"Peru’s arid Pacific coast is part of one of the oldest, driest and longest deserts in the world, the Peru-Chile desert which includes Sechura desert in North Peru and the Atacama in the south, and extending into Chile. And it is here under the simmering sun, and at times bathed in coastal fog, that the quebradas (deep valleys that emerge from the Andes) and river oases provide the true home to the wild relatives of the tomato. Quechua Inca legend has it that, cradled high in the Andes, the cochas (small lakes) were the children of the mother water, Mamacocha, or the sea. When the cochas overflowed after rain, they ran crying with happiness, cascading into the dry valleys on their journey home to Mamacocha − thus bringing life to the desert. And along these rivers and irrigated borders the tiny berries of wild tomatoes, the size of peas, proliferate every year the water flows. As well as tomatoes, the Solanum genus includes other important foods such as the Potato (Solaunum tuberosum) and the Aubergine (Solanum melongena), and you can also find these in the IncrEdibles Vegetable Medley. The tomato we eat today is called Solanum lycopersicum (previously called Lycopersicon esculentum) and, like most of today’s crops, is a hybrid of various wild species. If you tease out the genetic code you can reveal the whole ancestral history of Mr Tom and it turns out that pieces of the DNA of the tomato on your plate reveal genetic fingerprints of the wild berries from the dry Andean valleys. Today, this is an easy forensic technique that could even be done on your tomato ketchup and we now know that our supermarket tomato is related to, and derived from, at least in part, a bunch of southern Peruvian coastal ‘great grandparent’ species (some of which also grow in dry northern Chile and southern Ecuador and Bolivia). Beside S.pimpinellifolium these include: S. chilense, S. pennellii and S. peruvianum. The word “tomato” is derived from tomātl, a word in Náhuatl, one of the native Mexican languages, which describes plants bearing globose, juicy fruits. Tomato-like plants also thrive in Mexico and this is perhaps where the Spanish conquistadores assimilated the word, before bringing it to the wider world. [...]" via: kew.org/news/kew-blogs/incrEdibles-food-blog/wild-tomatoes.htm
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:25:58 +0000
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