Tomato: born golden and become red

In Lak’ech (I am You & You are Me).

I am born yellow, and so they say I am 'golden'.

But my noble name is given to me in Latin, the language with which scholars name plants: Solanum lycopersicum.

My mother is wild, she grows small and in clusters, and she is called Solanum pimpinellifolium. For a time they also called her Solanum racemigerum.

She was born in South America, where sailors learn to navigate by looking at the Southern Cross.

I become food further north, in Mexico, and there in the 1500s I am encountered by Spanish sailors.

These fearless adventurers learn many things, including how 'good' I am.

They decide to introduce me to their families and friends, and set out on a very long journey.

Aliseo, the friendly wind that had pushed their sails to me, cannot accompany me: it blows in the wrong direction. To return I rely on the west winds and a warm current.

But I am not the only one traveling: Zea mays (corn), Solanum tuberosum (potato), Phaseolus vulgaris (bean)… and others accompany us.

I arrive at the European Court and immediately they shower me with attention.

I gain weight and become rounder and immediately someone says I look like an 'apple'.

It is easy then for me to turn when they call me ‘golden apple’.

From there my popularity grows, the ‘taste of being good’ and the easy name help me.

Everyone wants me and I become an indispensable ingredient, ending up in a thousand and one recipes.

Every kitchen becomes my home. Raw, cooked, preserved, dried.

Meanwhile they choose me, seed after seed, season after season, until I become ‘red’.

No one can keep me still, I swirl like a vortex throughout the old Continent.

One success after another, until the apotheosis, unimaginable, arrives in the ‘Land of the Sun’, Italy.

Guilty is the Siren Partenope who wants to capture me to make me hers; she ties me with countless thin strings like vermicelli, creating a 'Miracle'.

Spaghetti and Tomato.

It seems like reading my epitaph, the solemn inscription engraved on my tombstone.

But every time I end up in the pan, in any corner of the world, joy arises for young and old.

Accompanied by my inclusive invocation:

'Favorites?'

(Please, favorites of my table, make yourselves comfortable and eat with me)

I make everyone happy!!!

Giorgio Monaco