The "real" tomatoes are ripening! Ahh. Can't beat this time of year.
A couple weeks ago my mom sent me a fascinating article about how supermarket tomatoes lost their flavor. Turns our the green shoulders contain chlorophyll and work to make the tomato sweet as it ripens. The great supermarket tomato advance was to remove the green shoulders and produce a perfectly red tomato - with NO TASTE. Remarkable!
Work linking tomato sweetness and green shoulders was published June 28, 2012 in the journal Science: How Tomatoes Lost their Taste.
A nice article is at The Salt (NPR food blog): How The Taste Of Tomatoes Went Bad (And Kept On Going).
My first three real tomatoes are a Pink Beauty, a Purple Calabash and a Brandywine.
We are swimming in tomatoes here and have been for the past few weeks, pulling about 5-10 pounds a day! I have been making salsas and freezing sauces like a crazy woman. Can't beat the taste of fresh tomatoes!
ReplyDeletejust discovered this blog and loving it....just sent it to our Master Gardener newsletter for 'site' of the month.....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the education! Next year I plan to try some of the heirloom varieties and can't wait! I had to go downstairs and check out my tomato, and see they sorely are lacking green shoulders, unfortunately.
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