It is called tomato in English and tamatar in Hindi. Did you ever think why these two words sound so similar? I mean two words from two different languages. But both are similar. Is it not interesting? There must be some reasons behind it. Is this not true? Otherwise, such thing won’t happen. But we never think of it. Did you ever think of it? Answer yourself honestly.
If you think any North Indian cuisine, you hardly imagine a dish without tomato. Almost every kind of gravy or curry is prepared with tomato. Think of any Punjabi dishes, can you prepare any delicious meal without tomatoes? Almost impossible. Right?
Why just North Indian cuisines, tomato is used almost every Indian cuisine. We can not prepare a non vegetarian dish without tomato. Even in South Indian dishes, we see tomato is very very common.
That means tomato is native to India and the word tomato is derived from tamatar. Do you think so?
Then you are ABSOLUTELY WRONG.
Tomato is originated from Central America & South America. It was very popular in Central Mexica during the early sixteenth century. It was a period of Spanish colonization of various parts of the Americas. during that period, Spanish people noticed this wonderful red colored juicy fruit. Local Aztecs people call it as ‘tomatl‘ in their local language Nahuati. From that word, the Spanish word “Tomate” derived and then the English word “Tomato” came.
Spanish people introduced tomato in Europe and from there it spread across the different colonies of European countries. It is said European brought this plant from Europe and after that Indians started cultivating this vegetable. So actually the Hindi word ‘tamatar‘ came from the English word ‘tomato’.
Also read:
Various millet names in Hindi & English words
Food grain names in Hindi & English
Indian spices name in Hindi & English
Various fruit names in English & Hindi words
Sabji names in Hindi & all vegetable names in English
Today India is the second major producer of tomato after China. Nowadays we need tomatoes every day in our kitchen. We also use it to make the fresh salad as well as various spicy gravies too.
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