Tomato tomato. Yes, we should make a shirt that says tomato tomato. We're the only ones I find this funny. Oh my god, that's hilarious. Guess what today an episode is about. My name is Eva Longoria and I am and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages. So make yourself at home. Speaking of tomato, tomato is a tomato a vegetable or fruit? Mighty, It's kind of both, but botanically, Botanically speaking, the tomatoes are fruit. In eighteen ninety three, a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States said that tomatoes should be classified as a vegetable and tax as a vegetable. I love that there is a there's a Supreme Court decision on this, Like what come on, Supreme Court? And in eighteen ninety three, there was a lot of shit going on in the country that they should have been more focused on, but deciding on whether or not the tomato was a vegetable or a fruit was taking precedent. What's wild to me is that when people think of the tomato. They usually associated with the Italians, the tomato sauce on the pizza, marinara sauce, you know. But tomatoes are endemic to Mehico, Mexico, one of the many ingredients that Mexico has given the world. So who first cultivated tomatoes? They're endemic to Mexico and meso America. But like who first started like cultivating, we don't know exactly because the seeds are so tiny that it's hard to trace. You know. Really they were first cultivated in the ninth century by the Aztecs, although again they were probably cultivated earlier than that. Sophie Coo, this amazing historian who wrote this book which I love, America's First Cuisines. She says that the met that the tomato very likely originated in South America but made its way north to Mexico, you know, hundreds of years ago, probably carried by birds. Same for chiles, which we'll talk about in another episode, and potato and potato, pineapple, like so many things that are native to you know, South America. Yeah, so you know it's something that they were consuming, you know, pre conquest, sliced tomatoes, probably making salsas like we like we do today, will make some sort of salsa or some sort of pico pico de gallo Francisco. He wrote this so basically talking about his observations of New Spain and fifty sixty and he describes it. The tomatoes were added to sauces and stews to temper the heat of the Chiles, and they added a really nice tartness to food. Oh that makes sense, yeah, acidically it could bring down the heat on a Chile. Well. Also, the word tomato, and probably the reason we associate it so much with Meso America and the Aztecs is the noato word, which means round and plump. And so then when the Spaniards arrived, they called it. They couldn't say the word, would like I can't say the word and they change it. Yeah, the tomato, soy, It was basically referred to many round and plump fruits. The red tomato is called the ht the green tomato is called the total. But even today in Mexico, I grew up just calling the and but in other parts to Mexico the red tomatoes, green tomatoes the too. It's so confusing when I'm in Mexico and I'm trying to cook or asking asking, uh, somebody, hey, can you pick me up some tomatoes? I go, can you you know? And they go and they bring me green ones, and I go, no, no, hie? Which is the red one? Yeah, it's confusing. They have such a different flavors. The green tomato that has the husk, it's very um, a little bit sour. It's great for saltzas. Green saltzas I love. And the red one is much milder. I make an amazing tomato salsa fresh or cooked. I cooked my salsa. I roast them and then I blend them and then I cook it. So I do I do both. So if the tomato is endemic to Messo America, how did it get to Europe? Okay? And did it get a bad reputation? The tomato goes to Europe and gets a bad reputation. Why this is a crazy story, like so many ingredients that have such crazy story. So reached Europe around fifteen forty via city Yam right. It was the center for international trade, especially with Italy. Naples was part of Spain. Right, so it made its way from Mexico to Spain, and then it made its way to Italy. So according to Andrew Smith who's this wrote this book which is amazing, it's called the tomato in America. One of the earliest known references to the tomato was made by an Italian Italian herbalist named Bertietto Manthioli. He refers to it as a golden apple and it was a nightshade and related to a man drake, which was an Old World food that was known for an aphrodisiac. This man drake was basically used as a as a love potion. And then in England around the same time, there is this herbalist named John Girard. He published a book called The History of Plants, and he tells us that the plant is poisonous. Why would he say that if he's an herbalist like he should know that that it's not. They weren't really sure what they were what they were doing. He considered the whole plant to be of rank and stinking savor. And he talks about He says that the Spaniards and the Italians were eating it, but that it was poisonous. Oh, because the leaves, the leaves and stock are toxic, but not the fruit. But not the fruit, but this false opinion of the tomato, whatever it prevailed. One thing that I find the most interesting about all of this is