Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes

[longknife]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

 

[sparky]

Backpeddaling from strains botanically engineered for shelf life & disease resistance for a century may be a chore ....~S~

 

[Dekster]

I grow my own. Sometimes I don't need its shelf life to even be long enough to make it from the field to the kitchen

 

[OldLady]

Backpeddaling from strains botanically engineered for shelf life & disease resistance for a century may be a chore ....~S~

When you grow your own, they usually taste pretty good, unless you go for those Burpee Jumbo Beefsteaks or whatever. The heirloom tomatoes that are sold at all the farmer's markets are usually okay, too. They don't have as much disease resistance and may look kind of deformed, but they are definitely more tomato-tasting. One thing if you don't grow your own is that it won't be allowed to fully ripen on the vine, and that makes a difference in flavor. Even if it is grown locally, the farmer is going to pick it while it's still pretty firm, since it will be getting tossed around in a basket somewhere and maybe sitting on a shelf for a few days.
A tomato may turn red after it is picked, but it doesn't get that sun ripened flavor.
Best to grow your own or make friends with someone who does.

 

[Weatherman2020]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

Actually the problem is farmers pick them green before the sugars develop. Green keeps them firm and gives time for shipping. Home grown and farmers markets for me.

 

[Moonglow]

I grow my own. Sometimes I don't need its shelf life to even be long enough to make it from the field to the kitchen

Mine usually get eaten off the vine and never make it into the house.

 

[Muhammed]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

October.

Too long.

 

[Dekster]

I grow my own. Sometimes I don't need its shelf life to even be long enough to make it from the field to the kitchen

Mine usually get eaten off the vine and never make it into the house.

Happens a lot of with my cherry tomatoes. I have 16 cherry tomato and I believe I am at 51 full sized tomato plants, having lost a few to critters early on. I plant indeterminate varieties so I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed if we have a good year and they all start coming in at once. This year has turned a little dry on us so not sure how it will be by that time. They are blooming though so fingers crossed.

 

[koshergrl]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

Actually the problem is farmers pick them green before the sugars develop. Green keeps them firm and gives time for shipping. Home grown and farmers markets for me.

There is more to it than that. I remember the tomatoes from my grandmother's gardens...it isn't sugar that's missing...it's tartness, and firmness, the nature of the fruit flesh (which can be affected by when you pick them). We had big tomatoes and little tomatoes and yellow pear shaped tomatoes..she grew the same ones every year and when I would stay at her house, the tomatoes were what I'd snack on during the day. Tomatoes, rhubarb and pie cherries from a disreputable nearly leafless old tree next to the shed.

Tomatoes have just turned into something else.

 

[beautress]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

No, I haven't tried tomatillo.

However, if there is anything I cannot stand, it's a hothouse tomato that has every apparition of being anemic. And they are served regularly at fast food palaces. /double bleh!

And pardon my off-topic comment but yellow lettuce so served with anemic tomatoes is my idea of a nutritional nightmare.

Oh, wait, nothing is worse than going to breakfast and seeing parents allowing to have their children drink a coke, pepsi, or other soft drink instead of having fresh, beautiful, organic fruit platter, and menu choices of glass-bottled distilled or 100% purified water that has a zero percent chance of harboring municipal chemicals that make indicator (borderline) people ill. An indicator individual is one whose sensitive system is a warning signal that the public health is at stake if the indicator individual has gut bleeding following water consumption. Others don't bleed, they contract serious cancers doctors have a hard time outwitting with the very best of cancer treatment and therapies that never consider public water a source of human illness just because it "fulfills" a government parameter for alleged health. Some chemicals in water are never considered a source of illness or causal agent of allergies and other anomalies of human health. That's just my opinion because if I forget about municipal water problems, I bleed if water is contaminated. And I bleed within 30 minutes of consuming bad water, which most municipal water is. bleh!

 

[Darkwind]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

I'll alway have one or two a month just off the vine and eaten like an apple. I love tomatoes.

 

[JustAnotherNut]

Heirlooms are more picky and more difficult to grow, but you'll get a true old fashioned product & taste.....plus you can save the seeds to grow the same again in the future. Anything homegrown has better flavor than store-bought.

As for tomatillos......yes, they make great salsa verde…...deeewishes

 

[miketx]

We grow some also. I eat them after picking them and washing them. Very tasty.

 

[Dekster]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

No, I haven't tried tomatillo.

However, if there is anything I cannot stand, it's a hothouse tomato that has every apparition of being anemic. And they are served regularly at fast food palaces. /double bleh!

And pardon my off-topic comment but yellow lettuce so served with anemic tomatoes is my idea of a nutritional nightmare.

Oh, wait, nothing is worse than going to breakfast and seeing parents allowing to have their children drink a coke, pepsi, or other soft drink instead of having fresh, beautiful, organic fruit platter, and menu choices of glass-bottled distilled or 100% purified water that has a zero percent chance of harboring municipal chemicals that make indicator (borderline) people ill. An indicator individual is one whose sensitive system is a warning signal that the public health is at stake if the indicator individual has gut bleeding following water consumption. Others don't bleed, they contract serious cancers doctors have a hard time outwitting with the very best of cancer treatment and therapies that never consider public water a source of human illness just because it "fulfills" a government parameter for alleged health. Some chemicals in water are never considered a source of illness or causal agent of allergies and other anomalies of human health. That's just my opinion because if I forget about municipal water problems, I bleed if water is contaminated. And I bleed within 30 minutes of consuming bad water, which most municipal water is. bleh!

