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A lot of food is like that. E.G: most people never tasted balsamic vinegar, only a mix of regular vinegar with a bit of grapes dust, plus some caramel and flou

A lot of food is like that. E.G: most people never tasted balsamic vinegar, only a mix of regular vinegar with a bit of grapes dust, plus some caramel and flour added to it. Real balsamic vinegar is hard to find and bloody expensive, because the process of making it reduces an entire barel of wine to a bottle. But we don't need to go that far. I regularly meet children that have never tasted a vegetable or fruit that tasted very good. It's not their fault they prefer the kit kat. The kit kat taste WAY better than the red plastic clown nose people told them are tomatoes. But good fruits and vegetable taste awesome. A proper tomatoes can even be eater as-is, like an apple, with nothing on it. A quality olive oil is a feast in itself with some bread and pepper. A nice pomelo has no need to get added sugar to compensate for excess bitterness. Generally, as more people have access to more food, we also managed to diminush the taste and nutriment it provides. P.S: this slider format is terrible. I didn't get to the end of the article because of it.

jimmy1 8y ago
> A lot of food is like that. I swear people in America have never tasted a real, juicy, succulent tomato. I know why we distribute our tomatoes the way we do, but we should stop, because they are shit. It's always these tasteless, bland red things I don't even bother to call a tomato. Every time I go to Europe, it's weird, but one of the things i absolutely crave is real tomatoes.
- crazygringo 8y ago
  Huh? Anybody in America who grows tomatoes in their garden or who goes to a farmer's market where local tomatoes are in season has. True that supermarkets don't carry them, but if you want one and live somewhere where they're grown, it's not too hard. Also, supermarket cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes tend to be pretty good, at least compared to the larger ones. Sure they're not the same as fresh from the garden, but they're still hugely more flavorful.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    > Also, supermarket cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes tend to be pretty good, at least compared to the larger ones. Sure they're not the same as fresh from the garden, but they're still hugely more flavorful. That's what tells me the parent is right. Those are not _bad_, but they can't be considered as very good products, I swear. Sometime I wish I could just send gift tomatoes by email to random people.
    - jimmy1 8y ago
      Please send them to me. My "farmers markets" here are just selling the same boxes of produce the grocery store gets.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    I wish, your vocabulary tells me that's not it. A tomato should not be "pretty good". It should be able to stand as the main course by taste alone. The thing is, even in farmer's market, 9 times out of 10, the tomatoes suck. People don't believe it. I have this debate everytime, and get the same answers everytime. The only way to end the debate is over diner, preferably in the south of france or in italia, during summer.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Anybody in America who grows tomatoes in their garden or who goes to a farmer's market where local tomatoes are in season has. The commercial varieties are also quite popular for home growing and in farmer's markets. They are still often better quality than supermarket tomatoes, but they address expectations (including of appearance) shaped by them. Really good heirloom tomato varieties are widely available, but plenty of people have never had them anyway.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  Store-bought tomatoes are often flavorless and pithy to my taste, but good tomatoes are easy to get here. All you have to do is grow your own, which a lot of us do. I've grown cherry tomatoes that taste like, well... cherries. Actual little tart sweet berries that I dry out and eat like raisins. I've never had anything like it in a store or restaurant.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    I would not call growing "easy" :)
    - rangibaby 8y ago
      I guess it depends on where you live but in Japan tomatoes are considered a “noob” crop because they are so easy to grow
      - sametmax 8y ago
        And Python is an easy language. That doesn't mean you are going to produce a good script.
    - nate_meurer 8y ago
      I'm in Colorado, and tomatoes grow like weeds here. I've had so many volunteer plants from fallen berries that I almost wouldn't have to replant. In my meager experience, soil is the most important variable. I've grown huge bumper crops one year, and then the next year only spindly pathetic vines with berries that refuse to ripen. I assume it's soil exhaustion, because compost or fertilizer fix it. Edit: I do have to water. If I don't water then the volunteers die, so "like weeds" isn't totally accurate. But not too far off either.
