submitted 3 weeks ago by Moss@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Their colour is so misleading, because red food should be like really tangy and strong. Either sweet like a strawberry or cranberry, or savoury like ketchup. Tomatoes taste like they should be a pale green or yellow, but they're red. It's fucked up.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] dead@hexbear.net 29 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Homegrown tomatoes do taste "really tangy and strong". Grocery store tomatoes were selectively bred to not be green around the stem because customers wrongly interpreted the green ring as unripe. In the process of selective breeding, tomatoes lost their natural flavor.

In the Southern US, there is a traditional Tomato Sandwich ( no bacon, no lettuce, no cheese), only white bread, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and a thick slice of tomato. The flavor of the tomato is very powerful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_sandwich

[-] Feinsteins_Ghost@hexbear.net 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I dont agree with this. Grocery store tomatoes are the way they are due to needing a tough skin to withstand mechanical picking processes, long storage times, exposure to ethylene gas, long transport times, etc. its not really because of a green ring around the stem of a tomato. Tomaotes dont ripen that way. Green shoulders have a well defined cause, like nutrient deficiency or wilt virus.

[-] dead@hexbear.net 7 points 3 weeks ago

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/06/researchers-identify-gene-controls-tomato-ripening

This gene also influences how tomato fruit ripen, the reason commercial tomatoes develop into perfectly red, store-ready fruit.

However, this same trait reduces sugars and nutrients in the fruit.

Naturally, tomatoes unevenly ripen, showing darker green patches when unripe and variable redness when ripe -- traits that still show up in garden-variety and heirloom breeds.

However, in the late 1920s, commercial breeders stumbled across a natural mutation that caused tomatoes to ripen uniformly -- from an even shade of light green to an even shade of red.