Tomato

    South America is the home of the tomato and has been cultivated by Indians in the Andes Mountains since prehistoric times. It moved from South America to Mexico more then 3,000 years ago, when settlers migrated to this area of the world. The Tomato was introduced to European society in the 16th Century and was first grown in Italy in 1550. Tomatoes are a fruit, not a vegetable and belong to the same family as the poisonous nightshade family. For a long time in the U.S. they were thought to be poisonous and inedible until the 19th century. The tomato is now cultivated throughout the world.

So why do people consider the tomato a vegetable in the U.S.?

    The United States Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1883, a rather innocuous piece of legislation requiring a 10% tax on imported vegetables, in response to growing international trade. Just a few short years later, a tomato importer evaluated the law closely, and decided to challenge it on the botanical grounds that a tomato was in fact technically a fruit, not a vegetable, and should therefore be exempt from said tax. John Nix's case posed merit enough to land the case before the Supreme Court in 1893. In Nix vs. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893), Justice Gray wrote, "Botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people...all these are vegetables, which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with or after the soup, fish or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert [1]." The court rejected the botanical truth that the tomato is in fact a monstrously sized berry, and deferred to the culinary vernacular of vegetable to describe it. Thus is tax yet paid on imported tomatoes.