      - sametmax 8y ago
        > In my meager experience, soil is the most important variable It may very well be the reason most vegetables taste like crap today: we keep exhausting all the soils.
- astura 8y ago
  No, pretty much every American (in the Northeast at least) has had "real" tomatoes. Pretty much everyone with more than a couple inches of soil grows them (even people who otherwise don't garden) and the people who don't have a couple inches of soil get them from the people who do. Hell, even my greatgrandma grew them when she was alive (someone must have planted them for her...) They are also readily available from farmers markets and even the grocery store when they are in season. >but we should stop, because they are shit There's obviously a market for them, no matter how much purists might whine. While nothing beats the "real thing" in certain applications where tomato is the star, the gas-ripened ones are just fine (and even preferable) for most applications (like on a burger, where tomato isn't the star of the show).
  - sametmax 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure that no. I mean, in France, we have way better average tomatoes, and a greater culture of the farmer market. Food in general actually. Yet, I still find many people that have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. Because you can only buy that taste great during a small part of the year, and only at some vendors. Still this is plenty, but compared to the avalanche of products that are good enough, and marketted as incredible despite being far from the real thing, it's a small %. Now here is the kicker, a lot of people growing the tomatoes in their garden will not have great ones either. They will have pretty good ones. But they often don't have the soil, the insects, the sun or the seed to get the result. It's not incompetence, mind you, or ignorance, or stupidity. It's just that those things are getting rarer and rarer. > There's obviously a market for them, no matter how much purists might whine. It's not whining, and it's not being a purist. It's a public health issue. Having vegetable that taste better than junk food is an asset to make people eat healthier. Being "good enough" doesn't work.
    - hombre_fatal 8y ago
      > Yet, I still find many people that have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. Honestly, if I was having dinner with someone who waxed on and on about how I haven't had Real Tomatoes and they were super enthusiastic that I try these tomatoes and those tomatoes and "don't you see what you've been missing?!" -- I'd probably say "oh, yes, wow, how crazy" to humor the hill they want to die on.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  I feel the same coming from the UK. Tomatoes in France or Italy are like a whole different fruit/vegetable compared to what we (commonly) get here.
- dpark 8y ago
  Living in Germany for a semester taught me to appreciate American produce because everything in Germany was tasteless. I didn’t even like tomatoes when I went to Germany and came back craving them because I’d been eating flavorless red chunks on salads for months.
- mturmon 8y ago
  Your first sentence, of course, is not true, but I agree with the rest. Backyard gardeners all over the US grow tomatoes. And some areas close where they are farmed have really good market or farmers-market tomatoes. The good ones just don't transport well. Same for other fragile fruits like raspberries and strawberries. Alas, just because it says "strawberry" on the package doesn't mean it has any resemblance to the real thing.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    > The good ones just don't transport well It's a very important thing, yes. People in the city are at a serious disadvantage.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  Adding to this, when I come to power the "red delicious" apple is going to be outlawed and anybody caught selling them will be put on trial for crimes against fruit.
dbuder 8y ago
The best vegetables I've ever eaten were from a street stall in Mumbai, beetroot is actually delicious (I've always disliked it). +1 on your comment about olive oil.
thinkloop 8y ago
> this slider format is terrible. I didn't get to the end of the article because of it. if u shrink your window thinner it goes vertical like a normal article.
endorphone 8y ago
You can find real balsamic vinegar at virtually any grocery store. Made in Italy in Modena or broader Emilia region, using Lambrusco or Trebbiano grapes, aged at least 12 years, etc. Fully, legitimately balsamic vinegar. Because the difficulty and complexity of making balsamic vinegar really isn't that far removed from, say, bourbon. And we all know you can find real, legitimate bourbon at any shady liquor store. It's a profitable venture so a lot of it is made. Often these conversations turn into gate keeping, where we redefine what is "real" or not to disqualify the proles.