that by the seventeen hundreds, and we're talking, you know, almost two hundred years later, many Europeans they were terrified of the tomato because aristocrats would eat from pewter plates, so they got sick and a lot of them died after eating tomatoes. But it wasn't the tomato itself. It was the acid and the tomato that caused lead to leach from the pewter plates. So they were getting lead poisoning, but they didn't It wasn't the tomato. It was the lead. But they didn't really put two and two to anything that they would eat. They would be poisoned. They could put eggs on that plate and they would be poisoned. Yeah, but maybe it's it's the acid and the tomato that really got it caused of poixactly exactly. So it wasn't until that late eighteen hundreds that the popularity in Europe began to grow. But people in Spain and people in Italy were eating the tomato. Don't go anywhere. We've got more on the history of the luscious tomato when we get back, stay with us. The earliest known printed recipe for tomato appears in sixteen ninety four The Modern Steward by Antonio Latini, and he did a sauce. It was a tomato sauce called Spanish style, but it was the sauce was used on meats, and so in Italy, the people who started eating tomatoes because there was nothing else available. It was actually a food for the poor, and they couldn't eat all of it because they couldn't preserve it or store it. So they started making these sauces to put on pasta and pizza so that they could use up the tomatoes because you know, they don't they don't last very long if you get a good ripe tomato. So by the nineteenth century Italians this is where the popularity of Italian sauce was born for pasta pizza, because they would mix them with beans and other foods and that it's very cool. And this guy Antonio Latini was amazing, like he has this earliest printed recipe for tomatoes. He also gives us the first printed recipe for survey. I think it's too were interesting that he calls it tomato sauce. Spanish child, because we don't actually see a tomato recipe in Spain until seventeen forty five. But so then what about the tomato in the US. What's the first known reference? So the first known reference in colonial America is also from an English herbalist. This is a man named William Salmon or Salmon, I'm not sure you pronounce the last name, but Nolochia of seventeen ten, and he talks about the tomatoes being cultivated in the Carolinas. So this is interesting, like how did the tomato get there? Maybe they were brought over by Spanish, French, or Caribbean settlers. Maybe it was also that it slaved Africans introduced the tomato to the region because they were responsible for cooking on southern plantations. So there are various theories as to how the tomato got here, but it likely came to the US via Old World, not via Mexico. It was it the America that made it possible to commercially process canned tomatoes so that they were available all year round. And so this is what this was the entrance of Campbells condensed tomatoes, soup and the food market in eighteen sixty early because they popularize Yes, I didn't know can did I? But I have to say, actually, I want to say one thing. It was the French that it that invented canning. It was Campbell's in eighteen sixty nine that would popularize the mass production of canned tomato formats and the sale of canned tomatoes. So Americans weren't just eating fresh tomatoes and including them and the recipes, but they were using canned tomatoes to make these meals. And canned food was obviously shelf stable, so it required no storage, and it could be eaten year round, and it lasted a lot longer. So this was pretty genius of absolutely. Yeah. And so this whole concept of canning really revolutionize the food world in general, not just for tomatoes. And this is a technique that was developed, you know, in France, but even you know before this, we see you know, Mary Randolph this cookbook eighteen twenty four. She has seventeen different tomato recipes, including an early American recipe for ketchup, which is interesting speaking of ketchup, because ketchup originally is not based from tomatoes. The ancestor of modern ketchup was tomato free, where did it come from. It comes from an ancient Chinese sauce, a fermented soybeans and fish sauce called kets up or goat chop, So that's where the word ketchup comes from. But the original ketchup has no tomato in it. But the word and the sauce were brought to Britain in the early seventeen hundreds, but since they didn't have any soybeans, they started using anchovies or mushrooms or walnuts or oysters. American colonists brought these recipes with them to the US and experimented with what they had. So they were first using apples and then they were using beans. And it wasn't until eighteen twelve that a Philadelphia scientist named James Mesee that he developed the first tomato ketchup made from love apples as they were still called. And then and then John Hines, as in Hinz Ketchup, later introduced a recipe which included vinegar, brown sugar, and spices, and he pioneered the use of the glass bottles. So Hines was the first to add vinegar, which acted as a preservative, and that was an eighteen seventy six and two Date is the best selling