I went for a walk in a park recently with my mom and her friend. We walked up a trail to an area in the park with farm animals and plants that are tended to by park employees. We saw a plant with some kind of fruit growing on it. My mom’s friend, who knows a lot about plants, said the leaves looked like a tomato plant’s leaves, but the fruit growing on it is more oblong shaped than you would expect from tomatoes. I uploaded a picture here:
Are these some kind of tomatoes? Will they get rounder as they ripen? Or are they some other kind of fruit entirely?
There’s something in that. As people were unlikely to be breeding for ugliness (or for tendency to crack easily, or for being so soft that ordinary handling can cause bruises), if a tomato variety kept being grown long enough to get a name despite those characteristics then it was probably kept because of its flavor. (Though some may have been kept because of having unusual shapes or colors – not everyone agrees on what’s ugly.)
However, flavor within the same variety can be drastically affected by growing conditions: amount of sun and/or rain, exact nutrients available in the particular soil, type and quantity of fertilizer if used, etc. – and also by time of harvest, and by post-harvest handling. And some pretty varieties can taste good if other criteria are right. So you’re right, it’s a general guide; but not a guarantee.
