Top HN comment from similar article (4 months ago):
"pro tip: Use canned tomatoes instead of fresh whenever out of season; canners use varieties that have not been ruined for shipping, and seal at the peak of freshness."
The same idea applies for other fruits and vegetables, like corn, peas, and especially peaches and pears. The trick is finding a good canned variety. Most mass produced versions from the familiar large names (Dole, Del Monte, etc. in the US) are not great. However, for example there is a smaller grocery chain near me which brands their own delicious version of canned peaches from a regional producer annually at the peak of ripeness.
Corn kernels and peas both freeze very well. The large surface area to volume ratio means they can freeze very quickly, which keeps the ice crystals small, so there's minimal damage to texture. They also taste closer to fresh vegetables than the canned ones do, and they're usually cheaper.
But the canned tomato experience is never going to be the same as fresh tomato. Perhaps as good or better in someways, but there are going to be fundamental differences in texture and taste.
There may also be a health issue with BPA exposure particularly with acidic canned contents.
Also food portions being routinely over packaged (here in small metal containers) is looking increasingly dubious in these times of overstretched and wasted resources.
I grow my own tomatoes since several years, they taste great. I got seeds from friends, kept it from good tasting tomatoes, etc. Some were not good enough, I stopped growing them. I now have a selection of less than 10 varieties, which are just fabulous:
* Small size ones: cerise rouge (red cherry), poire jaune (yellow pear), prune noire (black plum).
* Medium size: Rose de Berne, Noire de Crimée
* Big size: Coeur de Boeuf (beef heart).
I can send seeds in exchange of other seeds (other plants) or PP cost.
Here's how I harvest and store them: (article in French, but with many photos):
This is great to hear -- tomato seeds are easy to collect and store, and are a good intro to encourage friends to start doing the same.
I note you mention prune noire -- I don't think we have that here in Australia (though we're quite fortunate in the huge range of tomato varieties we do have, as a lot of immigrants brought their seeds across with them in the early part of last century, before we cracked down on flora importing). If you haven't tried growing them I'd recommend whatever other black ones you can find -- here we have Black Krim, Black Russian, Purple Russian, and a smaller cherry-style variety of one of those. All superb flavour, texture, and eye-appeal.
It's amazing the difference of a vine ripened tomato from backyard garden versus a hothouse grown fast and shipped thousands of kilometers. The tomatoes from my garden in the summer are like dense red balls almost no seeds it's like a berry which I think a tomato technically is. Plus the taste is powerful tomato flavour not a bland tasteless hothouse fast food tomato.
Some rosemary focaccia toasted, a little olive oil, salt, pepper and that nice dense garden tomato is a perfect summer sandwich.
And I have to say I have nothing against genetically modified food as long as it has been studied.
I completely agree. I grew tomatoes for the first time last year and couldn't believe the difference in taste. The cherry tomatoes had a sweetness I had never tasted in a cherry tomatoe before. It was almost like they were cross-bred with grapes. The heirlooms were so dense that when you cut them almost no water was on the plate. It was amazing the difference from anything I had tasted in the supermarket.
An interesting side note for those in the Bay Area: these were grown in sf, and in PAC heights which is on the foggier side. Tomatoes survived better than a lot of other plants. I can only imagine how they would have grown down in Silicon Valley with twice the sun and heat.
Red Roma tomatoes grown slow (3 months) and picked right before peak ripening... unbelievable diced up and served with basil and fresh mozzarella on toasted bread, lightly brushed with olive oil and sea salt.
The issue is not so much that they're fast grown or from a hothouse. But that they are grown out of season with artificial light, harvested almost green and ripe during transit. Best case they are tasteless, worst case they are bitter and IMO unfit for consumption.
I grow my own in a hothouse because it's not hot enough to do so without here in Denmark. At least not in the quantities I want.
Buy small tomatoes. Cherry/grape tomatoes are universally tastier, as they are kept on the vine until they are ripe, and don't crush themselves under their own weight during shipping.
In related news - I accidentally stumbled upon a tomato variety that absolutely blew my taste buds. It's called Edioso in Italy and Tomkin in UK and other places. Fruits are about the size of a golf ball, have ridges and wrinkles like pumpkins (hence "tomkin" = tomato + pumpkin) and they have this super tomato taste that is also intensely sweet.
They were so impressive that I looked into growing them... but it didn't go that far as original seeds are impossible to get unless you are a farmer and seeds from the tomatoes themselves produce fruits that taste differently.
"seeds from the tomatoes themselves produce fruits that taste differently."
That's interesting, do you happen to know why that is? My wife and I just started a little garden, partially based on growing seeds from peppers and squash that we've bought at farmer's markets, and now I'm curious to see if anything ends up tasting substantially different.
Because it's the first gen of a cross-pollinated variety.
They take two "pure" lines of species that are produced by self-pollinating the same variety for many generations and then cross-pollinate. This creates a hybrid. It tastes and looks great, but it yields seeds that are a result of _self_pollination, so some original traits get suppressed and some dormant traits activate.
I didn't know that either, but apparently it's basic botany. Google up "F1 F2 seeds".
Lots of fruit aren't true-breeding; the characteristics of the parent plant determine the quality of the fruit, but the seeds are genetically distinct. This is a major issue in apples, which typically have to be propagated by cloning and grafting to maintain fruit quality across generations.
I'm not familiar with the Edioso specifically, but I have run into another branded tomato produced by Syngenta called the "Kumato". (They're pretty good, actually, though I'm not a huge fan of the concept of patented plants...)
That one has the same issue because it's a hybrid.
This is insanity. Why genetically engineer a new tomato when unbelievably delicious varieties abound abroad?
