# Are tasty tomatoes extinct? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529 "2015-06-14T20:30:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/21 "2015-06-15T06:28:00Z")
Properly ripe tomatoes are a nightmare to transport. The best is if you grow your own so you can just eat them straight from the garden. If you’re buying them in a store, they have to ship them slightly underripe just so half aren’t bruised by the time they reach the customer. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/22 "2015-06-15T07:13:26Z")
The best-tasting tomatoes I can buy in my area are dry-farmed Early Girls, which a local produce market gets from a couple of small farms. These tomatoes aren’t irrigated once they set fruit, which concentrates their flavor. It’s similar to how wine grapes are grown. I think they use Early Girls because the plants can stand up to this treatment - this cultivar is pretty rugged. These tomatoes have a really intense flavor. Unfortunately, they’re available around here for only a few months a year. The flavor you get from tomatoes depends on a lot of things, including cultivar, soil, weather and harvesting. If you live in a place where the weather is too cool or too hot you’re going to have a hard time raising good tomatoes. If you plant the wrong variety for your conditions, or you don’t prepare the soil well, or you don’t water properly, or you harvest too early, you won’t get good tomatoes. If you get all of this stuff right you will get great tomatoes. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/23 "2015-06-15T07:51:54Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > So what… are you implying that Taco Bell isn’t the most amazing experience of “Mexican” food you could possibly find? 😃 There’s a “Mexican” restaurant here in Jinan. They, um, tend to substitute a LOT of ingredients. (Seoul, by comparison, has some AWESOME Mexican restaurants.) ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/24 "2015-06-15T11:31:30Z")
Tomatoes in Kazakhstan are much better than I’ve had elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/25 "2015-06-15T11:46:51Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > I think cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes from the grocery store generally taste pretty good. Agreed, usually one’s best bet at a still good tasting store bought tomato, I’ve sliced them up for a hamburger topping, not the most convenient to do but so worth it. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/26 "2015-06-15T11:49:20Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > This coupled with the fact that everything seemed awesome as a kid. I remember once as an adult, I got nostalgic for a can of Spaghettios . I took one bite of those horrid things and thought: “I use to like this shit?” Recipes also change over time so it may not be the same either. Usually it’s a race to the cheapest ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/27 "2015-06-15T12:21:40Z")
Sure good taste is a bonus, but in the supermarket business the most important factor for produce is that it sells. To sell consistently and fast, produce must look good. Tomatoes have to be able to be harvested, packed, shipped to a distribution area often a thousand plus miles away, trucked again to a grocer, stocked on the display, purchased and taken home and then still look nice when the time comes a couple of days later to be sliced and eaten. Most varieties of tomatoes cannot meet that standard, so they are not grown commercially. Even if you go to the farmer’s market where the tomatoes have not had to ride across the country for a week, you will choose between several growers— and that choice will probably be based on how the tomato looks. Ugly but tasty is a hard sell even at the local stand. Many good varieties of produce are extinct because of the above. If you sell commercially, you stock what sells. I remember excellent watermelons with seeds when I was a kid…but just try and find a seeded watermelon now. Sigh. The same is true of many fruits and vegetables. So go to the farmer’s market. Talk to growers. Be prepared to not buy the largest or the prettiest. When feasible, grow your own after researching the varieties that grow well in your specific region. Ripen them on the vine and enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/28 "2015-06-15T12:28:43Z")
An excellent book on the subject: [The Dorito Effect](http://www.amazon.com/Dorito-Effect-Surprising-Truth-Flavor/dp/1476724210/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434370543&sr=8-1&keywords=doritos+book) Mark Schatzker talks about tomatoes, among other foods, being bred for visual appeal, longevity and transportability rather than taste - how food tastes is being manufactured as food additives. He also says good tasting tomatoes exist, but adoption by growers has been slow because food industry doesn’t think people will spend more for better tasting food. So those of us who remember various produce tasting better in our child hood, it’s not simply that we’re mis-remembering how good food used to taste. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/29 "2015-06-15T12:59:06Z")
I’ve grown tomatoes most of my life and this year we have some heirlooms in our short growing season plans. However, I find the hothouse/on-the-vine tomatoes from the grocery store to be pretty good. Not anything like one you just picked, one day before it turned overripe and so delicate you have to set it on the counter carefully… but pretty good. Everything else in the grocer cases is red plastic. On a good day. What you find sliced in most restaurant salads and on sandwiches doesn’t make “plastic” level. Styrofoam, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/30 "2015-06-15T13:39:02Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > So those of us who remember various produce tasting better in our child hood, it’s not simply that we’re mis-remembering how good food used to taste. I won’t argue with you if the question is does the average tomato from the grocery store taste as good as the average tomato from the grocery store did 40 years ago. No they probably don’t because they have been changed dramatically over the years for the sake of mass production, shelf stability and transportation But if the question is if it is still possible to get a tomato that tastes as good as the same variety did 40 years ago, and the answer to that is yes it is. Heirlooms are genetically the same as they were even hundreds of years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/31 "2015-06-15T13:51:04Z")