brand of ketchup and the best ketchup. It really is. I love it. It's the best ketch because it has vinegar. I love a vinegary ketchup. Now, today, the tomato market, which includes fresh and processed, is estimated to be worth about three point eight billion dollars, So it's it makes tomatoes one of the most consumed produce in America, second only to potatoes. So potatoes is the number one consumed produce in America and number two is tomatoes. That's interesting. And it's also one of the most genetically modified vegetables for vegetables, which is why sometimes we take a taste tomato and it tastes meally and it just or doesn't or just taste like water, doesn't taste like nothing. It's because of this, it's because it's been modified. Well, there's many there's what thousands of tomato varieties, and a lot of them are hybrids, thousands, thousands, And that's why you're right. That's why some of them have no flavor, and some of them are large and sturdy, like the beef steak. I think the beef steak tomato has an air flavor. They just have a good texture. But the air good texture. Yeah, but the airloom I love. I love the airloom because they're I also feel like I love all the colors that they come in and their taste. It's like it's just perfect if you lightly salted, it's just so good. A good airloom tomato is just oh, it's like heaven. Different colors like purple and green and yellow and all these colors. Yeah, absolutely, and different shapes different. I love the different sizes, super bumpy, I love them. You know, I use a lot of I actually use a lot of Rama tomatoes. They're also known as like the plum. They look like a plum size because they're sweet and juicy. I use those for for all my Italian sauces, Palma bolan asy like I use I use what do you use for your h roma? It's usually what I get drama, and then in the summers I get the airloom tomatoes. I love that Marzano is known as the rolls Royce of tomatoes because I do mix Rama and Marsana when I'm making my Italian sauces because they're sweeter. Best tomatoes I've ever had were in Sicily. They tasted like, oh really, oh my gosh, I feel like they had been injected with tomato flavor. There were sweet and a little acidic and just amazing. I think it's just the volcanic soil there is just oh, it gives everything such an incredible, incredible flavor. Do you know that that China is the world's largest tomato producer. Mexico is the leading exporter of fresh tomatoes to the United States, So if you're an American, you're probably eating a Mexican tomato. More on the history of the tomato after the break, don't go anywhere. Welcome back to hunger Reistory. Chef Hilberto Cetina is making waves creating unique flavors at his restaurant Holbosch in Los Angeles, California, so much so that in twenty twenty one, Holbosch received the Michelin bib Gormand Award, a really big deal in the culinary world. Here he is giving us even more history on the tomato, sharing a childhood memory eating tamlito, and giving us his thoughts on how the tomato is a jack of all trades. My name is Hiluerto Sea. I'm the chef and owner of Holbosch. Hohlbosch is a Mexican seafood or Marisco stand that focuses on just regional coastal Mexican cooking, prepared with whatever ingredients are available to us here locally in southern California, which is a lot and fantastic. Comes from South America, you know, the Andies. It's believed somewhere between Bolivia, Colombia, Cual or Peru. And just like the chileno, indeed, it was brought over to Messo America by via birds. The original tomato from the Andes is very different from what we know of as a tomato today, so it was a very small fruit. Through selective breeding, the Aztecs cultivated it and turned it into something that was beautiful, big and plump, and it was used in braises, and the braises were dishes for the for the wealthy, and for the royalty and for the politicians. It was not common food like la tortilla or or tamal, and most popularly it was used for something called a pipan or a pepian, which is a pumpkin seed or other kind of nut based with tomato and dry chiless and they would make you know, a nice thick, kind of velvety sauce that they would braisee wild game and the rich people would have that. So tomato is super important in our kitchen. Tomato is versatile more than anything. It is a jack of all trades. It does all kinds of things. So it can be as simple as a slice of tomato as a garnish on something. Think about let's go American food here, think about a hamburger, a nice thick slice of tomato. Or in my part of Mexico where I'm from, which is Yucatan, you put a nice slice of tomat on your pinuccio and it just completes it, right, the pinuccio, the tomato, the avocado, and that gives you the perfect bite. But it's also wonderful for obviously for my disco's right, that vegetable freshness, that vegetable crunch of the raw tomato, the raw onions, cilantro, cucumbers and avocado to balance out the protein heavy ceviche. Right, So a seviche without any vegs, it's you know, it's basically just sashimi. It's just you know, raw fish, and you add all these vegetables to it, and also, you know Chiles and your tostada, you're really creating something with the flavors of the region and making something