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A tomato is technically a fruit, but legally a vegetable in the U.S. since an 1893 Supreme Court case. Its scientific name, Solanum lycopersicum, means “wolf peach” because people once thought it was poisonous. Tomatoes come in colors like purple, yellow, and even striped. There’s a festival in Spain where people throw overripe tomatoes at each other—La Tomatina. The heaviest tomato ever grown weighed over 10 pounds. Tomatoes were once called “love apples” and were believed to be aphrodisiacs. They have tiny hairs on their stems called trichomes. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as a cure for indigestion.

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