The wild ancestor of today's tomatoes, Solanum lycopersicum, was native to the northwest coastal regions of South America, and the fruits of the ancestral tomato plant were tiny.
Tomato plants with slightly larger fruits are now thought to have evolved naturally in Ecuador around 80,000 years ago, and people from the region began to cultivate them for food.
Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are members of the nightshade family and are collectively known as nightshade vegetables that thrive in hot, sunny climates and nutrient-rich soil.
The earliest tomatoes and the first to be introduced to diners outside South America were thought to be not red but yellow, and the fruit made a solid impression on Europeans.
In the early 1570s, Italian naturalist and physician Costanzo Felici depicted it as striking reddish yellow in a letter to a friend but said it was "better to look at than to eat."
When some upper-class diners got sick after eating tomatoes due to the acid in them leaching out some of the lead from their cutlery, diners mistook it for tomato poisoning.
15th-century Europeans mistrusted tomatoes due to their close relation to nightshade and mandrakes, plants that were poisonous and believed to be used in witchcraft.
Even today, some say the alkaloids in tomatoes can trigger inflammation. However, some health professionals believe the nutritional benefits of tomatoes outweigh the risks.
Some in Europe, especially in France, embraced tomatoes as an aphrodisiac, calling them pommes d'amour, or "apples of love." The reason behind this is unclear, but theories abound.
While some say it's because tomatoes are related to mandrakes, which were also considered to have aphrodisiac properties, some claim it’s because tomatoes resemble the human heart.
And while many still think tomatoes boost sexual performance, Pierce Howard, director of the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies in NC, says that no food can guarantee that.