completely different from you know, just raw fish or fish cured in lime juice and then in the in the hot kitchen against super versatile. The base of our food in a lot of parts of Mexico, in Yucatan, definitely the base of our food is sofritos. We use it for soups, we use it as a thickenerer, we use it for you know, rices and noodles, and the sofrito gives you a nice, deep developed flavor because it's you're cooking it in layers. You start with garlic and onion with a little bit of oil. You cook that down until it's caramelized, so you have that layer of flavor there, the caramelization of the onions and the garlic. Then you add tomatoes and peppers to that and you cook those down and you just start developing this this this wonderful bass that is a good starting point for wherever you want to go, either be it a soup or a sauce or whatever you're going to do with it. And classical Mexican dishes like pscalo la vera Cruzana sauce is a sofrito and in Yucatana is just basically a sofrito that you add calmari ink or octopus ink two and you to make that traditional dish so very important in our food. And you know, when I think about tomato growing up in Yucatan, I immediately go to artamos. It's just so it's so ingrained in our memory as Mexicans. Anytime you would go to the celebration and you're excited and you're there and your friends are there, there's always a tama with a little just a very simple salce, all right. You boil the tomatoes with maybe maybe a bay leaf, garlic, some onion, and then you blend it up and season it with salt and that's it. And it's a really pure, very simple sauce that gives the tamal an added layer of flavor. You know, the thamal usually does is lacking in acidity, in brightness, and sharpness, and that just gives it that. I would say that's the number one flavor memory tamal, maybe a little bit of cake on the side. I love tomatoes, love It's very one of the very few things that I can actually grow successfully. I grow these little cherry tomatoes and in the middle of the summer, like putting, oh, cherry tomato in your mouth, wore from the sun. The way that it just pops in your mouth. It's like a little taste of sunshine. I love it. What about you do like tomatoes? I like most tomatoes. It's so funny because I was in Wahaka and you'll see on searching for Mexico there's an episode of this woman who's like the tomato Queen, and we must have had a hundred different species tomatoes, and it was she did this tomato salad with this I need to get the dressing because it was. It was like the simplest, most complex dressing that she poured on top. But you know they were purple, they were red, they were orange, they were green, they were black, they were I mean it was big, small, you know, bumpy, smooth. It was. It was her tomato salad. And I almost died, like I was like I could this could be my last meal on earth. It was so good. And then I also love bantot in Spain so delicious, yeah, which is like this crushed ripe tomatoes with garlic and se salt, and you drown it in that Spanish olive oil and then you spread it on the bread. It is it is so good and so simple. It's so simple, I know that one. So simple. I also do like a bushetta, which is similar like chopping you know, great tomatoes, rama tomatoes with garlic and salt and olive oil and putting it on top of a christini. You know, like that too. I love that. I love freshness. I don't like tomatoes in a hamburger or a sandwich really, I don't know why. Yeah, or not too much in a salad either. I don't love them too much in a salad either. But yeah, I do love like a really good tomato. It's just sometimes, I mean, when I was growing up, I feel like the tomatoes were just kind of mealy because I think they've just been refrigerated. But now you could find such really good tomatoes. I just really like them, just sliced with olive oil and some salt. Yes, exactly, that's what I'm saying. I could have a tomato salad. I could eat tomatoes like the slice airm like. I could have an heirloom tomato with salt and olive oil and just eat it like an apple. I mean, I I can do that, but I don't want it in my salad. That weird? Are we weird? Maybe a little bit, But that's okay. Do you have a tomato recipe you love? I have a great gaspacho recipe. Ah no, I hate cold soup, so gaspacho falls in. Oh God, I have to make you. I need it. I think you'll like it. I don't pre bread and it. It's very simple. It's just fresh tomato, like super ripe tomato. Like it's the tomato if it looks like it's about to get little bugs growing on it, like super super ripe. Those are the tomatoes that are I really really juicy, that I wouldn't eat for anything else. Cucumber, green bell, pepper, olive oil, a tiny bit of garlic, salt, and a little bit of water and sherry, like a really good sherry vinegar. I haven't met a gaspot you, I like you haven't met mine. It was so funny because I thought we were going to settle the debate of it is it a fruit or vegetable? But we did not. It's both. It's both, but I use it as a I used it as a vegetable, but hey, it's a both. It's really both. Thank y'all for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership with I Heearts, my cool podcast network. For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tomato