# What does "Wild" mean?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 31, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892 "2011-07-31T04:02:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/1 "2011-07-31T04:02:55Z")
I’ve seen wild cherry flavor a lot. Recently, I saw wild strawberry flavor. What does “wild” mean in this context?
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/2 "2011-07-31T04:06:15Z")
It means they add a bit of artificial tart-ness to the artificial flavoring.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/3 "2011-07-31T04:12:18Z")
It’s a marketing word that doesn’t mean anything. Like ‘natural’ or ‘improved’ or ‘fortified’.
Or perhaps the strawberries were difficult to control prior to getting mushed up. Could be that they were elusive and hard to catch.
Now there _are_ wild cherries and wild strawberries, but the products that carry these labels aren’t being made from them.
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### Author:  [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/4 "2011-07-31T04:13:24Z")
I suspect it means “Our marketing department had four characters and a space worth of empty area to fill,” but both strawberries and cherries have wild (i.e. not human grown) versions that are physically smaller, and may have a different taste. They may also mean it in the “extravagant party” sense of the word, but I suspect they at least mean to imply the flavor of “natural” fruit as opposed to farmed ones.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/5 "2011-07-31T04:27:36Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> It means they add a bit of artificial tart-ness to the artificial flavoring.
I think it’s this.
Red is my favorite flavor, and Wild Cherry and Cherry do taste slightly different. Wild Cherry is the tiniest bit tart and “darker” in flavor than Cherry. (It’s always perplexed me that candy manufacturers all make the same flavor for “Cherry”, distinct from the flavors for “Watermelon,” which are also identical from brand to brand, and “Strawberry,” ditto - and that all these flavors bear only a passing resemblance to their botanical namesakes.)
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Wild Strawberry as an artificial flavor, though. I have had a few (three, to be precise, and I remember every one of them!) actual wild strawberries, and they’re simply amazing. It’s like someone took a strawberry and concentrated the flavor 10 times, and then shrunk it into this teeny tiny, super intense flavor bomb.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/6 "2011-07-31T04:37:37Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#):
>
> …both strawberries and cherries have wild (i.e. not human grown) versions that are physically smaller, and may have a different taste.
Wild strawberries also grow with the seeds under the skin, unlike the domesticated type.
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Wild Strawberry as an artificial flavor, though.
[Ask, and ye shall receive.](http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Light-Energy-Strawberry-10-Count/dp/B001E52VJS)
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/7 "2011-07-31T04:41:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> [Ask, and ye shall receive.](http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Light-Energy-Strawberry-10-Count/dp/B001E52VJS)
Ooh…I gotta try that! 😃
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/8 "2011-07-31T11:25:50Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> Ooh…I gotta try that! 😃
They show the ‘domesticated’ store bought strawberry on the box, not a picture of a wild strawberry 😕
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### Author:  [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/9 "2011-07-31T12:36:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Wild Strawberry as an artificial flavor, though. I have had a few (three, to be precise, and I remember every one of them!) actual wild strawberries, and they’re simply amazing. It’s like someone took a strawberry and concentrated the flavor 10 times, and then shrunk it into this teeny tiny, super intense flavor bomb.
Cultivated plants are chosen for ease of growing and shipping, not for flavor, generally. This is why grocery store tomatoes don’t taste nearly as amazing as homegrown tomatoes. I used to think that I didn’t like tomatoes. It turns out that I just don’t like grocery store tomatoes. Gimme a homegrown tomato and I’m a very happy woman. But the varieties of tomatoes that home gardeners pick are generally chosen for flavor, and are too fragile to stand up to the storage and shipping that grocery stores will subject them to.
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### Author:  [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/10 "2011-07-31T12:45:51Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#):
>
> Cultivated plants are chosen for ease of growing and shipping, not for flavor, generally. This is why grocery store tomatoes don’t taste nearly as amazing as homegrown tomatoes.
Note, though, that both are domesticated plants, the results of much artificial selection. Neither is “wild”. You might like “wild” tomatoes (are these still around?) even less.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/11 "2011-07-31T14:38:51Z")
> [@Uncertain](#):
>
> Note, though, that both are domesticated plants, the results of much artificial selection. Neither is “wild”. You might like “wild” tomatoes (are these still around?) even less.
The concept of “wild” tomato will be heavily obscured by the fact that there are a lot of “feral” tomatoes growing in many parts of the world. The plant grows quite readily from the seeds of the cultivated varieties, in all sorts of unlikely places.
Tomatoes originated in South America, and still grow there.
[http://www.eu-sol.net/public/plant-histories/tomato-history/wild-tomatoes](http://www.eu-sol.net/public/plant-histories/tomato-history/wild-tomatoes)
> [@](#):
>
> Very varied in size, colour and appearance, most wild tomatoes don’t look anything like those you would buy in a shop. They are usually about a centimetre across, green in colour and covered with fur. What’s more their taste can be distinctly bitter and unpleasant. Which of these wild tomatoes (if any) gave rise to the modern tomato is not certain but it probably developed from the species Solanum pimpinellifolium, which looks and tastes more like the tomatoes we are used to.
Many sources seem to give the genus name of tomatoes as Lycopersicon. Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium grows little dinky “currant tomatoes”:
> **[PlantFiles Pictures: Solanum Species, Currant Tomato, Wild Tomato (Solanum...](https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/200972)**
>
> Check out the largest plant identification database in the world. Read plant and insect reference guides at Daves Garden.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/12 "2011-07-31T16:52:38Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> They show the ‘domesticated’ store bought strawberry on the box, not a picture of a wild strawberry 😕
Wild strawberries look a bit like raspberries from a distance (the under-skin seeds look like the little “miniberries” which make up raspberries and blackberries), which would probably confuse customers browsing store shelves.
They’d do better with a strawberry carrying a wooden club and wearing a bearskin. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-wild-mean/590892/13 "2011-07-31T17:50:22Z")
Gerald the gorilla was wild when I caught him.
Wild ! Wild !
I was bloody livid !