Posted on 04/13/2005 7:34:42 PM PDT by SJackson
So, have you seen the news stories about the “ugly” tomatoes yet? In 1999, national produce handler Procacci Brothers began growing an unusual-looking but better-tasting heirloom tomato they trademarked as the UglyRipe. But this year the Florida Tomato Committee has refused to allow Procacci Brothers to sell the wrinkly UglyRipes because the heirloom variety doesn’t meet the committee’s “round tomato” appearance standards. According to The New York Times, the committee recently defended its action, writing “these requirements serve to ensure customer satisfaction and improve grower returns. Not holding the UglyRipe tomato to these same standards defies orderly marketing and provides it unfair, undue marketing advantage.”
The committee’s action has in no way “ensured customer satisfaction.” Consumers are being denied a chance to rediscover great-tasting tomatoes. And as for “improved grower returns,” Procacci Brothers says it has lost about $3 million so far, and if the USDA won’t overrule the committee, the produce company may be forced to seek congressional action.
Apparently, we need to let the committee members (and the USDA and Congress) know that the tomatoes they send to our supermarkets are so bland and tasteless that many of us are no longer even tempted to buy them. If they want to “improve grower returns,” then they need to start selling better-tasting tomatoes. (The committee’s e-mail address is info@floridatomatoes.org; e-mail Mike Johanns, the Secretary of Agriculture, at mike.johanns@usda.gov.)
Tomatoes are not the only supermarket food that’s been damaged by decades of breeding and regulating only for higher yields, longer shelf life and greater profits. Mealy peaches; hard, flavorless strawberries; wrinkly green beans; flavorless, degermed corn meal — all too often supermarket products offer only faint hints of the rich flavors these foods can and should have.
For those of us who want food with flavor, the answer is to grow a garden or buy from local farmers. In this spring issue, we present seven articles to help you grow great food, including a story about how to maximize the flavor of homegrown tomatoes (Page 89).
Better flavor is not the only reason to grow your own produce. Food production is a central aspect of wise living because:
1. It’s empowering. There are few things more reassuring in today’s stressful world than knowing you have the ability to meet your most basic needs. Empty supermarket shelves during winter storms remind us how dependent many of us are on a food supply that is produced by strangers in fields and factories thousands of miles away. But those of us with canned peaches and tomato sauce in the cellar, and raspberries and asparagus tucked into our freezers, can feel proud and more secure.
2. Homegrown food can be more nutritious. On Page 22 in “Green Gazette,” we report on more evidence that the overall nutritional quality of the industrial food supply is declining. In this case, the research suggests that older heirloom varieties may be more nutritious than newer hybrids developed primarily for high yields and long shelf life.
3. Growing your own food is great fun. There are so many delicious and nutritious little-known crops that are seldom found in supermarkets but are easy and rewarding to grow in your garden. We present three of them in this issue: high-protein amaranth (Page 48), super-nutritious purslane (Page 55) and exotic snake gourds (Page 116).
I've been wondering why so much produce has tasted like cardboard recently. For the pat 10 years I haven't been able to figure out why lettuce and tomatoes that should taste the same as those I used to grow in my garden just don't.
Geez... It is a good thing that seed producers for the big factory farms are working on cross breading with wild types to create better tasting hybrids that inherit all the new benefits of selective breeding and genetics.
For the best tasting tomatoes you have ever had, try goat manure.
Yep.
What wine would you drink with goat manure? Okay, just teasing.
People keep container gardens in Manhattan :-) I live on Long Island with a real backyard, a tradeoff for living in a very boring place.
Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big'un
Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes
You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with eggs, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the side put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle
If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes
Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes
Guy Clark
When I go on vacation to Greece my diet consists mainly of tomatoes, olives, olive oil, and bread!
No wonder I always come home feeling so healthy!
I'd rather eat the tomatoes before the goat turned them into manure.
Livestock, or just produce? My homeowners' association won't allow livestock. We have a family up the street that owns a couple of Chinese restaurants, and the HOA busted them for keeping chickens in the back yard!
What is doing that? Are they safe to eat?
Absolutely. Tomatoes are my favorite. I generally try to grow 3 or 4 varieties, always grow some Romas, and two or three kinds of cherry tomatoes.
The best I have found yet is a tiny orange cherry tomatoe. Super sweet, full flavored, wonderful.
There is a type of nightshade that grows here that has flowers exactly like tomato flowers. It's the black nightshade variety, some nightshades are perfectly edible, actually tomato themselves are of the nightshade family.
I tried a couple of the berries, they were ok and did have a tomato hint to them, but were not very sweet.
As I understand it, store tomatoes are picked green and shipped near to market, where they're exposed to a pure oxygen bath until they turn red. Then they go to market.
But the sugars never develop this way, only the color.
I had chickens in my backyard at one time. The roosters had to be put in the garage to stop them from crowing.
Exactly :-). The property next to our church keeps chickens, and when people are quiet during Mass, you can hear the roosters!
Tried my first UglyRipe this past summer when all the other tomatoes looked nasty. Hubba hubba, whatta tomato!
Tomatoes like that are great for sandwiches...one slice fills up an entire half.
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