tomato. Yes, we should make a shirt that says tomato tomato. We're the only ones I find this funny. Oh my god, that's hilarious. Guess what today an episode is about. My name is Eva Longoria and I am and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages. So make yourself at home. Speaking of tomato, tomato is a tomato a vegetable or fruit? Mighty, It's kind of both, but botanically, Botanically speaking, the tomatoes are fruit. In eighteen ninety three, a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States said that tomatoes should be classified as a vegetable and tax as a vegetable. I love that there is a there's a Supreme Court decision on this, Like what come on, Supreme Court? And in eighteen ninety three, there was a lot of shit going on in the country that they should have been more focused on, but deciding on whether or not the tomato was a vegetable or a fruit was taking precedent. What's wild to me is that when people think of the tomato. They usually associated with the Italians, the tomato sauce on the pizza, marinara sauce, you know. But tomatoes are endemic to Mehico, Mexico, one of the many ingredients that Mexico has given the world. So who first cultivated tomatoes? They're endemic to Mexico and meso America. But like who first started like cultivating, we don't know exactly because the seeds are so tiny that it's hard to trace. You know. Really they were first cultivated in the ninth century by the Aztecs, although again they were probably cultivated earlier than that. Sophie Coo, this amazing historian who wrote this book which I love, America's First Cuisines. She says that the met that the tomato very likely originated in South America but made its way north to Mexico, you know, hundreds of years ago, probably carried by birds. Same for chiles, which we'll talk about in another episode, and potato and potato, pineapple, like so many things that are native to you know, South America. Yeah, so you know it's something that they were consuming, you know, pre conquest, sliced tomatoes, probably making salsas like we like we do today, will make some sort of salsa or some sort of pico pico de gallo Francisco. He wrote this so basically talking about his observations of New Spain and fifty sixty and he describes it. The tomatoes were added to sauces and stews to temper the heat of the Chiles, and they added a really nice tartness to food. Oh that makes sense, yeah, acidically it could bring down the heat on a Chile. Well. Also, the word tomato, and probably the reason we associate it so much with Meso America and the Aztecs is the noato word, which means round and plump. And so then when the Spaniards arrived, they called it. They couldn't say the word, would like I can't say the word and they change it. Yeah, the tomato, soy, It was basically referred to many round and plump fruits. The red tomato is called the ht the green tomato is called the total. But even today in Mexico, I grew up just calling the and but in other parts to Mexico the red tomatoes, green tomatoes the too. It's so confusing when I'm in Mexico and I'm trying to cook or asking asking, uh, somebody, hey, can you pick me up some tomatoes? I go, can you you know? And they go and they bring me green ones, and I go, no, no, hie? Which is the red one? Yeah, it's confusing. They have such a different flavors. The green tomato that has the husk, it's very um, a little bit sour. It's great for saltzas. Green saltzas I love. And the red one is much milder. I make an amazing tomato salsa fresh or cooked. I cooked my salsa. I roast them and then I blend them and then I cook it. So I do I do both. So if the tomato is endemic to Messo America, how did it get to Europe? Okay? And did it get a bad reputation? The tomato goes to Europe and gets a bad reputation. Why this is a crazy story, like so many ingredients that have such crazy story. So reached Europe around fifteen forty via city Yam right. It was the center for international trade, especially with Italy. Naples was part of Spain. Right, so it made its way from Mexico to Spain, and then it made its way to Italy. So according to Andrew Smith who's this wrote this book which is amazing, it's called the tomato in America. One of the earliest known references to the tomato was made by an Italian Italian herbalist named Bertietto Manthioli. He refers to it as a golden apple and it was a nightshade and related to a man drake, which was an Old World food that was known for an aphrodisiac. This man drake was basically used as a as a love potion. And then in England around the same time, there is this herbalist named John Girard. He published a book called The History of Plants, and he tells us that the plant is poisonous. Why would he say that if he's an herbalist like he should know that that it's not. They weren't really sure what they were what they were doing. He considered the whole plant to be of rank and stinking savor. And he talks about He says that the Spaniards and the Italians were eating it, but that it was poisonous. Oh, because the leaves, the leaves and stock are toxic, but not the fruit. But not the fruit, but this false opinion of the tomato, whatever it prevailed. One thing that I find the most interesting about all of this is