- akamaka 8y ago
  Just to clarify, there are three categories of balsamic of varying standards, the highest of which is expensive, aged in multiple barrels, and definitely not widely available in supermarkets. That being said, it’s a stretch to call the less expensive Balsamic of Modena “fake”, even though it is not made to the same strict standards and permits some additives. The third category of balsamic condiments made from syrups would be fair to call “fake”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Balsamic_Vinegar#TBV_compared_to_BVM_and_other_balsamic_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Balsamic_Vinegar#T...
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Steaks from Mc Donalds burgers are not fake. They are pure beef.
    - dpark 8y ago
      What does that even mean?
      - BuildTheRobots 8y ago
        These days, it tends to mean pink goo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat
fatnoah 8y ago
>The kit kat taste WAY better than the red plastic clown nose people told them are tomatoes. I lived in downtown Boston and we had a roofdeck with full sunshine nearly all day. We grew tomatoes and some herbs in a planter and it was awesome. It made you realize why tomato sauce always have sugar added (to compensate for lack of ripeness and sweetness). Tomatoes became a staple and even my finicky 8 year old loved to eat them!
- js2 8y ago
  While I agree in principle, it’s not uncommon to add sugar to homemade tomato sauce to balance the acidity[1,2]. Also, for making sauce, good canned tomatoes (which are canned ripe) are plenty tasty. 1. https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6605-using-baking-soda-to-tone-down-tomato-sauce https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6605-using-baking-s... 2. However this is apparently controversial. https://slice.seriouseats.com/2013/03/poll-sugar-in-tomato-sauce-way-or-no-way.html https://slice.seriouseats.com/2013/03/poll-sugar-in-tomato-s...
  - sametmax 8y ago
    The fact it's not uncommon does not make it a good thing.
    - dpark 8y ago
      You turned up your nose at "common" without even acknowledging or addressing the reason the sugar is added. fatnoah claimed it's added to counter unripe tomatoes. js2 pointed out that it's added even for properly ripened tomatoes. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion of why sugar is added or if it should be. It's just virtue signalling for snobs.
      - sametmax 8y ago
        You can add sugar in anything, to make it taste batter. That's the point of sugar. That doesn't make the product good. Ice cream taste great, but it's not base for a healthy society. We need product that stand on their own if we want that children chose them over industrial junk good. It's not being a snob. I don't think I'm a better person because I happen to live in an area where you still get good tomatoes. It's random luck. But I do think that adding sugar in things is only legitimate when you are limited in the quality of things you get. It makes sense if the food supply is limited for example: you have to do with what you have, so let's make it taste good. But in our western society we have an abundance of food. Our problem now is obesity. And having affordable fresh tomatoes somebody would choose over frozen lasagna would be great to have. I say that because I honestly believed, until I became an adult, that cooked carrots tasted bad. The reason ? I only ate them at school, where it was the most horrible dish you could imagine. Avoiding healthy products because of experience of industrial crap is pretty sad.
astura 8y ago
This is just false, real balsamic is easy to find and I have several bottles in my cabinet. There's even specialty stores that have a huge selection. Sure, its expensive, but so is other aged and concentrated products. I don't think the "holier than thou" attitude is really necessary, there's no point in telling people they are eating/enjoying the "wrong" foods or that your tastes are so much more sophisticated than the peons, which is what this post boils down to. I enjoy "proper" tomatoes and tomato based dishes (especially caprese with good quality ingredients) but I would never eat a tomato like I'd eat an apple. I very much enjoy a really good quality olive oil with bread, but I would never call it a "feast," nor do I consider it a particularly healthy choice. If the nutritional value/fullness were the same, I'd still pick the kitkat over vegetables many days. I think the fake truffle oil is nasty, but I don't go around putting down people who enjoy it, which many do. I also don't drink low quality beer, but I'm not running around putting down people who do.
- sametmax 8y ago
