Tasteless tomatoes

[Deleted]

The fact that most tomatoes have lost their taste in recent decades is a worldwide scourge, even when you grow your own tomatoes and pick them at the point of ultimate maturity. They're just not the same anymore.

Here's why.

[Don Cuevas]

We have been eating Pretty Damn Good tomatoes in New Jersey. They certainly are more flavorful than the tasteless ones we get in Mexico.

[Deleted]

So the plague has not spread to NJ yet -- good to know!

[hwinpp]

I thought they come from Mexico. Wouldn't they be pretty good then with all the old types they might have?

[lagatta]

Bixa has had a lot to say about this and the relative lack of flavour of many - locally-grown - tomatoes from their country of origin.

Unlike corn/maize, I don't think tomatoes here spread north from Meso-America, but were re-imported by Europeans.

What kerouac says certainly seems true over the decades, but several of us have found that in recent years we've had out-of-season local or localish (Ontario) tomatoes that are far better than the red golfballs of two or three decades ago.

[Deleted]

In France, too, heirloom tomatoes are returning to even the supermarkets, but I fear they will eventually succumb to the same fate. Producers will always try to make their product "better" -- more evenly sized and something that won't spoil so fast. This is what ruins tomatoes in the first place.

When everybody started refusing to buy the Dutch hothouse tomatoes, one of best things to suddenly appear were the branch tomatoes -- they were delicious. But now the branch tomatoes all look identical, last a long time and have no flavour because they were standardised.

At the moment, the heirloom tomatoes are all different sizes and all different hues, but that won't last very long.

[lagatta]

Oh dear, I'm heading to Amsterdam for a short jaunt and something I dread (other than the nasty cool weather - it gets so cold here in the wintertime that I just have to bask in warmth and warm my bones in the summer) is the uniformly tasteless, Dutch hothouse tomato. Even in summer. I'll go buy some real tomatoes at the organic market if I have time, but if the temperature doesn't increase, they still won't be wonderful.

The best tomatoes I've ever eaten are Italian ones (not the Roma used for sauce, big roundish, irregularly-shaped ones) that are dappled green and red when fully ripe.

I can certainly get heirloom tomatoes at Marché Jean-Talon, but not everyone here lives close to a public market, or has a little garden patch (private or in a community garden).

In spite of everything, I don't find the branch tomatoes as bad as those Dutch bowling balls.

[rikita]

i don't know how they are compared to decades ago, but there is definitely a difference between different types, and also depending on whether they are "bio" or not. the best ones taste wise are the ones i buy at the bio-shop, and there in fact they are often not quite as red as in the supermarket. the ones on my balcony tend to taste even better though - and some of those do get quite red. the ones on my balcony i didn't really like were one of the "historic" breeds that was yellowish-pinkish. they just never tasted right. there were other historic types though that tasted really good that i grew before...

[Deleted]

I didn't want to start a new thread about tomatoes, so I thought I would just tack a peeve of an opposite problem to this thread. I really, really hate sun dried tomatoes! They are one of the only things that I will pull out of a dish if at all possible and leave on the side of my plate.

[lagatta]

Good to know what not to serve Jack. I don't hate them, but never got the fad. Remember the first time I saw them, decades ago, in Calabria. They were simply a method of preserving food, relying on hot sun and a dry climate.

[bixaorellana]

Referring back to the OP, in this bit of proof that a grotesque future is upon us:
action.sumofus.org/a/world-food-prize-monsanto-syngenta/?sub=fb

[Deleted]

Nov 6, 2013 9:55:22 GMT lagatta said:

Good to know what not to serve Jack. I don't hate them, but never got the fad. Remember the first time I saw them, decades ago, in Calabria. They were simply a method of preserving food, relying on hot sun and a dry climate.

Used in the days when tomatoes did not come jumping at us at all seasons from just about anywhere on our side of the planet, the original sun dried tomato concept makes perfect sense, even if it was not the ideal way to eat a tomato. I can imagine that in dreary winter months, a bit of preserved tomato could have jazzed up a few dishes, even though I would very much prefer canned tomatoes anyway. But what really disgusts me are those presentations of oily tomato cadavers on dishes that would otherwise be perfectly good.

[Deleted]

Nov 6, 2013 16:15:24 GMT bixaorellana said:

Referring back to the OP, in this bit of proof that a grotesque future is upon us:
action.sumofus.org/a/world-food-prize-monsanto-syngenta/?sub=fb

At least nearly all of Europe is still in resistance to this, although we will almost certainly lose the battle in the end.

[bixaorellana]

On the local bright side ~~ a judge has overturned Mexico's recent embrace of the flowers of evil, which had been jammed through despite heavy resistance. The judge stated that those in resistance have a right to fully present their case. This means that the provisional ban can be made to drag on for years, thank goodness.

[patricklondon]

a judge has overturned Mexico's recent embrace of the flowers of evil, which had been jammed through despite heavy resistance. The judge stated that those in resistance have a right to fully present their case. This means that the provisional ban can be made to drag on for years, thank goodness.

Concerns are now being raised in Europe about the enforcement provisions of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - which could enable large companies to get national laws overruled:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy

[bixaorellana]

Good grief!!

It's becoming increasingly difficult not to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist, as more & more evidence that we're meaningless pawns comes to light.

I was appalled when Wikileaks revealed the US's bullying of its allies to accept transgenic products, but The Guardian's article is about screwing on a grander, global scale. I wonder that journalist doesn't fear for his life.

[lagatta]

Monsanto was vicious to a Canadian farmer, hate to think how they must treat Mexicans and Central Americans.

As for the sun-dried tomatoes, I doubt most of them were stored in olive oil. I think they were simply a store product, rehydrated in water, onions, etc. When I had them in Calabria, they were just dry, added to sauces made with normal tomatoes (as earlier generations had become used to their concentrated taste). This was before the big fad for them. They played a role similar to all those preserved vegetables in Turkish, Greek and Balkan cuisine. Those peoples also dehydrated aubergines.

[Don Cuevas]

I saw some beautiful, plump red tomatoes, complete with "shoulder ribs", or whatever they are called, while in the Mercado Nicolás Bravo in Morelia yesterday. I would have bought a few, but I was already carrying 4 liters of pineapple vinegar and about to set out on a walking tour of Morelia Centro, so it was impractical to buy the tomatoes.

And I also saw on the tomato box, "Hidropónico".

[tod2]

Don, I have seen tomatoes like that in the Belleville street market and other places - tried one and found them mostly all flesh with teeny weeny seeds. Obviously because of the name Hidroponico on the box they have been cultivated purely in air and water laced with nutrients......well, I think that's how they do it!

[fumobici]

I bought just one perfect tomato this summer here at a small farmer's market held every summer Wednesday at Fairhaven Village Green on its closing day for the year--tomato season here is short and late. It was misshapen and had a couple of holes in the skin but its delicate was otherwise perfect. Large but not huge, very little pith, voids or seed inside, just pure crimson pigeon's blood red flesh, sweet but not in an unbalanced way and with the alkaloidal aroma of a whole tomato plant. Some sort of heirloom variety obviously, too "real" looking to be a big commercial cultivar. I'm sure it was organic/bio, although i didn't ask.

[Deleted]

There are now so many heirloom tomatoes on sale in France that even they cannot be trusted.