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Tomatoes are plants bearing edible fruits that appear minimally in the How to Train Your Dragon Book series.
Description[]
Tomatoes are annual plant (lasting only one year) that bear an edible fruit. Most commonly, the fruit are bright red at maturity, though they may also come in orange, yellow, green, and even striped varieties. Commonly tomatoes are thought of as vegetables, but because they have seeds surrounded by fleshy ovary tissue, botanically they are called fruits, specifically berries. Tomatoes do have a much lower sugar content than many other fruits, and therefore associated with more savory vegetables.
Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) are in the same Genus as potatoes and eggplant, as well as many poisonous species such as the Nightshades. Tomatoes originated in Central and South America. The Spanish invading the Americas brought tomatoes back to the Old World in the 1400's and 1500's, well after the Viking Era.
Function[]
Tomatoes are mentioned as a food for Vikings in the Book series. In reality, tomatoes are used principally for consumption as well.
Appearances[]
How to Train Your Dragon[]
Despite not being a vegetable Vikings encountered in reality, tomatoes are mentioned in Book 1, when Gobber is seen eating a "mussel-and-tomato sandwich".
How to Speak Dragonese[]
The Roman Fat Consul is mentioned eating tomatoes at the gladiatorial event of Saturn's Day Saturday - a "light snack of double reptoburger with tomato-and-dormouse relish and popdragons on the side."
How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse[]
Tomatoes are seen at the banquet table in the Great Hall of the Hysterics on Freya'sday Eve. In an attempt to not get caught, Hiccup starts throwing food around and some tomatoes splatted on some Hysterics' faces. They assumed they were having a food fight, not trying to catch a thief.
| “ | Hysterics who had been woken by a fate overrripe tomato splattered in their faces assumed that this was all just a merry midnight food fight, and enthusiastically attacked their fellow Hysterics | ” |
| — Book 4 |
