Sacred Foods of México:Tomatoes

By Catherine Marenghi

When you think about tomatoes as a culinary staple, you might immediately think of Italy and its marinara sauces, pasta dishes, and pizzas.

But Italy didn’t invent the tomato. México did.

Tomatoes and tomatillos were grown and consumed in México for centuries before ever appearing on a European table. The ancestor of the tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium, also known as the wild currant tomato, was a pea-sized berry native to Peru and Ecuador. The first domesticated varieties appeared 78,000 years ago and spread through what is now South and Central America.

Cultivated tomatoes originated 7,000 years ago. The Aztecs raised numerous tomato varieties and developed sophisticated agricultural practices to grow tomatoes alongside other staple crops like maize, beans, and squash. They also innovated farming techniques like chinampas – floating gardens cultivated on lakebeds. In 1529, the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, who traveled with Hernán Cortés to the New World, reported seeing a mind-boggling variety of tomatoes in the Aztec market at Tenochtitlán (now México City). He described “large tomatoes, small tomatoes, leaf tomatoes, sweet tomatoes, large serpent tomatoes, nipple-shaped tomatoes,” and tomatoes of all colors from bright red to green and yellow.

Sahagún highlighted the distinction between the green tomati-llo, or husk tomato, known as miltomate because it was cultivated in the milpa alongside corn, beans and squash; and the red jitomate, known today as tomate, with only minor variations in Spanish, French, English and German. All these derive from the Nahuatl tómatl (fat object), from the verb tomaua (to grow fat).

The Spanish introduced tomatoes to Europe, where they first appeared in Spanish food. Elsewhere in Europe, including Italy, the tomato’s first use was purely ornamental. Because tomatoes were related to the nightshades, they were considered poisonous. The Florentine aristocrat Giovan Vettorio Soderini (1526-1596) wrote how tomatoes “were to be sought only for their beauty,” to add color to gardens or flower beds, or to be used as tabletop centerpieces."

The earliest mention of the tomato in European literature appeared in the writings of Italian botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli. In his 1544 Discorsi, a guide to herbs and plants, he said a “new type of eggplant” had been brought to Italy, that it was blood-red or golden in color and could be divided into segments and cooked like an eggplant.

Ten years later, Mattioli named the fruits pomi d'oro, or “golden apples” – from which the Italian word for tomato, pomodoro, is derived.

The tomato’s ability to mutate into new varieties helped contribute to its proliferation throughout Italy. The earliest known Italian cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, although the recipes may have had Spanish sources.

In México, the tomato never lost its status as the red jewel of the Mexican table. For the Aztecs, they were more than just food; they were used in medicines and in trade. They were spiritually and culturally significant, linked to gods of fertility and abundance, and their cultivation inspired seasonal rituals.

Tomatoes in agricultural and culinary life were shown in Aztec art and codices, including the Codex Borbonicus and other colonial-era manuscripts. The Florentine Codex has a superb depiction of a yellow tomato vine. Tomatoes were also depicted in Aztec social hierarchy, used in gift-giving. They were symbols of respect and generosity.

One thing that never changed was their role in Mexican cuisine. Kris Rudolph, a San Miguel author, chef, cooking teacher, and culinary expert, confirms that tomatoes are at the heart of Mexican flavors. “Just as Sahagún reported seeing Aztecs in city markets preparing tomatoes in hot sauces and juices, so do today’s Mexican kitchens continue the same tradition – in one-pot stews, soups, and sauces that have tomatoes and chili peppers as their base.” Rudolph, who founded El Buen Café in San Miguel, is the author of several cookbooks, of which the most recent – Recipes & Secrets from San Miguel – combines engaging tales of San Miguel with her own recipes.

For example, she explains in that book, “Tomato puree is a staple of the Mexican kitchen. It accompanies chile rellenos, covers enchiladas suizas, and can be an ingredient in tortilla soup as well as various guisados or stews.”

Italy gets the lion’s share of the credit for tomatoes. But the seed, the name, and the hands that made them worth eating sprang from México.

Catherine Marenghi is the author of five books and is active in the literary community of San Miguel.