My experience with homegrown tomatoes is just as an eater of them (my husband does all the gardening so if there are specific tricks of soil, water, etc I don’t know what they are). IMO in order to have a fantastic tomato you have to pick it at its absolute peak of ripeness and eat it that day. In that magical window between when a tomato separates from the vine with the merest brush of your hand, but before it falls off on its own. Not sooner, not later. Picking early and ripening on the windowsill will not get you the full luscious tomato flavor. And don’t EVER refrigerate them. Pick and eat in rapid succession. This means visiting your tomato plants every single day and picking the ones that are ready, and eating them that day. You’ll never get that from a grocery store tomato. You might approximate that from farmers market tomatoes but that depends on how long ago the farmer picked them. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/32 "2015-06-15T13:51:12Z")
The sweetness you remember was real. Tomatoes sold in markets are picked before fully ripened-so they are less sweet. also, tomatoes bred for less bruising are harder and contain more fiber. Yes, your backyard tomatoes will always taste better, especially if you water them less. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/33 "2015-06-15T13:57:38Z")
If you’re talking about supermarket tomatoes, you’re right. You really do have to grow your own. It doesn’t have to be an heirloom; home grown hybrids are quite nice and more productive. I generally have about a dozen hybrid plants and four heirlooms. This year is mostly Big Boy, Rutgers, Early Girl, and Brandywine. Seriously, I just don’t buy supermarket tomatoes unless I absolutely have to for presentation or something. I stick with canned (or garden) otherwise for cooking. And when I absolutely need supermarket tomatoes, I go for the on-the-vine stuff which is marginally better than the flavorless pink balls of cellulose they sell as “tomatoes.” But even the on-the-vine ones are quite lacking in flavor and just don’t make for one of my simple food joys: tomato sandwiches. I gotta wait for the garden to truly enjoy those. ---
**Author:** ![PlumBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@PlumBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlumBob)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/34 "2015-06-15T14:21:57Z")
> [@Motorgirl](#): > > My experience with homegrown tomatoes is just as an eater of them (my husband does all the gardening so if there are specific tricks of soil, water, etc I don’t know what they are). > > IMO in order to have a fantastic tomato you have to pick it at its absolute peak of ripeness and eat it that day. In that magical window between when a tomato separates from the vine with the merest brush of your hand, but before it falls off on its own. Not sooner, not later. > Picking early and ripening on the windowsill will not get you the full luscious tomato flavor. And don’t EVER refrigerate them. Pick and eat in rapid succession. This means visiting your tomato plants every single day and picking the ones that are ready, and eating them that day. You’ll never get that from a grocery store tomato. You might approximate that from farmers market tomatoes but that depends on how long ago the farmer picked them. The squirrels in my neighborhood are very familiar with the “magical window”. I have to pick early or they will snatch the ripest, eat half and leave the un-eaten half mockingly perched on a fence post. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/35 "2015-06-15T14:26:02Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > I hate to say it but this may be very true. I’ve heard that this is the reason that kids are more picky eaters than older people. The taste buds get less sensitive over age. > > That being said home grown tomatoes are still amazing (and I’m in my 50’s) Well, I’m right there with you, pal, and I think my taste buds are still operating at peak efficiency! Just to be clear, your OP was rather confusing about your age since you referred to yourself as being both a “kid” and “a young man” 60 years ago. It’s not uncommon for us “older” folks to refer to young men as “kids”, I assumed you were about 80. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/36 "2015-06-15T14:28:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, I’m right there with you, pal, and I think my taste buds are still operating at peak efficiency! Just to be clear, your OP was rather confusing about your age since you referred to yourself as being both a “kid” and “a young man” 60 years ago. It’s not uncommon for us “older” folks to refer to young men as “kids”, I assumed you were about 80. Except I wasn’t the OP. 60 years ago I was just a dream for my dad in the future. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/37 "2015-06-15T14:32:54Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > I won’t argue with you if the question is does the average tomato from the grocery store taste as good as the average tomato from the grocery store did 40 years ago. No they probably don’t because they have been changed dramatically over the years for the sake of mass production, shelf stability and transportation > > But if the question is if it is still possible to get a tomato that tastes as good as the same variety did 40 years ago, and the answer to that is yes it is. Heirlooms are genetically the same as they were even hundreds of years ago. I have not doubt they exists. Particularly if you grow them yourself. We try to buy heirlooms at the grocery store but it’s not always a guarantee that they will taste as good as they should. Some pretty looking organic ones that have been available lately are quite good now that they are in season. Much to my chagrin, I bought some locally grown from a farmers market and paid $12 for three large tomatoes, which did not taste like anything. :mad: So it’s often a crap shoot. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/38 "2015-06-15T15:23:36Z")
Store bought 'maters will always break your heart (and possibly your toe if you drop one on your foot - those things are hard as rocks!). Even poorly grown home grown 'maters are better. Even when I’ve lived in apartments, I’ve at least grown cherry 'maters in containers. My holy grail of summer foods is the BLT made with fresh-from-the-vine 'maters and applewood smoked bacon. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/39 "2015-06-16T05:51:06Z")
Here’s an example of why your store-bought tomatoes are crap: [They’re bred for machine harvesting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3EpFTyN26E) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529/40 "2015-06-16T06:40:17Z")
Tomatoes are the easiest plant to grow on any balcony, patio, or backyard. All you need is plenty of sun and a pot. My family likes the small grape tomatoes. Easier to grow because they don’t weigh down the plant. That means less effort staking it and support it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tasty-tomatoes-extinct/722529.md?page=3)