And I thought it was me.
I used to love tomatoes, eating them like apples with a bit of salt.
I haven’t done that in 20 years. All store bought tomatoes suck compared to what my father used to grow. I don’t care if it says “on the vine”,”shipped ripened”,” or whatever, tomatoes aren’t worth the trouble chewing them.
Over the decades, taste has drained out of supermarket tomatoes.
Harry J. Klee, a professor of horticultural sciences at the University of Florida, thinks he can put it back in within a couple of years.
In this week’s issue of the journal Science, Dr. Klee and his colleagues describe flavor chemicals that are deficient in most modern varieties of tomatoes. In addition, they have located genes that produce these chemicals, and identified heirloom and wild varieties of tomatoes that possess better versions of these genes.
Work has begun to breed a hybrid that restores much of the flavor yet retains the traits — large size, sturdy enough for shipping — that growers need to succeed.
“Now we know exactly what needs to be done to make it right,” Dr. Klee said. “We just have to turn the crank.”
The researchers are using traditional breeding to create the better tasting tomato, even though genetic engineering would be much quicker. “I don’t want people to not eat a great-tasting tomato because they’re scared of it,” Dr. Klee said.
The work has taken years. The researchers meticulously measured the levels of different chemicals in different varieties. They sequenced the full genome of nearly 400 varieties — modern, heirloom, wild. Taste panels weighed in on which varieties were delicious and which were blah.
In florida you should be able to grow your own year round.
store-bought tomaters are crap … so is the stuff they put on your sub sandwiches
like the song says … ‘only 2 things that money can’t buy. That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes’
The seeds are already peeping out of the peat moss under the lights.
… come to think of it … most any fruit or vegetable bought in the store tastes like cardboard w/ some sugar water added … if you’re lucky
true ‘progress’ for ‘progressives’
It’s the same with everything -strawberries, plums, nectarines – they have no taste. What’s up with that?
Especially peaches.
We grow our own and the latest deal is the blight. Copper in the soil isn’t good so we get some rot. What’s a mother to do?
I love growing heirloom tomatoes. I usually have 30 plants that produce enough to can, freeze and eat fresh so I can walk by the tomatoes in the store.
I had great luck with a hydroponic system last year so I will do more of that just because I can get tomatoes on the vine sooner.
Have been eating fresh peas and lettuce for the last couple weeks from plants I have in a grow tent. Not a lot of production but it has been fun to do since I live in the northern tundra.
Hydroponic systems are so much cheaper now that they are growing weed legally in the state next door.
Frank, I get my home-brew grains and hops from the hydroponic store in town. I might give that a try one day.
I have been a member of “Bountiful Baskets” produce co-op for several years now. If it is in your area, you may want to check into it. I have been happy with it.
Back in the 70s and 80s my Uncle used to grow Big Boys, then went to Better Boys. Those tomatoes were so good you could make a meal out of them alone! Solid, firm and tasty. We used to put a little sugar on them (not much) and chow down. Havn’t had tomatoes as good since.
One summer a decade ago I lived with friends on a farm in Macedonia. As always they grew their produce organically – – no chemicals, no genetically modified seeds. We ate from the garden every night. I was never fond of tomatoes until I ate theirs which were huge and like none I had ever tasted.
You can grow your own until you find one of these on the plant:
http://www.wolaver.org/log/garden_2010/Tomato_worm.jpg
.
That will help determine if you are are a man or liberal.
Store bought stuff is picked too early for transport purposes, to prevent bruising etc. from varieties engineered for uniform size, shape and color.
Flavor is not even considered. That goes for tomatoes, apples, peaches, strawberries
The further you are from the actual food source the less less flavor. Grow your own if you can.
As for sub shop tomatoes I always ask
For a Polaroid of a tomato instead because it has more flavor
I’ve often wondered what a tree ripened banana tastes like. If it’s like strawbs and tomatoes I’ll bet it’s fantastic.
@refuse/resist, we have a CSA near us. We get fresh produce from June through October. The taste is pretty good, but corn, tomatoes and strawberries have to be eaten just hours after picked to have the best flavor. Still, it’s better than store-bought.