  > I very much enjoy a really good quality olive oil with bread, but I would never call it a "feast, Figure of speech. But yes, it is incredibly good. Unfortunaly, you won't find it at the grocery store, no matter what the bottle says.
  - astura 8y ago
    Yes, I can find it in the grocery store. I also have bought it from specialty shops (which aren't exactly rare). My grocery store also sells fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice they juice every morning and fresh mozzarella they make every day in the store and probably some other fancy stuff I'm not aware of. I know people who buy the low quality oil because they prefer it. My grandmother preferred corn fed beef to grass fed beef. But its pointless, because you'll just tell me I'm wrong and your olive oil is so much better than mine because all your posts here are just "my tastes in food are so much more sophisticated than all the peons."
    - amyjess 8y ago
      > I know people who buy the low quality oil because they prefer it. My grandmother preferred corn fed beef to grass fed beef. I had a roommate in college who couldn't stand the taste of anything that wasn't aggressively processed. He would take a microwaved TV dinner over a home-cooked meal in a heartbeat. He was also the pickiest eater I've ever met. The only thing he really liked was meat seasoned with whatever stuff Stouffer's and Hungry Man put in it (I'm guessing lots of salt). Didn't like Chinese food, or pretty much anything ethnic. Didn't like anything with sauce on it. He wouldn't eat chili dogs because he said the chili sauce was gross. Whenever we'd get him to try something new, he'd take a few bites of it, say "it's dead to me", and then push it away. At one point, we dragged him to a Chinese restaurant, he only got fried rice, and then did exactly that with the fried rice he got... and then to make a point, he stuck his chopsticks in it vertically to make it clear that it was now an offering to the dead. He was a strange person, though I understand he's changed a lot since college.
thatfrenchguy 8y ago
The same way you can never taste the taste of a real Camembert in the US...
psadri 8y ago
I’ve been on a personal quest to taste, at least once, the real version of things. Just so that I could say I had and have a point of reference. Olive oil that was pressed in front of my eyes, honey that was extracted from a hive in front of my eyes, etc... I wish there was a service that I could buy samples of food that were guaranteed to be the real thing.
joecool1029 8y ago
>It's not their fault they prefer the kit kat. Imma stop you right there. The kit kat was what sent me in search of what proper foods should taste like. I grew up in the US and as a kid I travelled to Canada with my Dad around age 10. He bought me a kit kat bar at a gas station at some point and I remember it looking much different than the ones in the US. I tasted it and it was the best kit kat I ever had in my life up until that point. It ruined me. I couldn't eat a US one again and enjoy it. It turns out in the US we are sold a kit kat made of lies and deceit under license by Hershey. (actually it's just they use a ton more sugar and less cacao solids) The original kit kat was made by Rowntree which was later purchased by Nestle, that's who makes them outside the US. I found out duty free sold cases of UK kit kats on the US/CA border so I've been like a kit kat missionary giving them to friends/family over the years and converting them. Shout out to Japan for making crazy flavors too. Anyways the kit kat was my awakening to fake food products in the US and since then the curiosity stuck to just about any other kind of food. Lately I have been spreading the good news about real cinnamon since it really does have a whole depth of complexity in flavor that cassia (what all US stores sell) doesn't have.
- ip26 8y ago
  actually it's just they use a ton more sugar and less cacao solids Pretty much what I would have guessed, based on the food products available for sale it seems clear to me that Americans prefer their foods to contain the highest possible amounts of sugar & salt.
  - joecool1029 8y ago
    I thought that at first too. But the reality is (most) Americans prefer quantity over quality and it’s cheaper to cut down on cacao and fill with sugar. Less about actual flavor profile here. A region with very different preferences on chocolate is Japan. All milk chocolate I’ve had from there is much less sweet than European or American chocolate.
    - auiya 8y ago
      > But the reality is (most) Americans prefer quantity over quality This is incorrect. I used to manufacture hot sauce, and it's really about the cost margins calculus. The big sellers fill their products full of fluff to keep their costs down, and to squeeze out the maximum amount of profit they can while still keeping sales steady. It's what happens when food manufacture becomes a for-profit venture at industrial scales. I would argue this has led to our current health crisis and should be re-evaluated.