I never eat tomatoes or iceberg lettuce in chain restaurants. If they do not have Caesar, I pass. I pick them off if they come on something.

Never heard of someone bleeding after drinking water. I don't drink our city water. I will cook with it, but I don't otherwise really trust it, especially this time of year when the water is warm straight out of the tap unless you get the first bit that has been in your pipes. When the water comes preheated, I am skeptical about what might be living in it. Probably being paranoid since the chlorine stench is so strong probably nothing could live in it

 

[Carl in Michigan]

Backpeddaling from strains botanically engineered for shelf life & disease resistance for a century may be a chore ....~S~

When you grow your own, they usually taste pretty good, unless you go for those Burpee Jumbo Beefsteaks or whatever. The heirloom tomatoes that are sold at all the farmer's markets are usually okay, too. They don't have as much disease resistance and may look kind of deformed, but they are definitely more tomato-tasting. One thing if you don't grow your own is that it won't be allowed to fully ripen on the vine, and that makes a difference in flavor. Even if it is grown locally, the farmer is going to pick it while it's still pretty firm, since it will be getting tossed around in a basket somewhere and maybe sitting on a shelf for a few days.
A tomato may turn red after it is picked, but it doesn't get that sun ripened flavor.
Best to grow your own or make friends with someone who does.

That's the way with all fruit. I still remember 5he first time I ever picked a tree ripened orange. Tasted like the oranges I get from the supermarket, but then times better.

 

[beautress]

How many of us stop to think of how the tomatoes we eat taste? We get them everywhere, usually mixed in with something else or covered in mayonnaise or other sauces.


When was the last time you plucked one from the vine in a garden as just savored its taste?

When one starts typing the phrase "Tomatoes taste like…", in Google, the six most common auto-complete suggestions are "blood," "dirt," "fish," "pumpkin," "chlorine" and "wet dog."

If you, too, have ever lamented tasting wet dog (or, uh, blood) as you've bitten into a store-bought tomato-and-cheese sandwich for lunch, you may be in luck.

On Monday, scientists introduced a rare version of a gene that promises to make store-bought tomatoes taste more edible in a report published in Nature Genetics.

Tomato breeders usually sacrifice the flavor of their batches for the sake of production, opting to instead breed larger fruits in higher quantities with longer shelf lives.

A team of researchers (perhaps after hearing such "wet dog" and "dirt" complaints) gathered genetic information from 725 wild tomatoes and constructed a "pan-genome," or a genome with information from all 725 tomatoes.

Has anyone here eaten a tomatillo?

These are the originals from which all other types come.


More of the story @ Finally! A way to return flavor to bland tomatoes | DW | 14.05.2019

No, I haven't tried tomatillo.

However, if there is anything I cannot stand, it's a hothouse tomato that has every apparition of being anemic. And they are served regularly at fast food palaces. /double bleh!

And pardon my off-topic comment but yellow lettuce so served with anemic tomatoes is my idea of a nutritional nightmare.

Oh, wait, nothing is worse than going to breakfast and seeing parents allowing to have their children drink a coke, pepsi, or other soft drink instead of having fresh, beautiful, organic fruit platter, and menu choices of glass-bottled distilled or 100% purified water that has a zero percent chance of harboring municipal chemicals that make indicator (borderline) people ill. An indicator individual is one whose sensitive system is a warning signal that the public health is at stake if the indicator individual has gut bleeding following water consumption. Others don't bleed, they contract serious cancers doctors have a hard time outwitting with the very best of cancer treatment and therapies that never consider public water a source of human illness just because it "fulfills" a government parameter for alleged health. Some chemicals in water are never considered a source of illness or causal agent of allergies and other anomalies of human health. That's just my opinion because if I forget about municipal water problems, I bleed if water is contaminated. And I bleed within 30 minutes of consuming bad water, which most municipal water is. bleh!

I never eat tomatoes or iceberg lettuce in chain restaurants. If they do not have Caesar, I pass. I pick them off if they come on something.

Never heard of someone bleeding after drinking water. I don't drink our city water. I will cook with it, but I don't otherwise really trust it, especially this time of year when the water is warm straight out of the tap unless you get the first bit that has been in your pipes. When the water comes preheated, I am skeptical about what might be living in it. Probably being paranoid since the chlorine stench is so strong probably nothing could live in it

If you think bleeding from tap water is bad, you should see what my gi doctor found. Pink and purple polkadots all over my innards. He put them up on his picture-taking screen, and I thought I was looking at a bad piece of calico. He said he never saw anything like my picture or what to do about it. When I started drinking distilled water, I never had another problem unless I was out somewhere and forgot about the problem. It comes back in less than half an hour. Products made with tap water do likewise, whether it's cake, pasta, pie crust, rice, or mashed potatoes. If the skin covers the potatoes when boiling, I can eat the potato salad that results. Steamed items do no harm. There is one thing that can be boiled direct that is okay--pinto beans. There must be something in pinto beans that obfuscates the outer chemical valance of tap water OR changes the water. Bean burritos when I go to Taco Bell. And the mild or hot sauce doesn't cause any issues for some odd reason.

 

[Mindful]

Tasteless bland tomatoes. Tell me about it. The worst offenders being The Netherlands.

The very small ones are halfway decent,

 

[miketx]

Our cherry toms growing always taste good and different from store bought.

 

[Mindful]

Our cherry toms growing always taste good and different from store bought.

In a greenhouse?