I'm also convinced this has more to do with economics than taste preference. Somehow big agro managed to make the US forget what a tomato is supposed to taste like and killed the demand for anything beyond a gas-ripened and red water ball. If people really gave a damn about a good tomato, I'd bet we'd see more imported varieties in grocery stores.
Those varieties, while I agree are delicious, aren't very hardy. I love a good heirloom tomato, but god help you if you let it bump into anything. They bruise far too easily for mass production. Right now we have tomatoes that are delicious, and tomatoes that are hardy. The goal here seems to be to find one that's both, which I'm totally for.
On a side note, I'm sad that Lucky Peach is folding. I think this might be the last issue.
Honestly, only found it because I was searching for Harold McGee articles (he's got a few there), but I felt it was a good mix of food science and good writing. Then again, I rarely remembered to go read it unless a link sent me there, which I guess is the problem with magazine-style journalism / writing these days. Sigh.
It amazes me how North American posts always lament that there are "no good tomatoes" when Europe is full of them. So... just get those? What's with the weird tunnel vision when it comes to high quality produce here? Sure, you'll have to arrange a one time import clearance for high quality seeds, then you're set for life if you're serious about a tasty home grown tomato.
Actually most tomatoes in Europe suck as well. You'd be very lucky to find any in a supermarket, except in the summer if you live in the proper location.
The trick is that what most people think is a great tomato is not, they never tasted one. They think they have good ones when they eat one that's ok. A tomato is not supposed to be "ok". It's suppose to be "omg I want to make my whole lunch out of only those".
It seems surprising, but then again many children have never seen a cow IRL or picked up a strawberry from the ground themself.
When I want great tomatoes, I have some options:
- go to my local market. This requires to know your stuff, as most tomatoes are still garbage, despite the fact I leave on the Italian border. And most people around me have no idea what a good vegetable should look like. This knowledge completely disappeared, even among foodies.
- buy from a local farmers cooperative or directly from small producers. This is the best solution as it's almost always good. But as a freelancer, I have the time for this. Most people don't.
- buy from an organic shop. Pretty much a hit or miss, which sucks since they are very expensive, but still you have more chance to get something that in the supermarket.
- grow them. My GF does that, thanks god.
I'm just amazed of what people consider good product these days. The food is so messed up people settle for anything that taste ok. This is a terrible status quo. Vegetables and fruits are supposed to taste awesome. They are the best thing ever. A good tomato doesn't even need salt or oil, you can eat it like an apple.
The fact so many kids hate healthy food is not a problem with the kids. It's a problem with the food. What we give them taste bad. I don't blame them for eating the ben and jerry ice cream. At least it's guarantied to taste good.
Several relatives of mine work at a Dutch family owned seed company. They have a good company culture and they breed good tasting tomato varieties.
https://www.rijkzwaanusa.com/crop/tomato
>> Or they can simply leave them a bit more in the sun.
This is what the whole article is about:
[intro]
The life of a tomato is halted tragically early. They’re wrenched from the vine in their adolescence and fledged from their natal farms when they’re still green and hard as stones. Snipped from their vines, the fruit is never allowed to ripen in the field and develop the sugars and flavor chemicals that make them taste like something other than a verdant rock. Unfortunately, for large-scale commercial farming this is the only way. Imagine shipping squishy, perfectly ripe tomatoes across the county. They’d arrive sauced.
[...]
If farmers could somehow allow a tomato fruit to ripen on the vine and develop flavor without going soft, everyone would be happy. Farmers get high yield, consumers get a tasty product, and tomatoes everywhere could keep a shred of their integrity.
Don't forget this part of the article:
“We realized that the commercial varieties being grown at the time didn’t taste that great,” says Martineau. “Even if you grew them in your backyard and let them fully ripen on the vine, they wouldn’t have had great tomato flavor.”
That's not true. We grew tomatoes long time ago. Most of them had amazing taste. Even the 'commercial varieties'. The problem is that tomatoes need lots of sun and time.
They are spinning that in the article, and I'm sad to see most of the commenters fall for that. Tomatoes just need time in the sun, it is that simple.
And yet you're still missing most of the point. Commercial tomatoes aren't pulled off the vine early for fun or pure greed, it's a matter of picking them before they are too soft to survive shipment.
That's not a problem with a tomato from your own back yard, but it's a big deal even if they only have to travel a few miles.
True. If a tomato picked from my garden on the right day is a 100, then I can buy 95s in season at a tomato farm, and routinely buy 80s at CostCo (look for packs of multicolored cherry tomatoes) and sometimes pay a lot for "vine ripened" tomatoes in special packaging at the grocery store that usually end up as 50s.
A random beefsteak tomato at Whole Foods tends to be a 20 on this scale. Yes, there's worse.
In case you happen to visit Sicily, Italy, during summertime, and you are in love with Tomatoes, make a small trip to Pachino to taste among the best tomatoes in the world (and while there, go to Portopalo di Capopassero to experience the wonderful sea there).
Most of the fruits & vegetables we eat today have been significantly modified from their origins...often to the detriment of our health e.g. most fruits have been bred to be sweet and often nutrient-wise less rich...some such as corn are so different from their known antecedents that no scientist has any idea how ancient Americans achieved them through breeding!!
Sorry to hear that the USA has so many problems with tomatoes.
Similar to the way that they removed all traces of cocoa from so-called "chocolate" like Hershey's bars and replaced it with sugar and brown colouring.
"pro tip: Use canned tomatoes instead of fresh whenever out of season; canners use varieties that have not been ruined for shipping, and seal at the peak of freshness."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13520563
Dr. Klee's tomato shenanigans have appeared on HN a couple times:
4 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4182279
also 4 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5254216