5 ms·

I hated raw tomatoes, and then I had a proper heirloom tomato which made me realize it's actually that most mass-produced tomatoes are terrible

miguelrochefort 10y ago
I'm the opposite. I don't like heirloom tomatoes. I prefer the pink-ish, barely ripe, fast food tomatoes.
anonemouse145 10y ago
It depends why people don't like tomatoes. If your problem is that your supermarket tomatoes seem kind of tasteless and with bad texture.... You're right. They are. Get an heirloom or other flavor first tomato fresh out of the ground so all the aromatics of the earth haven't faded away yet, different experience entirely.
frabbit 10y ago
Exactly the same experience for me. I can remember my surprise when I bit into a ripe, fresh, yellow heirloom at the instigation of friends that wouldn't shut up about how good they were. I love _that_ sort of tomato, but every time I get some weird artificially delayed/ripened thing in the winter, no matter whether it is "on the vine" or not I am nauseated. I would say there is a faint rotting sea-food odor to them, especially to beef tomatoes.
athenot 10y ago
This is why tomatoes are a big reason for my vegetable garden. It's near impossible to get a good-tasting tomato in the store. The ones that taste really good either don't look good (marketing suicide) or can't make the thousand-mile journey through our food supply chain. Of course some people may still have an aversion to fresh tomatoes for other reasons. We're all wired slightly differently when it comes to food. As an aside, the article mentions brussel sprouts. They have a very different taste when they are fresh (usually if they are not sold on the stalk, they likely aren't fresh). I've suprised many people who told me they didn't like brussels sprouts then tasted fresh the ones I cooked. Same for peas. Growing up in France, we'd get peas that were harvested less than 4 hours before eating. Past that threshold, the sugar becomes starch and the taste changes significantly.
- vram22 10y ago
  For green peas, I actually prefer them not sweet (or very little sweet), because we use them as a legume and eat it as a dry or gravy dish with rice or chapatis/rotis. But I prefer the taste of fresh green peas to that of dried yellow ones (even after cooking the latter after soaking in water, they taste somewhat bland and floury).
vram22 10y ago
Yes, organically grown tomatoes taste just fine (though I'm not a big fan of tomatoes in any form, in general. Don't mind small amounts in salads, and also like ketchup - again, the kind without preservatives or added sugar). Used to grow them at home as a kid, in our garden.
smsm42 10y ago
Yeah. When I came to the US, one of the bad food surprises for me was how terrible the tomatoes are everywhere. Those poor creatures were obviously bred for something else than being tasty, and I've by then eaten a lot of proper tomatoes, and they shouldn't be like that. Since then, I've found out US does have proper tomatoes, but you need to look for them. And you will almost never find them in any restaurant or other mass-food establishment. Those are uniformly horrible.
marak830 10y ago
You wouldn't believe the hassle I have to go through getting good tomatoes for a restaurant. Don't get me started on potatoes -.- Note: this is currently due to Japanese tastes, but in Australia I still had a fair bit of work getting good quality tomatoes with a decent flavour.

miguelrochefort 10y ago

I'm the opposite. I don't like heirloom tomatoes. I prefer the pink-ish, barely ripe, fast food tomatoes.

anonemouse145 10y ago

It depends why people don't like tomatoes. If your problem is that your supermarket tomatoes seem kind of tasteless and with bad texture.... You're right. They are. Get an heirloom or other flavor first tomato fresh out of the ground so all the aromatics of the earth haven't faded away yet, different experience entirely.

frabbit 10y ago

Exactly the same experience for me. I can remember my surprise when I bit into a ripe, fresh, yellow heirloom at the instigation of friends that wouldn't shut up about how good they were. I love _that_ sort of tomato, but every time I get some weird artificially delayed/ripened thing in the winter, no matter whether it is "on the vine" or not I am nauseated. I would say there is a faint rotting sea-food odor to them, especially to beef tomatoes.

athenot 10y ago

This is why tomatoes are a big reason for my vegetable garden. It's near impossible to get a good-tasting tomato in the store. The ones that taste really good either don't look good (marketing suicide) or can't make the thousand-mile journey through our food supply chain. Of course some people may still have an aversion to fresh tomatoes for other reasons. We're all wired slightly differently when it comes to food. As an aside, the article mentions brussel sprouts. They have a very different taste when they are fresh (usually if they are not sold on the stalk, they likely aren't fresh). I've suprised many people who told me they didn't like brussels sprouts then tasted fresh the ones I cooked. Same for peas. Growing up in France, we'd get peas that were harvested less than 4 hours before eating. Past that threshold, the sugar becomes starch and the taste changes significantly.

vram22 10y ago
For green peas, I actually prefer them not sweet (or very little sweet), because we use them as a legume and eat it as a dry or gravy dish with rice or chapatis/rotis. But I prefer the taste of fresh green peas to that of dried yellow ones (even after cooking the latter after soaking in water, they taste somewhat bland and floury).

vram22 10y ago

Yes, organically grown tomatoes taste just fine (though I'm not a big fan of tomatoes in any form, in general. Don't mind small amounts in salads, and also like ketchup - again, the kind without preservatives or added sugar). Used to grow them at home as a kid, in our garden.

smsm42 10y ago

Yeah. When I came to the US, one of the bad food surprises for me was how terrible the tomatoes are everywhere. Those poor creatures were obviously bred for something else than being tasty, and I've by then eaten a lot of proper tomatoes, and they shouldn't be like that. Since then, I've found out US does have proper tomatoes, but you need to look for them. And you will almost never find them in any restaurant or other mass-food establishment. Those are uniformly horrible.

marak830 10y ago

You wouldn't believe the hassle I have to go through getting good tomatoes for a restaurant. Don't get me started on potatoes -.- Note: this is currently due to Japanese tastes, but in Australia I still had a fair bit of work getting good quality tomatoes with a decent flavour.