I love Modest Mouse - best band ever. Made it to blue, thanks for everything! Long way until violet,...
I love Modest Mouse - best band ever. Made it to blue, thanks for everything! Long way until violet, though.
Thanks for all the nice ratings and everything, it's very much appreciated.
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♥Tomatoes!
Everyone in England has eaten a tomato. Well, probably. The tomato is one of the most versatile vegetables available to buy, as they can be used in a myriad of recipes AND eaten raw. They're also very cheap and easy to get hold of as every single supermarket and local greengrocer stocks them without exception.
♥Looks.
Tomatos are hardly the most attractive fruit/vegetable in the world, but they're not bad. For those of you that don't know (I can't really believe that you don't!) tomatos are big, round and red (some are more orange, some are more purple) and they grow on vines, usually in hot countries, but they can be grown in England if you know what you're doing. I'll get to that later!
♥Tomato facts.
A few facts about tomatoes: Botanically speaking, it's a fruit, not a vegetable. More than 60 million tonnes are produced a year, making it the most popular fruit. Tomatos were first cultivated in South America. They were introduced to Europe in 1556. The technical term for them is 'lycopersicon lycopersicum' which translates as wolf peach. They're related to the aubergine, red pepper, ground cherry, potato, and
belladonna. There are over 10,000 varieties of tomato.
♥Things you can make with tomatos.
Well, the best thing to do for health benefits is to eat them raw, but that gets rather boring. You can eat tomatoes as a pizza topping (my favourite), on top of tomato puree. You can use a tin of chopped tomatos as a really cheap (15p a tin!) pasta sauce, which of course you can spice up with herbs, mushrooms, meat and uh...whatever you like, really!
A recipe I like to use (my own): Make up enough bread dough for about 2 pizzas, split it into 4 sections and roll it out into big flat circles. Then, start cooking tinned tomatoes, Tabasco (if you like it spicy), mushrooms in a pan. When it's all cooked add basil, salt and pepper and spoon out a generous amount into the center of the bread circles. After it's all been shared out (don't worry if you don't use it all, you can use it for pasta sauce the next day!) fold up the circles anyway you like (I usually do it tortilla style with a slice of tomato to bridge the gap), and brush a little oil onto them. After about 10 minutes of being cooked at 200C, I take them out and sprinkle them with cheese and cook them for another 2-5 minutes.
You really can do anything with tomatos. Use your imagination, because the best thing about tomatoes is that they're so cheap that if you mess up it won't have been a waste of tomatos.
♥Other things to do with tomatos.
Well, you can wait for them to rot and throw them at people you don't like, as they did in the olden days...(and sometimes now!) Or you can eat them as their most famous incarnation, TOMATO KETCHUP. I'm not saying this is as good for you as eating a raw tomato, but it's still better than nothing. You can also chop them up to use in salads.
An average raw tomato will provide you with 35 calories. They are also a good snack for those of you on a diet, because the same amount contains less than 1 gram of fat. They're also a good source of vitamin C, 32mg. To put this in perspective, a large orange contains around 60mg, and 1 cup of raw spinach contains just 15mg.
More importantly, it has been recently shown that tomatos contain a powerful anti-oxidant which can be preventative to cancer, expecially cancers in the digestive system.
And, of course, they contribute to the 5-10 vegetables a day recommended by doctors. They're good for your skin, cholesterol levels, blood-pressure and they contain 360mg of potassium, which is more than in a potato.
However they have quite a high level of calcium, so if you're giving it to a child, that's great, but if you have a kidney disorder you should stay well away.
7 cherry tomatos is 1 portion of fruit a day, and just one regular tomato is a portion, too!
♥Varieties and Prices.
Well, as I've said, there are over 10,000 varieties of tomato, so I obviously can't cover them all, but here's a list of the ones sold in Asda:
300g cherry tomatoes on the vine: £0.98 750g salad tomatoes: £0.88 6 salad tomatoes: £0.62 1kg (that's a lot!) of regular tomatoes: £1.15 500g smartprice tomatoes: £0.40p
As you can see they're quite cheap even if you buy the posh ones!
♥ Growing your own.
I haven't had very much experience with growing my own, but you need to keep the plants somewhere warm and buy a bag of special tomato soil. Most people tend to just plant them directly in the bag. If you have a greenhouse then it's well worth growing them as it can save a lot of money, however cheap they be to buy commercially! Or, if you live in a warmer country it's quite popular to have your own tomato and olive vines! However I find that bugs are attracted to the plants easily and without special care they die easily. I also don't particularly like the taste of homegrown tomatos as they tend to be more acidic than shop-bought ones.
♥Contenders.
There aren't really any direct contenders to the tomatos throne, because they are really unique. However, I've already mentioned that 60 million tonnes of tomatos are produced a year. Well, that makes them the most popular fruit on the planet. Bananas are the 2nd, with 40 million, Apples with around about 33 million, and Watermelons with 22 million. Anti-oxidants can also be found in coffee and red grapes, but in not such high levels. The most similar vegetable to the tomato is the capsicum or pepper as it's more commonly know. This contains about the same amount of calories and fat, but can't be used in large quantities as the taste is overpowering.
♥My experiences.
My views on the tomato tend to vary. You get a really nice load that taste good with everything, firm and juicy raw and you think, WOW, tomatos are great! Then you get some that are all squidgy and splatter everywhere when you try and cut them. Tomatoes are best eaten 1 or 2 days after you've bought them because they tend to go squidgy rather quickly, in my experience. However, if you're looking for quick, cheap snacks, they're far superior to the apple and with all the health benefits thrown in, I would say that in my opinion, tomatos are the best fruit around, even if they're not perfect.
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I am pretty picky when it comes to tomatoes, I am not really a fan of them raw, although I will have a few cherry tomatoes in salsd if I am in the mood, but I love them grilled and use them in cooking all the time. Great review there. Nicky x
kelr101 13.09.2005 20:05
Wow, an immense amount of information here on tomatoes! An enjoyable review! kels x
saraha007 12.09.2005 20:47
I really enjoyed reading this. Great Review. Sarahx
Advantages: Wonderful smell, taste and goes perfectly with tomatoes for a divine salad sensation! Disadvantages: It's an annual that likes a but of sun. And I live in The Dark North!!!
phoenixgreen 26.05.2007 (25.05.2007)
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