Tomato War

1 May 2010 - My family used to go to Italy for holidays in the 1960s and 1970s. I have many fond memories of The Mediterranean, and I remember the sun-laden taste of peaches, oranges and tomatoes. I did not like the Dutch tomatoes at the time, but I learned to love the Italian ones. In the 1990s a Tomato War broke out in Germany, as the Germans labeled the Dutch tomatoes "water-bombs" and massively started importing fruits from Italy and Spain. The Dutch have learned their lesson, and started to diversify and to put taste in their water-bombs: cherry tomatoes, meat tomatoes, organic tomatoes, etc. It worked, because Dutch tomatoes are back on the German lunch and dinner tables. I learned that 56% of tomatoes in Germany are again imported from Holland. By the way, is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?