Will someone please tell me what the hell has happened to tomatoes?
Yeah, I know I bitched about the salmonella outbreak recently, but this is more about what they’re like anymore even when they are widely available. So bear with me. If you don’t like the topic, I wrote a piece on what has happened to fuel economy over at Cowl Shake tonight. You’re welcome.
Those things under the “Tomatoes” sign in the grocery store still look like tomatoes, but they don’t taste like anything. I might as well be eating a mushy raw potato. I’m sure they’re all bioengineered and pesticide-resistant and genetically modified and probably carnaubaed or something to retain their sheen, but if there is no taste at the end of the preservation rituals, then what is the point?
Among her many other talents and avocations, Lea grows vegetables. Tomato plants are my first request when she’s laying the garden out for the year. I had spaghetti for dinner tonight, and the sauce was made exclusively from tomatoes, basil, and oregano that grew 150 feet from here. Amazing. I stopped at Dad’s for lunch and had fresh homegrown tomato slices, and it was like eating candy.
So is this a price thing? Have we as a market voted with our wallets and settled for the shit being peddled in the produce department? Like, makin’ ’em actually taste like tomatoes would cost twice as much and it didn’t work in the test market? That’s about all I can figure.
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When I rule the world, my first law shall be thus:
No tomato shall be sold or served outside of tomato season, unless it’s those really yummy canned San Marzano treats.
It has to do with shipping. Those PhD tomato scientists helped the industry by breeding tomatoes with real strong ribs (the cartilage inside them, if you will), and less juicy pulp. So, the tomatoes have less of a tendency to smush when in mass piles/containers. Along the way, the flavor went away with the breeding. Mega-Agriculture does not care about taste!
In fact, I think the University of Florida was a prime mover and shaker in this process. I wonder if they were behind making Florida oranges as tasteless as they are . . .
Also, they’re picked green to ripen in transit, I’ve been told. Nice….
Tomatoes are one of my weird foods (in the company of eggs and cheese). I only like them cooked (and your spaghetti sauce sounds HEAVENLY!). My grandfather used to go out to the back yard with a salt shaker and eat tomatoes like apples. BLECH! Gives me the willies just THINKING about it!
I was just thinking, in an ironic sort of way, that if tomatoes are making people ill, maybe they are “poison love apples” as once reputed.
I wish I could send you some of the real tomatoes we get year round at the local farmers’ market. Yesterday I bought a pound of cherry tomatoes and a couple pounds of Roma tomatoes for four dollars total.
If I had to do without good tomatoes that would make me very sad. Can you grow your own?
Hattie: We do. Well, Lea does. I just eat ’em. 🙂 This year she grew cherry, Roma, and a couple of “regular” varieties. They’re all heavenly.
I don’t have any idea whether our farmer’s market has tomatoes year-round, and can’t believe I’ve never looked, now that you mention it. I guess they might, though they’d have to be grown inside for several months of the year here. I’ll check it out next time I’m in that part of town. It’s across the street from our vet.