that by the seventeen hundreds, and we're talking, you know, almost two hundred years later, many Europeans they were terrified of the tomato because aristocrats would eat from pewter plates, so they got sick and a lot of them died after eating tomatoes. But it wasn't the tomato itself. It was the acid and the tomato that caused lead to leach from the pewter plates. So they were getting lead poisoning, but they didn't It wasn't the tomato. It was the lead. But they didn't really put two and two to anything that they would eat. They would be poisoned. They could put eggs on that plate and they would be poisoned. Yeah, but maybe it's it's the acid and the tomato that really got it caused of poixactly exactly. So it wasn't until that late eighteen hundreds that the popularity in Europe began to grow. But people in Spain and people in Italy were eating the tomato. Don't go anywhere. We've got more on the history of the luscious tomato when we get back, stay with us. The earliest known printed recipe for tomato appears in sixteen ninety four The Modern Steward by Antonio Latini, and he did a sauce. It was a tomato sauce called Spanish style, but it was the sauce was used on meats, and so in Italy, the people who started eating tomatoes because there was nothing else available. It was actually a food for the poor, and they couldn't eat all of it because they couldn't preserve it or store it. So they started making these sauces to put on pasta and pizza so that they could use up the tomatoes because you know, they don't they don't last very long if you get a good ripe tomato. So by the nineteenth century Italians this is where the popularity of Italian sauce was born for pasta pizza, because they would mix them with beans and other foods and that it's very cool. And this guy Antonio Latini was amazing, like he has this earliest printed recipe for tomatoes. He also gives us the first printed recipe for survey. I think it's too were interesting that he calls it tomato sauce. Spanish child, because we don't actually see a tomato recipe in Spain until seventeen forty five. But so then what about the tomato in the US. What's the first known reference? So the first known reference in colonial America is also from an English herbalist. This is a man named William Salmon or Salmon, I'm not sure you pronounce the last name, but Nolochia of seventeen ten, and he talks about the tomatoes being cultivated in the Carolinas. So this is interesting, like how did the tomato get there? Maybe they were brought over by Spanish, French, or Caribbean settlers. Maybe it was also that it slaved Africans introduced the tomato to the region because they were responsible for cooking on southern plantations. So there are various theories as to how the tomato got here, but it likely came to the US via Old World, not via Mexico. It was it the America that made it possible to commercially process canned tomatoes so that they were available all year round. And so this is what this was the entrance of Campbells condensed tomatoes, soup and the food market in eighteen sixty early because they popularize Yes, I didn't know can did I? But I have to say, actually, I want to say one thing. It was the French that it that invented canning. It was Campbell's in eighteen sixty nine that would popularize the mass production of canned tomato formats and the sale of canned tomatoes. So Americans weren't just eating fresh tomatoes and including them and the recipes, but they were using canned tomatoes to make these meals. And canned food was obviously shelf stable, so it required no storage, and it could be eaten year round, and it lasted a lot longer. So this was pretty genius of absolutely. Yeah. And so this whole concept of canning really revolutionize the food world in general, not just for tomatoes. And this is a technique that was developed, you know, in France, but even you know before this, we see you know, Mary Randolph this cookbook eighteen twenty four. She has seventeen different tomato recipes, including an early American recipe for ketchup, which is interesting speaking of ketchup, because ketchup originally is not based from tomatoes. The ancestor of modern ketchup was tomato free, where did it come from. It comes from an ancient Chinese sauce, a fermented soybeans and fish sauce called kets up or goat chop, So that's where the word ketchup comes from. But the original ketchup has no tomato in it. But the word and the sauce were brought to Britain in the early seventeen hundreds, but since they didn't have any soybeans, they started using anchovies or mushrooms or walnuts or oysters. American colonists brought these recipes with them to the US and experimented with what they had. So they were first using apples and then they were using beans. And it wasn't until eighteen twelve that a Philadelphia scientist named James Mesee that he developed the first tomato ketchup made from love apples as they were still called. And then and then John Hines, as in Hinz Ketchup, later introduced a recipe which included vinegar, brown sugar, and spices, and he pioneered the use of the glass bottles. So Hines was the first to add vinegar, which acted as a preservative, and that was an eighteen seventy six and two Date is the best selling