Cherry Tomato

I drew the cherry tomato on the truss, because that is how it actually grows. Small round fruits hang from a single stem. A yellow star-flower, which comes before the fruit, is still present on some of them. Each fruit carries its green calyx like a small crown. In this cherry tomato print the truss is the subject, not the single tomato: the whole hanging branch, with fruits in different stages from pale green to deep red. It shows a plant that ripens in order, not all at once.

In shortThe cherry tomato, Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, is the small-fruited form of the tomato, a South American plant in the nightshade family. It is considered closest to the wild tomato. The plate shows one truss, with flower, calyces and ripening fruit.

Key Facts

Why is a cherry tomato botanically a berry?

A cherry tomato is botanically a berry because it is a fleshy fruit that develops from a single ovary and holds its seeds in pulp. Cooks treat it as a vegetable, but the plant treats it as a fruit. The same definition covers grapes and bananas.

The fruit begins as a small yellow star-flower with five petals. Once the flower is pollinated, its base swells into a green berry. The leafy calyx stays attached and sits on the fruit like a crown. Fruits form in a cluster, called a truss, and they ripen one after another along it. That is why a single branch can show every stage at once, from pale green through orange to deep red.

Where does the cherry tomato come from?

The cherry tomato comes from western South America, with the wild tomato relatives growing in the Andes. The crop itself was probably first domesticated in Mexico. The small cherry-type fruits have long been treated as the closest form to the wild plant: small, prolific and strongly flavoured.

Recent genetic work adds a caution. Cherry types turn out to be a mixture of wild and cultivated lines, not a simple ancestor frozen in time. Even so, the cherry tomato keeps a wildness that large slicing tomatoes have lost. The tomato reached Europe in the sixteenth century. It then spent about two hundred years regarded as a decorative plant before it became part of everyday cooking.

Why were tomatoes once thought poisonous in Europe?

Tomatoes were thought poisonous because they belong to the nightshade family, Solanaceae. That family includes the potato, the aubergine, tobacco and deadly nightshade. European botanists saw a resemblance and assumed the fruit shared the danger. For a long time it was grown as an ornamental.

The suspicion was not entirely baseless. The leaves and stems of the tomato contain tomatine, a toxic compound, and are not eaten. Only the ripe fruit is food. In the south of Europe, in Italy and Spain, the fruit was eventually adopted, and from there it became a cornerstone of Mediterranean cooking. Today the plant sits comfortably in kitchens that once feared it, and its place in the nightshade family is mostly a point of botanical interest.

Why do cherry tomatoes taste sweeter than large tomatoes?

Cherry tomatoes taste sweeter because they typically hold more sugar relative to acid than large tomatoes do. The balance gives the intense, fruity flavour that makes them easy to eat straight from the vine. Varieties differ, and yellow and orange types are often milder in acidity than red ones.

Ripeness matters as much as variety. A cherry tomato picked when it has reached full colour on the truss has had time to build sugar. The plant itself is a branching vine that can reach about two metres when supported, with fine hairs on its stems and leaves. It usually fruits from midsummer into autumn. That long season is one reason the cherry tomato became the first crop many people grow.

How did the tomato become part of Mediterranean cooking?

The tomato became part of Mediterranean cooking slowly, and the people who first embraced it were not the wealthy. In Naples and southern Spain, the poor adopted the fruit as food while northern Europe still regarded it as an ornament. Sauces, salads and sun-dried preserves followed.

The result is a cuisine now hard to imagine without it. The cherry tomato suits that tradition particularly well, because it can be eaten raw or cooked, and it holds its shape in heat. The studio places the plate in its Mediterranean Table collection, close to basil and artichoke. Together they describe a kitchen shaped by what grows in warm sun, in which the tomato is the plant that ties the others together.

Drawing the cherry tomato

I drew the tomato on the truss, with the fruit at different stages of ripeness, from pale green to deep red. The calyx sits on each fruit like a small crown. On some of the stems the yellow star-flower that precedes the fruit is still there, so the plate shows the whole sequence on one stem.

The branching stem is easy to lose in a photograph, where the fruit usually takes over. In a drawing, the truss can stay open and every fruit keeps its own space. The red of the ripe fruit sits against the green of the vine and the yellow of the flower, which makes it one of the more colourful plates in the catalogue. I kept the arrangement as nature builds it: a branch, not a pile.

Where does a cherry tomato print work on a wall?

A cherry tomato print suits a kitchen above all. In a simple white or natural wood frame it is clean and contemporary. In a terracotta or warm-toned frame it is more Mediterranean. It belongs to the Mediterranean Table collection and appears in the Mediterranean kitchen guide. In the photograph below, prints of cherries, tomatoes and an apple hang in a kitchen with a green cabinet, so the fruit plates share one wall. A cherry tomato truss suits that kind of group because its colour is strong and its shape is open. It also works alone above a worktop or beside a window, where the red of the fruit picks up other warm tones in the room. The plate is offered in sizes from small prints to over 150 cm (60 inches).

Fine-art print →

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a cherry tomato a different species from a regular tomato?

No. Cherry tomatoes belong to the same species as large tomatoes, Solanum lycopersicum. The cherry form is often given the variety name cerasiforme. It differs in fruit size and in being closer to the wild tomato, not in being a separate plant.

Why are the leaves of a tomato plant not eaten?

The leaves and stems contain tomatine, a compound that is toxic in quantity, and the plant belongs to the nightshade family. Only the ripe fruit is eaten. Keep the living plant away from small children and pets that might chew it.

What is a truss of tomatoes?

A truss is a cluster of flowers and fruit carried on one stem. The flowers open in order and the fruit ripens in the same order, so a single truss can hold fruits from pale green to deep red. It is the natural fruiting unit of the plant.

Where does the name cherry tomato come from?

It refers to the small, round, glossy fruit, which resembles a cherry in size. The botanical variety name cerasiforme means cherry-shaped. Wild tomatoes are small and cherry-like too, which is one reason this form is considered the closest to the original plant.

How is this print made, and how does it reach me?

There are two formats. The digital download is a high-resolution file that you print yourself, at home or at a print shop; no physical item is shipped. The fine-art print is printed to order on archival paper or canvas, framed or unframed, in sizes from small prints to over 150 cm (60 inches), and delivered to your door.