Tomatoes first grew as wild, cherry-size berries in the South American Andes, but the fruit, as we know it today, was developed in Mexico where it was known as tomatil and traveled to Europe by boat with the returning conquistadors.

Upon arrival in Italy, the heart-shaped tomato was considered an aphrodisiac, thus tomato in Italian, poma amoris, means "love apple."

Regarded as poison by American colonists because of its relation to deadly nightshade, the tomato's reputation was saved by Robert Gibbon Johnson, who stood on the New Jersey courthouse steps in 1820, and ate a tomato--with no adverse effects, to the amazement of the town.

A ripened ovary of a seed plant, the tomato is by definition a fruit, but in 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court over-ruled Mother Nature declaring that tomatoes were not fruits, but vegetables.

The development of "tougher" tomatoes and the invention of the mechanical harvester saved processing tomato industry in the early 1960's, which had struggled with labor problems since WWII. Today, 100 percent of processed tomatoes are machine harvested.

You say tomatoes, I'll say tomatoes--when dealing with fresh vs. processed tomatoes, few similarities exist. Harvested earlier, green and with plenty of juice, fresh contrasts with the vine-ripened, tomatoes processors cherish for their high solids and red color.

The super ingredient....

The Joy of Cooking--your grandmother's favorite cookbook--lists 64 tomato recipes. These versatile fruits end up in everything from pasta and pizza to Bloody Marys and barbecue sauce and can be stuffed, boiled, stewed, pureed, deviled, glazed, pickled, grilled and fried.

Ketchup, tomato sauce, pizza, tamales, cocktail sauce, tomato juice, meatloaf and barbecue sauces have many different flavors, but tomatoes are a main ingredient in these, as well as many other ethnic dishes.

Move over spinach. Among all vegetables except potatoes, tomatoes contribute the greatest amount of nutrients to the American diet.

If you suffer from skin disease, a tomato a day may keep the doctor away, as tomatine, tomato's principle alkaloid, concentrated in its branchy leaves and green fruit, heals certain fungous diseases of the skin.

A star in its own right, the popular tomato is the fruit of choice for 85 percent of the 30 million of us who are home gardeners.

Each man, woman and child in America consumes almost 80 pounds of tomatoes every year.

Big, versatile and delicious...

Aside from the potato, tomatoes are America's most important commercial vegetable, both in yearly weight consumed and annual yield.

While sunny California is far and away the world's largest producer of processed tomatoes, accounting for nearly half of the world's total production, the "love apple" is also an international hit, being grown in such diverse nations as Italy, Argentina, Algeria, Taiwan, Australia and Chile.

Florida may have Disney World, Fort Lauderdale and the largest fresh tomato industry, but California is clearly number one nationally in processed tomato production, growing nine out of every 10 tomatoes processed in the U.S., with a crop value exceeding $547 million.

As hard as other states work to catch up, California's prolific canners process more tomatoes in a few days than Ohio, the second largest producing state, processes during the entire season.

With California's processed tomato tonnage skyrocketing from 3.3 million tons in 1970 to 10.75 million tons in 1994, California tomato acreage has more than doubled from 141,300 acres in 1970 to 311,000 in 1994.

Moist, dry, salty or sandy, the tomato can be grown in a surprising range of climates and in almost any soil. In California, tomatoes seem to grow EVERYWHERE--from the far northern portions of the state in Butte County clear to the Mexican border.

A virtual tomato seed smorgasbord, the Tomato Genetics Stock Center at the University of California, Davis has more than 2,750 genetic varieties of tomatoes.

California's tomato season is in it's peak from July through September when harvesters run 24 hours a day. The season, however, actually runs a full six months, beginning in June and running all the way through November.

The largest tomato on record is a 7-pound monster grown in Oklahoma.