brand of ketchup and the best ketchup. It really is. I love it. It's the best ketch because it has vinegar. I love a vinegary ketchup. Now, today, the tomato market, which includes fresh and processed, is estimated to be worth about three point eight billion dollars, So it's it makes tomatoes one of the most consumed produce in America, second only to potatoes. So potatoes is the number one consumed produce in America and number two is tomatoes. That's interesting. And it's also one of the most genetically modified vegetables for vegetables, which is why sometimes we take a taste tomato and it tastes meally and it just or doesn't or just taste like water, doesn't taste like nothing. It's because of this, it's because it's been modified. Well, there's many there's what thousands of tomato varieties, and a lot of them are hybrids, thousands, thousands, And that's why you're right. That's why some of them have no flavor, and some of them are large and sturdy, like the beef steak. I think the beef steak tomato has an air flavor. They just have a good texture. But the air good texture. Yeah, but the airloom I love. I love the airloom because they're I also feel like I love all the colors that they come in and their taste. It's like it's just perfect if you lightly salted, it's just so good. A good airloom tomato is just oh, it's like heaven. Different colors like purple and green and yellow and all these colors. Yeah, absolutely, and different shapes different. I love the different sizes, super bumpy, I love them. You know, I use a lot of I actually use a lot of Rama tomatoes. They're also known as like the plum. They look like a plum size because they're sweet and juicy. I use those for for all my Italian sauces, Palma bolan asy like I use I use what do you use for your h roma? It's usually what I get drama, and then in the summers I get the airloom tomatoes. I love that Marzano is known as the rolls Royce of tomatoes because I do mix Rama and Marsana when I'm making my Italian sauces because they're sweeter. Best tomatoes I've ever had were in Sicily. They tasted like, oh really, oh my gosh, I feel like they had been injected with tomato flavor. There were sweet and a little acidic and just amazing. I think it's just the volcanic soil there is just oh, it gives everything such an incredible, incredible flavor. Do you know that that China is the world's largest tomato producer. Mexico is the leading exporter of fresh tomatoes to the United States, So if you're an American, you're probably eating a Mexican tomato. More on the history of the tomato after the break, don't go anywhere. Welcome back to hunger Reistory. Chef Hilberto Cetina is making waves creating unique flavors at his restaurant Holbosch in Los Angeles, California, so much so that in twenty twenty one, Holbosch received the Michelin bib Gormand Award, a really big deal in the culinary world. Here he is giving us even more history on the tomato, sharing a childhood memory eating tamlito, and giving us his thoughts on how the tomato is a jack of all trades. My name is Hiluerto Sea. I'm the chef and owner of Holbosch. Hohlbosch is a Mexican seafood or Marisco stand that focuses on just regional coastal Mexican cooking, prepared with whatever ingredients are available to us here locally in southern California, which is a lot and fantastic. Comes from South America, you know, the Andies. It's believed somewhere between Bolivia, Colombia, Cual or Peru. And just like the chileno, indeed, it was brought over to Messo America by via birds. The original tomato from the Andes is very different from what we know of as a tomato today, so it was a very small fruit. Through selective breeding, the Aztecs cultivated it and turned it into something that was beautiful, big and plump, and it was used in braises, and the braises were dishes for the for the wealthy, and for the royalty and for the politicians. It was not common food like la tortilla or or tamal, and most popularly it was used for something called a pipan or a pepian, which is a pumpkin seed or other kind of nut based with tomato and dry chiless and they would make you know, a nice thick, kind of velvety sauce that they would braisee wild game and the rich people would have that. So tomato is super important in our kitchen. Tomato is versatile more than anything. It is a jack of all trades. It does all kinds of things. So it can be as simple as a slice of tomato as a garnish on something. Think about let's go American food here, think about a hamburger, a nice thick slice of tomato. Or in my part of Mexico where I'm from, which is Yucatan, you put a nice slice of tomat on your pinuccio and it just completes it, right, the pinuccio, the tomato, the avocado, and that gives you the perfect bite. But it's also wonderful for obviously for my disco's right, that vegetable freshness, that vegetable crunch of the raw tomato, the raw onions, cilantro, cucumbers and avocado to balance out the protein heavy ceviche. Right, So a seviche without any vegs, it's you know, it's basically just sashimi. It's just you know, raw fish, and you add all these vegetables to it, and also, you know Chiles and your tostada, you're really creating something with the flavors of the region and making something