@Jethro, I’d rather see these on my backyard tomato plants, but I haven’t been able to grow them since my first year in this house. I grew up on backyard gardens, so I planted a few tomato plants here and just as they were getting ripe, the deer decimated them. All of them. Even the plants were eaten to the ground. Venison, anyone!?
@jethro- those bastards had a field day on a few of my plants last year. I peel them off the vine and put them in the middle of my driveway to either be baked to death, run over or eaten by a bird. It is hard to believe how much they can eat and shit in a couple days.
Tree ripened bananas, papayas, avocados, mangoes, are so good store bought isn’t worth the time. I don’t live in that climate any more so I’m stuck with store bought.
@claudia
Plant your tomatoes right against the house. Keep the dog outside a lot.
As for me, I planted ancient varieties of apples and peaches when we moved in 10 years ago and every year we always have a bumper crop, although I’ve never tasted a single one.
Lots of fat squirrels waddling around though.
I’ve been growing my own tomatoes ever since I moved to the burg from the city. My neighbor, a wonderful old Frenchman, gave me his
secret recipe for preparing the ground. The compost consisted of a mixture od cow dung, chicken shit, coffee grounds and fish heads,tails, whatever. And lime to quell the stench from the compost heap behind the wall. I plant six every season, along with lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, and egg plant. A heavenly crop which
I share with my neighbors. Too much at once. Mrs. Moe makes sauce with what we can’t use. Delicious stuff.
O, I usually cap three or four groundhogs a year for trespassing on my garden. I bury them deep. They enrich the soil and that’s all they are good for, like deer. But that’s another story.
As for store bought tomatoes for the rest of the year? Well they come from California, and they suck.
Johnny’s Selected Seed in Maine has been our choice for a few decades
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
Heirloom varieties and varieties that actually grow well in NE Ohio.
Green tomato horn worms, how I hate them. Fortunately the bracinod (SP?) wasps love laying their eggs on these monsters. The eggs hatch and eat the nasty horn worm.
@Claudia
I have the same problem with the “rats with hooves” in my yard. The little bastards will even walk up on my patio in broad daylight to eat my lillies.
Try making a 2 ft diameter cylindrical cage with 4 ft high poultry netting, put it around one of those conical tomato plant frames, and stake it to the ground. The deer eat any part of the plant that pokes out, so you end up with a perfectly cylindrical tomato plant.
We grow heirloom. Want to know something? If you have both heirloom and hybrid (common)tomato plants in your garden and deer break in, guess which plants they go after?
Even with heirloom, and nearly organic growing methods – we still don’t grow the fruits with the full scent and flavors that I remember.
Recipe for the perfect BLT. Bake the bacon at 350 on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. No mess. No splattering no cleanup. After bacon is in the oven step outside to the garden and a select your best tomato. Make a nice 1/2 inch slice and admire its rich redness.
Lettuce. Sure if you must. Sadly garden lettuce bolted and went to seed back in April.
Toast two slices of your favorite bread. Any bread will do. Even raisin, believe it or not.
Slather it with Duke’s mayonnaise.
You’re all set once the bacon is done. It’s a simple build.
If you haven’t done oven cooked bacon you’ll never go back to a frying pan. Once you smell bacon it’s probably time to flip it. Cooks hotter on the bottom than the top. Last 10 minutes require attention.
Hmmm. I just got hungry for a mid summer BLT. Life’s a bitch sometimes.
Do you remember that taste?
I vaguely do.
And that’s a problem.
So it is weird that two people might be sharing the same false flavor memory.
But on Reddit they have THOUSANDS of people who are all convinced they have a taste palate.
If I had to guess I would have said the zest existed.
I can see that fragrance in my mind.
Weird.
May Be The RAM
Oh, and my peach tree will make you weep when you eat the fruit. If you can beat the squirrels and birds. It took me three years to get my timing right to pick enough fruit to make a half dozen small jars of jam. BRIGHT flavored jam. To bite into one of the peaches? It is so good it almost confuses you.
Has anyone tried wild pawpaws?