jimmy1 8y ago

> A lot of food is like that. I swear people in America have never tasted a real, juicy, succulent tomato. I know why we distribute our tomatoes the way we do, but we should stop, because they are shit. It's always these tasteless, bland red things I don't even bother to call a tomato. Every time I go to Europe, it's weird, but one of the things i absolutely crave is real tomatoes.

crazygringo 8y ago
Huh? Anybody in America who grows tomatoes in their garden or who goes to a farmer's market where local tomatoes are in season has. True that supermarkets don't carry them, but if you want one and live somewhere where they're grown, it's not too hard. Also, supermarket cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes tend to be pretty good, at least compared to the larger ones. Sure they're not the same as fresh from the garden, but they're still hugely more flavorful.
- sametmax 8y ago
  > Also, supermarket cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes tend to be pretty good, at least compared to the larger ones. Sure they're not the same as fresh from the garden, but they're still hugely more flavorful. That's what tells me the parent is right. Those are not _bad_, but they can't be considered as very good products, I swear. Sometime I wish I could just send gift tomatoes by email to random people.
  - jimmy1 8y ago
    Please send them to me. My "farmers markets" here are just selling the same boxes of produce the grocery store gets.
- sametmax 8y ago
  I wish, your vocabulary tells me that's not it. A tomato should not be "pretty good". It should be able to stand as the main course by taste alone. The thing is, even in farmer's market, 9 times out of 10, the tomatoes suck. People don't believe it. I have this debate everytime, and get the same answers everytime. The only way to end the debate is over diner, preferably in the south of france or in italia, during summer.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Anybody in America who grows tomatoes in their garden or who goes to a farmer's market where local tomatoes are in season has. The commercial varieties are also quite popular for home growing and in farmer's markets. They are still often better quality than supermarket tomatoes, but they address expectations (including of appearance) shaped by them. Really good heirloom tomato varieties are widely available, but plenty of people have never had them anyway.
nate_meurer 8y ago
Store-bought tomatoes are often flavorless and pithy to my taste, but good tomatoes are easy to get here. All you have to do is grow your own, which a lot of us do. I've grown cherry tomatoes that taste like, well... cherries. Actual little tart sweet berries that I dry out and eat like raisins. I've never had anything like it in a store or restaurant.
- sametmax 8y ago
  I would not call growing "easy" :)
  - rangibaby 8y ago
    I guess it depends on where you live but in Japan tomatoes are considered a “noob” crop because they are so easy to grow
    - sametmax 8y ago
      And Python is an easy language. That doesn't mean you are going to produce a good script.
  - nate_meurer 8y ago
    I'm in Colorado, and tomatoes grow like weeds here. I've had so many volunteer plants from fallen berries that I almost wouldn't have to replant. In my meager experience, soil is the most important variable. I've grown huge bumper crops one year, and then the next year only spindly pathetic vines with berries that refuse to ripen. I assume it's soil exhaustion, because compost or fertilizer fix it. Edit: I do have to water. If I don't water then the volunteers die, so "like weeds" isn't totally accurate. But not too far off either.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      > In my meager experience, soil is the most important variable It may very well be the reason most vegetables taste like crap today: we keep exhausting all the soils.
astura 8y ago
No, pretty much every American (in the Northeast at least) has had "real" tomatoes. Pretty much everyone with more than a couple inches of soil grows them (even people who otherwise don't garden) and the people who don't have a couple inches of soil get them from the people who do. Hell, even my greatgrandma grew them when she was alive (someone must have planted them for her...) They are also readily available from farmers markets and even the grocery store when they are in season. >but we should stop, because they are shit There's obviously a market for them, no matter how much purists might whine. While nothing beats the "real thing" in certain applications where tomato is the star, the gas-ripened ones are just fine (and even preferable) for most applications (like on a burger, where tomato isn't the star of the show).
- sametmax 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure that no. I mean, in France, we have way better average tomatoes, and a greater culture of the farmer market. Food in general actually. Yet, I still find many people that have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. Because you can only buy that taste great during a small part of the year, and only at some vendors. Still this is plenty, but compared to the avalanche of products that are good enough, and marketted as incredible despite being far from the real thing, it's a small %. Now here is the kicker, a lot of people growing the tomatoes in their garden will not have great ones either. They will have pretty good ones. But they often don't have the soil, the insects, the sun or the seed to get the result. It's not incompetence, mind you, or ignorance, or stupidity. It's just that those things are getting rarer and rarer. > There's obviously a market for them, no matter how much purists might whine. It's not whining, and it's not being a purist. It's a public health issue. Having vegetable that taste better than junk food is an asset to make people eat healthier. Being "good enough" doesn't work.
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    > Yet, I still find many people that have no idea what it's supposed to taste like. Honestly, if I was having dinner with someone who waxed on and on about how I haven't had Real Tomatoes and they were super enthusiastic that I try these tomatoes and those tomatoes and "don't you see what you've been missing?!" -- I'd probably say "oh, yes, wow, how crazy" to humor the hill they want to die on.
nicoburns 8y ago
I feel the same coming from the UK. Tomatoes in France or Italy are like a whole different fruit/vegetable compared to what we (commonly) get here.
dpark 8y ago
Living in Germany for a semester taught me to appreciate American produce because everything in Germany was tasteless. I didn’t even like tomatoes when I went to Germany and came back craving them because I’d been eating flavorless red chunks on salads for months.
mturmon 8y ago
Your first sentence, of course, is not true, but I agree with the rest. Backyard gardeners all over the US grow tomatoes. And some areas close where they are farmed have really good market or farmers-market tomatoes. The good ones just don't transport well. Same for other fragile fruits like raspberries and strawberries. Alas, just because it says "strawberry" on the package doesn't mean it has any resemblance to the real thing.
- sametmax 8y ago
  > The good ones just don't transport well It's a very important thing, yes. People in the city are at a serious disadvantage.
darkpuma 8y ago
Adding to this, when I come to power the "red delicious" apple is going to be outlawed and anybody caught selling them will be put on trial for crimes against fruit.

