Vegetable or Fruit: Tomato at Cross-Purposes with Itself?

Cross in a Pickle?
In Hoc Signo Manducare!
ἐν τούτῳ Φάτε!

Worse than Annoying Orange, we now have Cross Tomato -- unfit for Salafi Salad! Or maybe the Salafis themselves are the cross ones, probably even annoyed by crosswalks (too much like a walk to Golgotha!) or being forced to cross their tees when using the Western alphabet (too much like making the sign of the cross). Anyway, don't cross the Salafis by indulging in tomatoes (gasp! -- just noticed two crosses in the very word itself!), and here's why:

A Salafist group called the Popular Egyptian Islamic Association has [sent] . . . out a warning on Facebook urging its followers not to eat tomatoes because the vegetable (or fruit) is a Christian food . . . . [and proved it by posting] a photo on its page of a tomato -- which appears to reveal the shape of a cross after being cut in half -- along with the message: "Eating tomatoes is forbidden because they are Christian. [The tomato] praises the cross instead of Allah and says that Allah is three . . . . I implore you to spread this photo because there is a sister from Palestine who saw the prophet of Allah [Mohammad] in a vision and he was crying, warning his nation against eating them [tomatoes]. If you don't spread this [message], know that it is the devil who stopped you." (Angie Nassar, "Salafist group warns tomatoes are 'Christian,'" Now Lebanon, June 12, 2012)

Well, I'd recently been warning folks that the devil is in the details, and we now see just how true that was. But I didn't expect Old Scratch to be Christian! I'll just have to pay more attention when slicing tomatos so as to circumvent an inadvertent eucharistic meal, lest I cross over to Catholicism! Or is that sign Eastern Orthodox?