You can still find wild strawberries in their original form in parts of the NW. The taste is amazing but they are very small and don’t keep very long. They smell great too. I can’t eat a store-bought strawberry since tasting the wild ones.
I won’t touch a tomato.
Well looky here. Trump has already made America Great Again. He’s turned IOTW from an angry political site that usually discusses grave politics matters featuring fear and loathing into a gardening and cooking site. Hahahaha.
It’s kind of nice to see.
We can start ripping heads off again tomorrow
jethro, your caterpillar is impressive, but i wish i knew how to post photos…..i have one of a little green caterpillar that has eaten a circular hole in a habanero by crawling around and around – you can tell that’s how his did it by the trail of bright orange hahanero “pellets” he left behind as he went….
one tough worm, that one……. 🙂
**P Henry **
**”every year we always have a bumper crop, although I’ve never tasted a single one.
Lots of fat squirrels waddling around though” **
Even though you can’t get a steak, squirrel meat is way better than store bought beef for a stew or any shredded application (Hi tongue, I am a squirrel taco) and chicken is a bland no show in comparison. There’s more than one way to enjoy your own harvest, especially if you are already feeding the squirrels to fatten ’em up.
oh, and also…..if these horticulturists do succeed, i want them to name it the MAKING TOMATOS GREAT AGAIN*TM tomato….
why does spellcheck tell me it’s not tomatos?…..of course its tomatos…..
Hey VP Dan, there’s an e in tomatoes but not in potato’s. That’s English for you. And the MSM made a big phocken deal about it. But not about the fifty seven states oblowme visited. These fakers are sucking wind.
They have no flavor because they are picked green then gassed, usually with CO2, to get them to ripen enroute to distribution points. By enroute, I mean from other nations such as Chile, which is why we get to eat fruit and veggies out of season.
Frank and all — pls suggest names of heirloom tomatoes. The Johnny’s seed people also have a different offering of herbs — and cushaws.
Thanks for saving me from the pink hat doldrums. So tired of hearing about that and reading f***, and s***, and whatever coarseness. I am just about ready to put away the web and pick up a book.
Happy and successful gardening to all. Too bad we couldn’t have gathered up all the liberals’ c*. Would have made good fertilizer.
Best thread ever.
Jethro, can you just brush it off? (As in its not poisonous or anything?) I found a slug once on lettuce, and I do confess it grossed me out. But I still eat lettuce.
The strawberries we get in Alaska go really fast, and often they are freakishly huge. These, I have found, are the tasteless ones. The small ones are sweeter and tastier.
I also remember trying a cucumber my auntie had grown in her garden, just experimenting. We both were so delighted when I told her it was the best I’ve ever had–and I meant it. I want that cucumber again. This thread has inspired me, and the timing is perfect because you have to get started a bit earlier for some fruits and veggies.
Try canned crushed tomatoes on your green salads.
Much better.
@oolook
Garden center here offers an heirloom called German Johnson that’s quite good. Mortgage Lifter was pretty good too.
But last year was a terrible year for tomato growing in central Virginia. Too wet early. Too dry and hot later. Hoping for better season this year.
Wild strawberries ARE the best. The grow in small “patches” early in the spring, and rarely grow in the exact same place two years running. They only keep for a day or two once picked, and have a huge flavor. Heirloom tomato varieties. Amish paste is very popular. I am trying to remember the names of the other three I grow. Getting seeds now has become a challenge again – the seed companies realized that people were growing them to save their own seeds to become self reliant, so they don’t offer many tomato seed in heirloom anymore. Cucumbers – now, it is easier to grow those, and have results that are rewarding. Straight Eight is one heirloom that I grow – great flavor, and picked as teenagers make great pickles.
oolook, I like the German Johnson (what a name) from Johnny’s because it’s acidic the way I remember tomatoes. The Nepal is good too. They have an heirloom tomato seed variety pack.
Heirloom pumpkins – New England Pie, we’ve grown those for 20 years.
Heirloom corn, Dent is good.
I planted their okra one year her in Ohio. The plants grew about 8 feet tall with gorgeous blooms and produced 4 pods just as first frost hit. Definitely not an Ohio crop.