dbuder 8y ago

The best vegetables I've ever eaten were from a street stall in Mumbai, beetroot is actually delicious (I've always disliked it). +1 on your comment about olive oil.

thinkloop 8y ago

> this slider format is terrible. I didn't get to the end of the article because of it. if u shrink your window thinner it goes vertical like a normal article.

endorphone 8y ago

You can find real balsamic vinegar at virtually any grocery store. Made in Italy in Modena or broader Emilia region, using Lambrusco or Trebbiano grapes, aged at least 12 years, etc. Fully, legitimately balsamic vinegar. Because the difficulty and complexity of making balsamic vinegar really isn't that far removed from, say, bourbon. And we all know you can find real, legitimate bourbon at any shady liquor store. It's a profitable venture so a lot of it is made. Often these conversations turn into gate keeping, where we redefine what is "real" or not to disqualify the proles.

akamaka 8y ago
Just to clarify, there are three categories of balsamic of varying standards, the highest of which is expensive, aged in multiple barrels, and definitely not widely available in supermarkets. That being said, it’s a stretch to call the less expensive Balsamic of Modena “fake”, even though it is not made to the same strict standards and permits some additives. The third category of balsamic condiments made from syrups would be fair to call “fake”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Balsamic_Vinegar#TBV_compared_to_BVM_and_other_balsamic_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Balsamic_Vinegar#T...
- sametmax 8y ago
  Steaks from Mc Donalds burgers are not fake. They are pure beef.
  - dpark 8y ago
    What does that even mean?
    - BuildTheRobots 8y ago
      These days, it tends to mean pink goo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat

fatnoah 8y ago

>The kit kat taste WAY better than the red plastic clown nose people told them are tomatoes. I lived in downtown Boston and we had a roofdeck with full sunshine nearly all day. We grew tomatoes and some herbs in a planter and it was awesome. It made you realize why tomato sauce always have sugar added (to compensate for lack of ripeness and sweetness). Tomatoes became a staple and even my finicky 8 year old loved to eat them!

js2 8y ago
While I agree in principle, it’s not uncommon to add sugar to homemade tomato sauce to balance the acidity[1,2]. Also, for making sauce, good canned tomatoes (which are canned ripe) are plenty tasty. 1. https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6605-using-baking-soda-to-tone-down-tomato-sauce https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6605-using-baking-s... 2. However this is apparently controversial. https://slice.seriouseats.com/2013/03/poll-sugar-in-tomato-sauce-way-or-no-way.html https://slice.seriouseats.com/2013/03/poll-sugar-in-tomato-s...
- sametmax 8y ago
  The fact it's not uncommon does not make it a good thing.
  - dpark 8y ago
    You turned up your nose at "common" without even acknowledging or addressing the reason the sugar is added. fatnoah claimed it's added to counter unripe tomatoes. js2 pointed out that it's added even for properly ripened tomatoes. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion of why sugar is added or if it should be. It's just virtue signalling for snobs.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      You can add sugar in anything, to make it taste batter. That's the point of sugar. That doesn't make the product good. Ice cream taste great, but it's not base for a healthy society. We need product that stand on their own if we want that children chose them over industrial junk good. It's not being a snob. I don't think I'm a better person because I happen to live in an area where you still get good tomatoes. It's random luck. But I do think that adding sugar in things is only legitimate when you are limited in the quality of things you get. It makes sense if the food supply is limited for example: you have to do with what you have, so let's make it taste good. But in our western society we have an abundance of food. Our problem now is obesity. And having affordable fresh tomatoes somebody would choose over frozen lasagna would be great to have. I say that because I honestly believed, until I became an adult, that cooked carrots tasted bad. The reason ? I only ate them at school, where it was the most horrible dish you could imagine. Avoiding healthy products because of experience of industrial crap is pretty sad.

astura 8y ago

This is just false, real balsamic is easy to find and I have several bottles in my cabinet. There's even specialty stores that have a huge selection. Sure, its expensive, but so is other aged and concentrated products. I don't think the "holier than thou" attitude is really necessary, there's no point in telling people they are eating/enjoying the "wrong" foods or that your tastes are so much more sophisticated than the peons, which is what this post boils down to. I enjoy "proper" tomatoes and tomato based dishes (especially caprese with good quality ingredients) but I would never eat a tomato like I'd eat an apple. I very much enjoy a really good quality olive oil with bread, but I would never call it a "feast," nor do I consider it a particularly healthy choice. If the nutritional value/fullness were the same, I'd still pick the kitkat over vegetables many days. I think the fake truffle oil is nasty, but I don't go around putting down people who enjoy it, which many do. I also don't drink low quality beer, but I'm not running around putting down people who do.

