, tomato.
0:11.7	Tomato, tomato.
0:13.9	Let's call the old thing off.
0:17.1	Hmm.
0:17.9	I wonder what this episode is about.
0:20.1	Is it about the way I say tomato?
0:21.9	No, but this is the perfect time to remind all you lovely listeners that Nikki is in fact British.
0:28.0	I know, I know, she's been here for so long that she almost sounds like an American.
0:31.6	But then there are some words that we differ on, like the tomato.
0:34.7	Or in fact, tomato.
0:36.2	We're definitely not going to call the whole thing off. Our relationship is solid, Cynthia, but the tomato. Or in fact, tomato. We're definitely not going to call the whole thing off.
0:38.4	Our relationship is solid, Cynthia, but the tomato? That's a more troubled love affair.
0:44.3	And we've got the whole story, this episode of Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food
0:49.6	through the lens of science and history. I am Nicola Twilly. And I'm Cynthia Graber. This episode, we're
0:54.9	finally telling the story of one of my favorite vegetables of all time. Or wait, is it a fruit?
1:00.9	Oh, well, the United States Supreme Court said it's a vegetable, but the reality is it's a
1:07.3	botanically, it is most definitely a fruit. Not the first time the Supreme Court has been wrong.
1:14.1	Either way, the tomato is extremely beloved.
1:17.7	I love it, the world loves it, it's up there with the potato as the most consumed item in the
	...

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