completely different from you know, just raw fish or fish cured in lime juice and then in the in the hot kitchen against super versatile. The base of our food in a lot of parts of Mexico, in Yucatan, definitely the base of our food is sofritos. We use it for soups, we use it as a thickenerer, we use it for you know, rices and noodles, and the sofrito gives you a nice, deep developed flavor because it's you're cooking it in layers. You start with garlic and onion with a little bit of oil. You cook that down until it's caramelized, so you have that layer of flavor there, the caramelization of the onions and the garlic. Then you add tomatoes and peppers to that and you cook those down and you just start developing this this this wonderful bass that is a good starting point for wherever you want to go, either be it a soup or a sauce or whatever you're going to do with it. And classical Mexican dishes like pscalo la vera Cruzana sauce is a sofrito and in Yucatana is just basically a sofrito that you add calmari ink or octopus ink two and you to make that traditional dish so very important in our food. And you know, when I think about tomato growing up in Yucatan, I immediately go to artamos. It's just so it's so ingrained in our memory as Mexicans. Anytime you would go to the celebration and you're excited and you're there and your friends are there, there's always a tama with a little just a very simple salce, all right. You boil the tomatoes with maybe maybe a bay leaf, garlic, some onion, and then you blend it up and season it with salt and that's it. And it's a really pure, very simple sauce that gives the tamal an added layer of flavor. You know, the thamal usually does is lacking in acidity, in brightness, and sharpness, and that just gives it that. I would say that's the number one flavor memory tamal, maybe a little bit of cake on the side. I love tomatoes, love It's very one of the very few things that I can actually grow successfully. I grow these little cherry tomatoes and in the middle of the summer, like putting, oh, cherry tomato in your mouth, wore from the sun. The way that it just pops in your mouth. It's like a little taste of sunshine. I love it. What about you do like tomatoes? I like most tomatoes. It's so funny because I was in Wahaka and you'll see on searching for Mexico there's an episode of this woman who's like the tomato Queen, and we must have had a hundred different species tomatoes, and it was she did this tomato salad with this I need to get the dressing because it was. It was like the simplest, most complex dressing that she poured on top. But you know they were purple, they were red, they were orange, they were green, they were black, they were I mean it was big, small, you know, bumpy, smooth. It was. It was her tomato salad. And I almost died, like I was like I could this could be my last meal on earth. It was so good. And then I also love bantot in Spain so delicious, yeah, which is like this crushed ripe tomatoes with garlic and se salt, and you drown it in that Spanish olive oil and then you spread it on the bread. It is it is so good and so simple. It's so simple, I know that one. So simple. I also do like a bushetta, which is similar like chopping you know, great tomatoes, rama tomatoes with garlic and salt and olive oil and putting it on top of a christini. You know, like that too. I love that. I love freshness. I don't like tomatoes in a hamburger or a sandwich really, I don't know why. Yeah, or not too much in a salad either. I don't love them too much in a salad either. But yeah, I do love like a really good tomato. It's just sometimes, I mean, when I was growing up, I feel like the tomatoes were just kind of mealy because I think they've just been refrigerated. But now you could find such really good tomatoes. I just really like them, just sliced with olive oil and some salt. Yes, exactly, that's what I'm saying. I could have a tomato salad. I could eat tomatoes like the slice airm like. I could have an heirloom tomato with salt and olive oil and just eat it like an apple. I mean, I I can do that, but I don't want it in my salad. That weird? Are we weird? Maybe a little bit, But that's okay. Do you have a tomato recipe you love? I have a great gaspacho recipe. Ah no, I hate cold soup, so gaspacho falls in. Oh God, I have to make you. I need it. I think you'll like it. I don't pre bread and it. It's very simple. It's just fresh tomato, like super ripe tomato. Like it's the tomato if it looks like it's about to get little bugs growing on it, like super super ripe. Those are the tomatoes that are I really really juicy, that I wouldn't eat for anything else. Cucumber, green bell, pepper, olive oil, a tiny bit of garlic, salt, and a little bit of water and sherry, like a really good sherry vinegar. I haven't met a gaspot you, I like you haven't met mine. It was so funny because I thought we were going to settle the debate of it is it a fruit or vegetable? But we did not. It's both. It's both, but I use it as a I used it as a vegetable, but hey, it's a both. It's really both. Thank y'all for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership with I Heearts, my cool podcast network. For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.