sametmax 8y ago
> I very much enjoy a really good quality olive oil with bread, but I would never call it a "feast, Figure of speech. But yes, it is incredibly good. Unfortunaly, you won't find it at the grocery store, no matter what the bottle says.
- astura 8y ago
  Yes, I can find it in the grocery store. I also have bought it from specialty shops (which aren't exactly rare). My grocery store also sells fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice they juice every morning and fresh mozzarella they make every day in the store and probably some other fancy stuff I'm not aware of. I know people who buy the low quality oil because they prefer it. My grandmother preferred corn fed beef to grass fed beef. But its pointless, because you'll just tell me I'm wrong and your olive oil is so much better than mine because all your posts here are just "my tastes in food are so much more sophisticated than all the peons."
  - amyjess 8y ago
    > I know people who buy the low quality oil because they prefer it. My grandmother preferred corn fed beef to grass fed beef. I had a roommate in college who couldn't stand the taste of anything that wasn't aggressively processed. He would take a microwaved TV dinner over a home-cooked meal in a heartbeat. He was also the pickiest eater I've ever met. The only thing he really liked was meat seasoned with whatever stuff Stouffer's and Hungry Man put in it (I'm guessing lots of salt). Didn't like Chinese food, or pretty much anything ethnic. Didn't like anything with sauce on it. He wouldn't eat chili dogs because he said the chili sauce was gross. Whenever we'd get him to try something new, he'd take a few bites of it, say "it's dead to me", and then push it away. At one point, we dragged him to a Chinese restaurant, he only got fried rice, and then did exactly that with the fried rice he got... and then to make a point, he stuck his chopsticks in it vertically to make it clear that it was now an offering to the dead. He was a strange person, though I understand he's changed a lot since college.

thatfrenchguy 8y ago

The same way you can never taste the taste of a real Camembert in the US...

psadri 8y ago

I’ve been on a personal quest to taste, at least once, the real version of things. Just so that I could say I had and have a point of reference. Olive oil that was pressed in front of my eyes, honey that was extracted from a hive in front of my eyes, etc... I wish there was a service that I could buy samples of food that were guaranteed to be the real thing.

joecool1029 8y ago

>It's not their fault they prefer the kit kat. Imma stop you right there. The kit kat was what sent me in search of what proper foods should taste like. I grew up in the US and as a kid I travelled to Canada with my Dad around age 10. He bought me a kit kat bar at a gas station at some point and I remember it looking much different than the ones in the US. I tasted it and it was the best kit kat I ever had in my life up until that point. It ruined me. I couldn't eat a US one again and enjoy it. It turns out in the US we are sold a kit kat made of lies and deceit under license by Hershey. (actually it's just they use a ton more sugar and less cacao solids) The original kit kat was made by Rowntree which was later purchased by Nestle, that's who makes them outside the US. I found out duty free sold cases of UK kit kats on the US/CA border so I've been like a kit kat missionary giving them to friends/family over the years and converting them. Shout out to Japan for making crazy flavors too. Anyways the kit kat was my awakening to fake food products in the US and since then the curiosity stuck to just about any other kind of food. Lately I have been spreading the good news about real cinnamon since it really does have a whole depth of complexity in flavor that cassia (what all US stores sell) doesn't have.

ip26 8y ago
actually it's just they use a ton more sugar and less cacao solids Pretty much what I would have guessed, based on the food products available for sale it seems clear to me that Americans prefer their foods to contain the highest possible amounts of sugar & salt.
- joecool1029 8y ago
  I thought that at first too. But the reality is (most) Americans prefer quantity over quality and it’s cheaper to cut down on cacao and fill with sugar. Less about actual flavor profile here. A region with very different preferences on chocolate is Japan. All milk chocolate I’ve had from there is much less sweet than European or American chocolate.
  - auiya 8y ago
    > But the reality is (most) Americans prefer quantity over quality This is incorrect. I used to manufacture hot sauce, and it's really about the cost margins calculus. The big sellers fill their products full of fluff to keep their costs down, and to squeeze out the maximum amount of profit they can while still keeping sales steady. It's what happens when food manufacture becomes a for-profit venture at industrial scales. I would argue this has led to our current health crisis and should be re-evaluated.