tomato
tomatl · jitomate · tomato
What we call the Mediterranean diet is partly a post-1500 invention.
Cultural layer
The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Alfred W. Crosby, 1972)
Route
PendingThe routes are written. They are not yet mapped.
This entry's cultural layer already names where it came from and how it moved. What it does not yet carry is that movement as structure: ordered waypoints with real coordinates, and a mechanism on each leg. Until it does, the layer stays an empty slot rather than a drawn line, because a map built from prose would be a guess with a projection under it.
1 of 404 entries carries a mapped route · nutmeg is the prototype
- Waypoints
Ordered places, each with its kind
- Coordinates
Real positions, with the gazetteer they came from
- Segments
From, to, and the mechanism that moved it
- Confidence
Documented, attributed or contested
- Summary
What the route argues, in a sentence
Names · co-equal, marked by how each one travelled
FoodwayPresent as a living food culture.
- tomatlEndonymNahuatl · Mesoamerica
- jitomateEndonymMexican Spanish (xitomatl) · central Mexico
- tomatoMarketEnglish · global market
Connections
61 bonds · 61 sourcedCaprese, and the base of most of Italian cooking.
tomato and basil at top emphasis
caprese at high emphasis
foundational Mediterranean pairing
Glutamate from the tomato, inosinate from the anchovy: the same multiplication that makes dashi work, arrived at independently in the Mediterranean. Neither ingredient tastes of the other and together they read as depth rather than as fish.
Glutamate and inosinate content of foods: seafood and cheese (Umami Information Center, accessed 2026-09-13)
puttanesca
Both sides carry free glutamate rather than one supplying a ribonucleotide, so this is accumulation rather than synergy. Long ageing breaks parmesan's protein down to roughly 1.6 percent free glutamate, up to about 2200 mg per 100 g, and ripe tomato brings its own. The effect is additive, and it is why the pair reads as savoury without anything having been added.
Glutamate and inosinate content of foods: seafood and cheese (Umami Information Center, accessed 2026-09-13)
Obe ata, the red stew.
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Lycopene is fat-soluble and isomerises under heat, so cooking tomatoes in oil moves far more of it into circulation than cooking them without. Subjects eating tomatoes cooked in olive oil showed an 82 percent rise in plasma trans-lycopene, against no significant change without the oil.
Increases in plasma lycopene concentration after consumption of tomatoes cooked with olive oil (Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition)
fat as flavour carrier
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Guacamole.
Chipotle in adobo.
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Methi dishes.
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Moqueca baiana.
The breakfast plate.
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Nigerian food research
Methi dishes.
Stews.
Stews and salads.
Tunisian stews.
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Nigerian food research
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Bengali sabzi.
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Nigerian food research
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A modernist, compound-led pairing rather than a traditional one.
shared volatile compounds (furaneol) with tomato
Bonds are drawn from culinary literature and origin-tradition references, tiered by source. Origin means a reference from the place.
Studio Culinar-E, "tomato", Pantry Archive, Studio Monk-E, 2026. https://studioculinar-e.com/archive/tomato
/archive/tomato
Bonds are tiered by source, origin-tradition references first.