Deer and raccoons, We grind up fresh than peppers or use dried powder, mix with water and spray plants. They may bite once but not twice. Just remember to wash your pickings well.
Does any one remember Jerry Baker on the radio? His bug remedy was gross but effective. Using any bug trap like a beetle trap, collect bugs. Dump them in your blender with water and grind away. Spray plants. Guaranteed to keep bugs off your edibles.
PHenry – BACON!!!!! Thanks for the cooking info.
Should be fresh THAI peppers
It doesn’t matter, whatever you eat today is worse than it was yesterday.
@Jethro Has anyone tried wild pawpaws?
I ate them often when I was a boy. Lived at a house for several years that had a small Pawpaw tree in the yard. A small grove of them grows on a mountain ridge east of my house, but I haven’t been there for years when they were ready to be picked.
Have you read Andrew Moore’s book, “Pawpaw – in search of America’s forgotten fruit” ? I was surprised to learn there are 14 towns in the country named Pawpaw.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Pawpaw.html?id=f3BOCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false .
As for tomatoes. Yeah, most store brought tomatoes taste like pink Styrofoam. In the late 70s, early 80s a local band, The Putnam Country Pickers, sang a song written by band member, Ron Sowell, called, I Loves My Home Grown Tomatoes. That is still true today.
Blink, Just up the road.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Paw+Paw,+IL+61353/@41.6828784,-88.9704348,14.25z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88093bcd0b1edc0b:0x455a36353d14d9c7!8m2!3d41.688919!4d-88.9811986
I find a rodent in my garden, be it a mouse or a deer or a democrat, I’ll kill it and bury it. Right there.
No pawpaws here but an overload of ground cherries. I’ve made pie with them but it’s not a favorite.
Jungle ripened anything is just awesome. Bush ripened banana
here in Guam is awesome, the corn also.
As a kid, we didn’t eat tomato with salt, we dusted them with
sugar and ate like apples.
I’m still trying to get the right mango tree to grow here, they
are much harder. The PI isn’t allowed to import Manila mango anymore
because of some SHIT rule. We need Trump to look at that. Those are
the sweetest yellow mangos you will EVER eat.
Home grown tomatoes have always been the best. Ever smell store bought flowers, such as roses? No aroma at all. Same with carnations. WEhe I was a kid the flowers had a wonderful fragrance. Cue Anita Bryant to sing Paper Roses.
@Old_Oaks, I forgot to include this bit from the book. The La. town of Natchitoches translates as – pawpaw eaters, the name taken from the Caddo tribe’s name for pawpaws, nashitosh.
And various places in Ga. called Alcovy takes that name from the Creek place-name, Ulco-fau-hatcee, that means pawpaw thicket river. Alcovy taken from Ulco-fau. There maybe more places named for Pawpaws that are not readily apparent.
Which leaves me wondering if the McIntosh apples has a similar history for the name. Tosh perhaps meaning fruit.
I have grown a LOT of tomatoes, the best, in my opinion, the Cherokee Purple.
Yes, it is purple, sorta, misshapen and wrinkled but Ummm good.
I live in “formerly famous for great tomatoes” Maryland. They now SUCK.
I found a fairly expensive brand of small ones imported from Mexico in a plastic pack under a brand name called “Compari”. If I want a good tasting tomato that’s all I will buy.
Blink, You put me on a reading binge. I now can’t wait for August to arrive so I can locate some pawpaw.
I tried the tomatoes from Dr. Klee’s program last year. The Garden Treasure plants produced very large and tasty fruit. Garden Gem plants didn’t grow as well in my garden but the fruit they produced was very tasty. I’m definitely going to grow them again this year.
How you can get back to full taste Tomatoes in for less time than the chemists.
You simply need to find a senior whose been collecting their own seeds each year, and ask for a few (maybe do a chore for them). The chemist needs them to be gassed and transported , these great seeds won’t transport.
John, I agree. The compari brand are the only tomato off season that have any flavor. I slice mine and sprinkle with kosher salt and let them sit for a few minutes. No way comparable to home grown. I had good luck with Rutgers last year but not terrible like store bought.