The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is a species of herbaceous plant of the genus solanum of the Solanaceae family, originating from the North-West of South America, widely cultivated for its fruit. The term also designates this fleshy fruit. The tomato is eaten like a fruit vegetable, raw or cooked. It has become an essential element of gastronomy in many countries, and especially in the Mediterranean basin.
The species has a few botanical varieties, including the "cherry-tomato" and several thousand cultivated varieties (cultivars identified by appellations or trademarks).
The plant is grown in the open field or under cover by farmers and horticulturalists in almost all latitudes, on an area of about three million hectares. The tomato has given rise to the development of a large processing industry, for the manufacture of concentrate, tomato sauce, in particular ketchup sauce, vegetable juice and canned goods.
Of great economic importance, it is the subject of numerous scientific researches. It is considered a model plant in genetics. It gave birth to the first genetically modified plant authorized for cultivation and marketed temporarily in the United States in the 1990s.
The feminine noun "tomato" is a loan, first through the Spanish tomato then through that of various translations, to the nahuatl (language of the Uto-Aztec family) tomatl which designated the fruit of the tomatilla (Physalis ixocarpa). However, the word nahuatl xitoma (tl) (which means "(the) navel" and which gave in Mexican Spanish: jitomate) designates the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). The first certificate of "tomato" in French dates from 1598 in the translation of José de Acosta's work, Historia natural y moral de las Indias, by Robert Regnauld6. "Tomato" only entered the dictionary of the French Academy in 1835, the fruit has long been called love apple or golden apple.
The name of the tomato appears in the “words without borders” recorded by Sergio Corrêa da Costa8. It is found in many languages with slight phonetic and spelling variations. We thus have in European languages: tomato in English, tomato in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese, tomată in Romanian, tomato in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Estonian, tomaat in Dutch, tomaquet in Catalan, domates in Turkish, à l notable exception of the Italian pomodoro, the Polish pomidor and the Hungarian paradicsom9. In Russian, the terms tomat (томат) and pomidor (помидор) are interchangeable.
Use
The tomato (the fruit) plays an important role in human nutrition. Although it is a fruit from a botanical point of view, it is eaten as a vegetable either raw or in salads, often mixed with other ingredients, either in juice or cooked in countless culinary preparations. They are then processed industrially, from fresh products, canned or frozen, in the form of mash, concentrate, condiment, sauces and ready meals. Tomato processing industries are established in all regions of the world and are supplied by thousands of hectares of mechanized cultivation.
Food
Tomatoes are dietary foods, very rich in water (93 to 95%) and very low in calories (17 kcal per 100 grams), rich in minerals and vitamins (A, C and E).
Carbohydrates, 2 to 3%, consist mainly of fructose and glucose.
Mineral salts, the content of which also depends on the soil and fertilizer supply, are made up of almost half of potassium, around 235 mg per 100 g of tomato.
The tomato contains several water-soluble vitamins, the main one being vitamin C. The content, from 10 to 30 mg / 100 g, in raw tomatoes is greatly reduced in cooked tomatoes (around 16 mg).
Ripe tomatoes also contain several pigments from the carotenoid family, including ß-carotene, which has provitamin A activity. The contents expressed in micrograms per 100 g of raw tomatoes are shown in the table below.