As spring billows in, thoughts turn to woodland walks and to birds arriving from warmer climes, either seeking to hunker down and breed or just passing through into more appealing habitats farther north. The lawns are slightly greener, the forests are a purplish haze of buds beginning to swell. Wildflowers are sending shoots up through the leaf litter. With rainy, windy days, though, thoughts turn to gardening … to the flowerbeds now spiked with mini-blades of daffodils, irises and lilies and to the vegetable beds where garlic and shallots are appearing. One rainy, rainy morning when I’m not willing to bird with an umbrella (impossible!), I notice, atop a stack of books in our library, one I bought last fall when I was intrigued by the title, "Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World: A History," by William Alexander. What 10 tomatoes? Specific varieties? species? Changed how? Quickly, I am totally immersed in the "discovery" of the tomato by the marauding Spanish Conquistadors through the adoration of the "love apple" as food, to the evolution of the tasteless tomatoes of today, farmed on mega spreads and sent to factories that make sauce and paste for worldwide distribution. Hundreds of years ago, tomatoes as well as potatoes, beans and maize were found only in the New World, i.e. the Americas. William Alexander traveled to many places to gather information about the glorious tomato, how it came to be so popular and, sadly, its current decline. The Aztec not only cultivated the ‘xitomatl,’ the word from which tomato is derived, they also developed extraordinary farming methods including hydroponics. Those conquistadors destroyed an amazing culture that was, in many ways at that time, much more advanced than the Europeans. In 1548, the tomato rolled into Europe and into the hands of an amateur botanist, the Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo De' Medici (yes, that family) who admired this new ribbed fruit, and incorporated tomatoes into his decorative gardens. Yet, tomatoes were not eaten in the Old World until nearly 300 years later! A long wait for a BLT! These early botanists recognized that the tomato is related to deadly nightshade and belladonna. Both poisonous. The taste was very different from what they were used to. The plant had a short growing season wherein all the fruit ripened at the same time. So only the daring cultivated a rainbow of tomatoes: red, green, yellow, orange and maroon, and then ate what they grew. In the American colonies, the new settlers mingled their culture with the native culture, thriving on corn, beans and eating the occasional tomato. Even Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes. Soon, brave people on both sides of the the Atlantic were acquiring the taste for this aromatic fruit. Personally, I have always loved tomatoes and prefer tomato juice to orange juice. My father did not eat a tomato until he grew them when he was in his 40s! The Neapolitans, in a thriving but impoverished seaport, gave us both pizzerias and maccheroni shops, both places for very cheap food. With easy access to mozzarella, anchovies and olive oil, street vendors invented pizza, even using street urchins to deliver these flatbreads on request. After discovering that durum wheat could be made more malleable, they kneaded it with their feet (like grapes for wine) and the dough was put through grinders to make string pasta, i.e., spaghetti. In the maccheroni shops, this too was covered with tomato and anchovies and sold as street food. So the urban myth that pizza was invented in New York City and exported to Italy is a fanciful fabrication. The Italian immigrants settled in the Northeast corridor and, in many cities, pizzerias opened and flourished, so much that many small towns across America today feature their own pizzerias. Thank you, immigrants! Once canning and bottling came in, tomatoes became even more widespread in the form of ketchup — which surprisingly is derived from a Chinese word. But to them, ketchup was the brine left over from pickling and was thin and watery rather than thick. Avid botanists and agriculturalists turned to hybridization to have more control on production. A young Israeli scientist, studying at Cornell University, was the first to create the Big Boy tomato, which brought us big, round, red tomatoes grown on bushes. Before, tomato plants grew tall and scraggily, up to 10 to 15 feet and whether you were in your backyard or picking fruit in a commercial field, you would need a stepladder! Burpee scientists concentrated on hybridization for creating tomatoes that were firm enough to ship. They did. Tomatoes now can be dropped, bounced and tossed into shipping containers without collapsing and falling apart. These tomatoes gave up most of their flavor and juiciness to be available all year long. Welcome to the tasteless tomato! All is not lost. Some agriculturalists are working on hybridizing flavor back in: Heirlooms. The massive Canadians greenhouse farms — there’s one that covers 50 acres — are responsible for the yummy, golf ball-sized Campari tomatoes, full of flavor that are available in supermarkets here. In the Berkshires, a good portion of our fresh fruit and vegetables — especially cucumbers — during the winter comes from Canada. Soon to be doubled, no doubt, in price! Come May, we’ll plant our Brandywine, Roma and Early Girl seedlings.