Tomato

Solanum lycopersicum, S. pimpinellifolium

fruit · vegetable

A fleshy fruit, most often red, eaten raw in salads or cooked in sauces: by volume, the most widely grown fruit in the world.

Origin

Andes (Peru, Ecuador)

Season (United States)

June to October · grows in your region

Preparation

The skin and seeds are eaten, and the gel around the seeds holds the most umami; the stem and leaves are not. Cooked with a little oil, it releases far more lycopene than raw — one of the few vegetables that cooking enriches rather than depletes. Its skin is eaten, and that is where its polyphenols sit: worth keeping, then — but under running water, rubbing it, which is what takes off most of what settles there, organic or not. Its lectins need a real boil, not just warmth.

Molecules

Lycopene · PotassiumIn small amounts, not counted Pectins · Beta-carotene (vitamin A) · Vitamin CWhat slows things down Lectins

Did you know?

Its Latin name, lycopersicum, means “wolf peach”: it was long thought poisonous, able to turn people into wolves.