I have found many blogs and articles saying that the original tomatoes (before selective breeding) were the size of peas.
Is this true for the majority of them? What is an authoritative source for this?
Asked
Active
Viewed 49 times
1 Answers
1
According to http://www.britishtomatoes.co.uk/tomato-facts/history/ tomatoes were originally grown in Europe for their flowers and decorative foliage, not for their fruit.
The original fruits were yellow and cherry-sized (not pea-sized) - hence the names in several European languages which translate as "golden apples" in English. (But "apples" are a lot bigger than cherries, so this might not be the whole story...)
Cherry-sized tomato varieties are still grown, of course.
alephzero
- 11,339
- 1
- 14
- 22
-
"Apple" was the name of "fruits" in general. Only in much recent time it was given just to "The Fruits" (so from Malus). – Giacomo Catenazzi Aug 26 '20 at 08:56