All Rise. The Tomato is in the Room.

There may be nothing better about summer than the arrival of the real tomato

The tomato is a fruit. This is the kind of fact people deploy to seem clever at dinner parties. It is also true. And those people are not clever. We learned this at Holy Spirit in the 6th grade.

Botanically, the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a berry. It grows from a single flower’s ovary and carries its seeds inside, which is the entire definition. By every standard a botanist recognizes, it is a fruit. The United States Supreme Court disagreed. In Nix v. Hedden (1893), the Court ruled the tomato a vegetable for tariff purposes, on the reasoning that people eat it with dinner and not for dessert. Law and politics beat science. They usually do. The ruling was Trumpian before Trump, and before RFK Jr.

History does repeat itself.

The tomato belongs to the Solanaceae, the nightshades. The name sounds sinister and the family earns it. Its members include the potato, eggplant, pepper, and tobacco, alongside deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), which will kill you. The plants produce alkal…