5 ms·

Tomatoes taste like shit in America, hands down.

by titzer 6y ago

deathgripsfan 6y ago
Absolutely. Garden tomatoes taste amazing and can be eaten on their own with just a bit of salt.
- bdefore 6y ago
  Right? They're night and day different in France. What exactly causes this? General store American ones often may as well be thin red latex bags of water.
  - redisman 6y ago
    Your generic supermarket tomato these days is optimized for long shelf life and not flavor or nutrition.
  - titzer 6y ago
    They are picked before they are ripe and they are artificially ripened, like bananas. They are cultivated for fast growth and maximum size, and not given time to mature. If you grow your own tomatoes, the results can be amazing. 30 years ago, my grandmother grew the most amazing tomatoes in her vegetable garden on the farm. When she died my uncles sold off the farm and a developer split it into 5 or 6 plots that are now mostly horse pastures with huge McMansions on them. So it goes.
  - MarkLowenstein 6y ago
    A lot of us don't like the taste of raw tomatoes. As far as I'm concerned, the closer they are to latex bags of water, the better. I only use them (generally sliced on sandwiches) to bolster my "eating vegetables" status to satisfy social pressures. I'm satisfied, whether I'm getting actual vitamins or not. I'm American. Possibly there are a lot of people like me here, so the stores are actually providing what the people want.
todd8 6y ago
Modern store bought tomatoes have been bred for size and firmness. Firmness in particular reduces losses during mechanical harvesting and shipping. Since 1968, the date of wide-spread use of mechanical harvesters, this has resulted in varieties that are not as flavorful. It is probably this mechanization of tomato farming and not global warming that has made flavorful tomatoes harder to obtain. From [1]: > Within five years [from 1963], 99.9 percent of the industry was using the mechanical harvesters, and most farmers were planting the comparatively tasteless hybrid tomatoes built to withstand them. [1] https://civileats.com/2015/07/15/from-ketchup-to-california-cuisine-how-the-mechanical-tomato-harvester-prompted-todays-food-movement/ https://civileats.com/2015/07/15/from-ketchup-to-california-...
GloriousKoji 6y ago
Most food in America is designed for transport durability and yield. So if you go for the nicer canned tomatoes which doesn't rely on the tomato itself for durability, they're quite good. On the same level as the imported DOP stuff. Of course you're probably referring to fresh tomatoes. And by in large I agree but I would like to point out that California has some pretty darn tasty tomatoes. Sure you might have to go out of your way or pay a little extra to get them but they exist.

Tomatoes taste like shit in America, hands down.

by titzer 6y ago

Tomatoes taste like shit in America, hands down.

deathgripsfan 6y ago

Absolutely. Garden tomatoes taste amazing and can be eaten on their own with just a bit of salt.

bdefore 6y ago
Right? They're night and day different in France. What exactly causes this? General store American ones often may as well be thin red latex bags of water.
- redisman 6y ago
  Your generic supermarket tomato these days is optimized for long shelf life and not flavor or nutrition.
- titzer 6y ago
  They are picked before they are ripe and they are artificially ripened, like bananas. They are cultivated for fast growth and maximum size, and not given time to mature. If you grow your own tomatoes, the results can be amazing. 30 years ago, my grandmother grew the most amazing tomatoes in her vegetable garden on the farm. When she died my uncles sold off the farm and a developer split it into 5 or 6 plots that are now mostly horse pastures with huge McMansions on them. So it goes.
- MarkLowenstein 6y ago
  A lot of us don't like the taste of raw tomatoes. As far as I'm concerned, the closer they are to latex bags of water, the better. I only use them (generally sliced on sandwiches) to bolster my "eating vegetables" status to satisfy social pressures. I'm satisfied, whether I'm getting actual vitamins or not. I'm American. Possibly there are a lot of people like me here, so the stores are actually providing what the people want.

todd8 6y ago

Modern store bought tomatoes have been bred for size and firmness. Firmness in particular reduces losses during mechanical harvesting and shipping. Since 1968, the date of wide-spread use of mechanical harvesters, this has resulted in varieties that are not as flavorful. It is probably this mechanization of tomato farming and not global warming that has made flavorful tomatoes harder to obtain. From [1]: > Within five years [from 1963], 99.9 percent of the industry was using the mechanical harvesters, and most farmers were planting the comparatively tasteless hybrid tomatoes built to withstand them. [1] https://civileats.com/2015/07/15/from-ketchup-to-california-cuisine-how-the-mechanical-tomato-harvester-prompted-todays-food-movement/ https://civileats.com/2015/07/15/from-ketchup-to-california-...

GloriousKoji 6y ago

Most food in America is designed for transport durability and yield. So if you go for the nicer canned tomatoes which doesn't rely on the tomato itself for durability, they're quite good. On the same level as the imported DOP stuff. Of course you're probably referring to fresh tomatoes. And by in large I agree but I would like to point out that California has some pretty darn tasty tomatoes. Sure you might have to go out of your way or pay a little extra to get them but they exist.