If ever a vegetable could tell of woe, it would be the tomato.
Plump and doomed to blush an ever deepening red, the tomato long has been the butt of jokes. The tomato has been mocked on stage in song, You say tomato, I say tomahto.
Botanists call the bloated berry a fruit. Mothers tell their children, "vegetable."
In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the identity crisis, ruling tomatoes a vegetable for taxing purposes. Yet the political debate raged on.
The tomato's mushy stepchild, ketchup, was branded a vegetable as well when President Ronald Reagan's administration was cutting the federal school lunch program.
The dueling identities have not endeared the tomato to carb-obsessed dieters, who shun fruits and embrace vegetables. But bikini-conscious South Beach dieters are limited to a handful of cherry tomatoes each day. A plump tomato? Maybe for dessert.
Pay homage to the tomato at the eighth annual Ruskin Tomato & Heritage Festival this weekend.
