Ask anyone that has tried European tomatoes and you will find a very consistent response: They are heaven. Many years ago, I tried to recreate the flavor of Italian vegetables by buying Italian seeds and planting them at my farm near Vancouver. Most of the vegetables tasted superior to local varieties and were a hit at our local farmers market.
I thought it might come down to different soil, water and sun. I was briefly tempted to ship containers of Tuscan soil to Vancouver but was reminded that it would be somewhat illegal. But as I researched further, I learned that perhaps the larger issue simply was preference. Europeans insist on taste first and foremost, whereas North American growers have succumbed to market pressure for bigger, perfectly shaped fruit.
The growers are not paid for flavor — they are paid for yield. He took me shopping at a local farmers market, where I saw the difference.
The tomatoes had erratic shapes and many had small black blemishes—imperfections I easily forgave the moment I tasted them. In North America, we want tomatoes all year, and not just during local growing seasons.
As such, tomatoes are grown far away and shipped before they fully ripen. They lack the sugar and water content of fully ripened tomatoes. Additionally, our consumers have been conditioned to demand aesthetic perfection, perfectly shaped fruit and vegetables, without blemishes, and without considering flavor. I asked Benjamin how he chose tomatoes when shopping. He starts by looking at their shape. He then feels them. They should not be firm, but a bit soft instead. He needs to feel the pulp which indicates water and sugar content.
He then does something I never think to do: He smells the fruit. I remember my father doing the same thing when I was a boy.
I asked Benjamin what he was looking for in the smell and he said he could judge the acidity and sweetness. As Benjamin and I talked, we tasted his selection of tomatoes. Perhaps more meaningful to the non-chemist, here is a list of odour characteristics of some of the important volatile compounds contributing to tomato flavour:.
Clearly, the flavour of any given tomato is very dependent on the right combination of the volatile compounds with the right balance of fruit acids and sugars. So, if a tomato tastes metallic or like dirty socks, remember that tomato flavour depends on a delicate balance of hundreds of components in the fruit.
It's a combination of variety, growing conditions, handling, and storage conditions plus individual taste preferences that determine how that tomato will taste on the day it is eaten.
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Here's a quick and oversimplified guide to understanding tomato flavour: Sugars How they affect flavour: Influence taste, intensity of aroma and overall flavour. Some get ripe in less than 2 months from planting out. Others take 4 months. If you are getting more than just one 4-pack, I recommend that you try a variety I mean, if you don't know the answer to your question, why would you plan to plant more than a couple of plants?
How do I blend a modern kitchen with my traditional taste? The previous owners skimped on crown molding, but we want different curtains - Help! Question about two different countertop colors.
Paint color for small house and different tastes. I think sungolds could do it, but Cherokee purples would just get disgusting. There's no way I could grow a summer without those 2 tomato types. If you're growing from saved seed, the question is what variety you started with. If it was a hybrid, and you have an F2 or F3 generation, then you probably don't even have some of the desirable traits that you might have bought.
Sweet millions are delicious and abundant, but they are also hybrid, so you can't reliably save seed from them and predict what you'll get.
Give the different shapes and colors a try. The first tomato to come ripe that year was a Stupice. I picked it and bit it and I was shocked at how good it tasted Last year I grew Hillbilly West Virginia and couldn't believe how sweet it was.
So, yes, there are many different tastes. Do you understand how foods are grown commercially for market sale? And how that commercial food production, harvesting, shipping, etc.
If not, I suggest some basic research on commercial food production as there really is no comparison. You might also want to do some reading on why saving and using seeds from the hybrid varieties sold in markets is generally a waste of time as those seeds don't breed true. Your personal page says you don't have a garden but would like to someday. So are all of these questions you have posted just hypothetical?
Store tomatoes all taste the same because the commercial varieties are all bred for toughness to hold up to shipping rather than to have a delicious flavor. The beefsteak varieties I love most can't be shipped at all. You can't even stack them in a bucket when picking because their own, juicy weight will bruise and damage them. Additionally, commercial tomatoes are all picked green, before what flavor they have truly manifests. There is one variety I grow every year.
Matts wild cherry Small tiny currant sized sweet slightly salty heaven!!!! I grew it in whiskey barrels and they literally grew over my front door and down the other side. Easily over feet tall!!! I grow a Small yellow one called Egg Yolk and it looks like yolk! Green Zebra, Black Pear, and about 5 different ones I cant think of. They are all amazing in their own ways, and very interesting to look at and eat Nothing better than giving someone a yellow or green tomato and them going, "What the heck?
Ive never seen anything like this! I finally coaxed her into eating a black brandywine and she LOVES to try different tomatos now because they all taste different and all have different qualities that make them special Dont get me wrong, some arent that great, but even those you can use in a multi colored salsa, or find something to do with them.
And if you cant stand them, theres usually someone willing to take them off your hands!!! Here's a nickel tour: Commercial growers want tomatoes that produce a large quantity of uniform tomatoes, all at the same time, that are highly resistant to disease, pests, etc. They also want tomatoes that SHIP well.
The ripening process is the part that allows the tomato to really develop its characteristic flavor, texture, etc. BUT, since commercial growers only want their fruit to LOOK good, rather than truly TASTE good, they simulate the ripening process using by placing the tomatoes in an environment rich in ethylene gas as given off greatly by bananas and apples.
Therefore, the tomatoes you grow in the store are basically unripe tomatoes that just LOOK ripe. They have a "woody" quality to them and are not full of the array of flavors that tomatoes are truly capable of!
That means that looks are not as important some heirlooms are extremely "funky" looking! They are usually left on the tomato vine until fully ripe, which allows the tomatoes to fully reach their peak of flavor, texture, etc. Different varieties allowed to FULLY develop will actually change their flavor from competing varieties, hence the array of flavors available.
In my opinion there are two kind of people in the world: tomato lovers who then start to grow their own, because they understand the true nature and diversity of tomatoes and the uninitiated! My wife didn't LIKE tomatoes before we were married and had bought a house where I could grow tomatoes. She still picks the tomatoes off her sandwiches when we are out, because that's the "tomato" that she truly doesn't like.
A good, home-grown tomato has shown her that all tomatoes are not equal! There is a huge difference, and once you experience a true tomato, you will understand that!
Stick with heirloom varieties, if you want to richest diversity of flavors, textures, etc. Not only that, but heirlooms are the ONLY tomatoes that you can trust to produce seeds which will produce the same tomatoes the next year! The reason I started growing heirlooms was taste. I love to cook, but I am very picky about my ingredients. One day, I was going to make pico de gaio. I went to Lowes foods to get the items I needed. I saw a table of mixed heirlooms. So I bought one of each color.
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