Exploring the Tomato

This text engages with an apparently simple fruit in order to reveal the major changes to society and economy. It treats the tomato as an object of fascination and as a probe into major historical changes in 20th-century capitalism. From first domestication to genetic modification, from Aztec salsa to supermarket pizza, the tomato has been continually transformed in the ways it has been produced, exchanged and consumed. This book explores what brings about a variety that is at once biological, historical and socio-economic. A conceptual framework of "instituted economic process" demonstrates how different tomato forms are an expression of dynamic processes in capitalist economies and societies during the 20th century. As both early pioneer in mass production and a contemporary contributor to the creation of global cuisines, the tomato has been subject to intense innovation. Computerized total ecologies under glass, producing fresh tomatoes of all shapes, colours and sizes, complete with sun and southern climates across the world. To enter the variety of tomato worlds is to discover the variety of capitalism.