Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant

The nightshade family includes both deadly poisons (nightshade, tobacco) and some of the kitchen’s most important ingredients. Tomatoes, sweet peppers, and eggplants are all nightshade fruits — botanically berries — that took many generations of breeding to reduce their defensive alkaloids to safe levels. Each has unique chemistry that defines how it should be cooked.

Tomatoes

Small, bitter berries on west coast South American desert bushes, domesticated in Mexico (from the Aztec tomatl, “plump fruit”). European suspicion of the nightshade resemblance lasted into the 19th century. Now the second most popular vegetable in America after the potato.