Attack of the Killer Tomato Prices
November 1, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/opinion/01mon3.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position 

It's not exactly the potato blight, but fresh tomatoes are suddenly in short supply. Blame hurricanes in Florida, heavy rains in California and even a crop-eating bug in Mexico. The vegetable (before writing to tell us it's a fruit, please read on) can be found at the supermarket, but for as much as $3 a pound. Elsewhere, it may go missing entirely.

Fast food restaurants, especially those that boast of fresh ingredients, are in a pickle. Rather than take a chance that it could not deliver, Wendy's recently canceled an ad featuring a tomato slice on a chicken sandwich. Other quick meal outlets plan to post notices that say, in effect, no, you cannot have it your way. In one of New York's authentic Mexican restaurants, Zarela, the chips and fresh salsa - complimentary at the bar and before meals - are still there. But the owner, Zarela Martinez, says this price crisis is the worst since the great beef fajita meat inflation of last year. Some Italian restaurants are substituting canned tomatoes or changing recipes until the shortage lets up.

It is an interesting dilemma. Tomatoes were once shunned in this country. Benjamin Franklin called them unsafe, perhaps believing they contributed to his gout. In parts of Europe, tomatoes were considered an aphrodisiac. To this day, they are misunderstood. While purists are correct that the tomato is a fruit, the Supreme Court in the late 19th century ruled it a vegetable, which infamously did not escape the Reagan administration when it briefly extended that label to ketchup in school lunches.

Today, armed with evidence of the great health benefits from nutrients like lycopene, Americans eat an average of 90 pounds of tomatoes a year, about one-fifth of them fresh. Having to weather this shortage, many of them, we suspect, will consider growing their own garden variety next year.