Why does anyone like eating tomatoes? I think they have no flavor at all.
Children's Day always makes people think back to childhood, and the young woman from the neighboring Foodie Research Institute thought back to the tomatoes of her childhood. Are today's tomatoes not as delicious as the ones from childhood? Let's hear what she has to say.
When I was little, my mom was especially fond of tomatoes. To me this was baffling. Weren't watermelon, oranges, grapes and lychee all delicious? Apart from the juice that splatters on your clothes and can never be washed out, tomatoes seemed to have nothing memorable about them, just like the majority of students in a class who are medium in height, mediocre in grades and plain in looks. What memorable trait could possibly be worth loving them that much? But my mom said her love of tomatoes was purely a habit formed in childhood. Although today's tomatoes have no flavor at all, the ones she ate as a child were really delicious, full of flavor. Even though she said so, since I had never eaten a "flavorful" tomato, I still couldn't understand.
The tomato-eating scene in the movie "Youth"
So one day, when the director secretly hid a small box of greenish, ugly-looking tomatoes that he claimed were incredibly delicious but wouldn't let me eat, I made no effort to hide my disdain. I don't even eat red tomatoes, so how could these unripe little green ones possibly catch my eye? But I'm still a rebellious girl, and the more you won't let me eat them, the more I insist on eating them! Even though I was convinced they wouldn't taste good...
Seeing tomatoes that look like this, I'm utterly disgusted
So, while the director was out, I picked the smallest one, roughly half red and half green, hard to the touch, clearly raw, and took a bite without any expectations, butsuddenly felt like the whole world had exploded into fireworks!There was no sourness or astringency like I had imagined; insteada rich aroma shot straight to the top of my head. It was a familiar taste I had never encountered, yet it seemed as if it had been entwined around me thousands of times. I knew that was the flavor a tomato should have, the "flavor" my mom had always talked about. I finished one in three or four bites and couldn't wait to place an order, to order a box for my mom so she could tastethe long-lost flavorful tomato。
Let the elders recall the taste of childhood
The taste that makes the young woman unable to eat ordinary tomatoes ever again
The tomato that will blow your taste buds away
01
W h y
/ Are today's tomatoes not delicious? /
That tomatoes don't taste as good as they used to is an inevitable result of the industrialization of agricultural production. From the moment tomatoes came to the dinner table, the market has favored varieties with high appearance and storability, and these traits, sadly, run counter to taste and flavor.
There are so many varieties of tomatoes | Alimentum
Originally, tomatoes were patchy with green and red, like someone beaten black and blue, completely unappetizing, and the green color in everyone's stereotype represented raw and unripe. By contrast, bright red, round and plump tomatoes were more popular: "It looks so good, it must be delicious!" In fact, theseThe high appearance of all-red tomatoes comes at the cost of "betraying" the gene for synthesizing chlorophyll。Butthe green-shouldered tomato has a strong ability to synthesize chlorophyll, and after ripening, the shoulder area around the stem is still green, and there are green veins inside the fruit too, soit produces more sugar and flavor compounds, and thus tastes better。
The tomatoes we usually eat have a sugar content of only around 4-6, but green-shouldered tomatoes can reach 9-11, even surpassing many fruits commonly found on the market. And this is only a comparison on the single dimension of sugar content; in terms of the balance of sweet and sour and the tomato's own flavor, green-shouldered tomatoes also leave the common market tomatoes far behind.
There should be a photo of the sugar content measurement here, but the young woman was too busy eating and forgot to take it...
Now it seems that green-shouldered tomatoes are ugly, lack good looks, have very low fruit yield, and tend to be rather small, so by no means do they meet the requirements of agricultural industrialization. But precisely because of this, they have the individuality that uniform tomatoes lack:the tomato's own flavor. Even if its green-and-red ugly appearance makes it look unappetizing, as the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Under the bombardment of the green-shouldered tomato's rich flavor, intense taste, and perfectly balanced sweet-and-sourness, I think it is my beauty, the best-looking tomato, and I won't accept any rebuttal!
02
I n d i v i d u a l P o t C u l t i v a t i o n
/ Every tomato plant lives in a standalone villa /
The green-shouldered tomato was originally a Japanese variety, and after later improvement and breeding, it gradually became a new variety with stable traits,a delicate, rich, crisp, sweet-and-sour flavor. To let every tomato plant grow strong, the fruit farmers let them live in standalone villas: each plant is grown in its own pot, precisely fertilized, with no nutrient competition, and it's easy to control quality. But even with careful care, this tomato itself belongs to avery low-yieldvariety, and every one you eat is a limited edition.
03
D e l i c i o u s o r N o t
/ The harvest time matters /
For a tomato to be delicious, the harvest timing is also key. Some tomatoes, even if they are delicious themselves, will still taste slightly off if not harvested at the right time.
Tomato ripening is divided into five stages: mature green, breaker, turning, pink, and red ripe. Some tomatoes are harvested at the mature green stage for long-term storage, but in fact,tomatoes harvested at the firm ripe stage are the most delicious. The firm ripe stage of the green-shouldered tomato, that is, when it is 70% ripe, is when the tip and middle gradually turn yellow and red, while the shoulder is still green.
Green-shouldered tomatoes at the firm ripe stage, ready to be harvested
Tomatoes at the firm ripe stageLess organic acid and vitamin C are formed,after 3-5 days of storage, organic acid and vitamin C will still decline, while soluble solids and soluble sugars will increase during storage,and the flavor and sweetness will reach their best。
But ifharvested too late, during storage the soluble solids and soluble sugars will instead decline,and both flavor and sweetness will worsen, and it won't keep well;if harvested too early,soluble solids won't accumulate enough, which in plain language meansnot delicious enough。
Tomatoes harvested at the firm ripe stage, which can only be shipped after 3-5 days of storage
Some people may wonder: aren't green tomatoes toxic and inedible? Can this green-shouldered tomato be eaten directly? Actually, there's no need to worry. Only unripe tomatoes contain large amounts of toxic alkaloids; the green-shouldered tomatoes you receive are all ripe. Moreover, using fruit color to judge whether a tomato is ripe is a bit one-sided. The biological world is so colorful,some tomato varieties still have a bit of green even when ripe ┓( ′?` )┏
Friendly reminders
1. Tomatoes that haven't fully turned red can be stored at room temperature to turn red quickly; those that have fully turned red can be kept refrigerated.
2. There is a certain risk in the transport of fresh products. If you have any issues, please take photos within 24 hours of receipt and contact customer service to resolve them.
3. Shipping begins gradually on June 2, and regular orders are shipped within 1-3 days.
Once you get this tomato, you can eat it slowly. But the director's experience is that you simply won't be able to wait to eat it slowly. Open the box, come on, let me try one first, wow! Delicious! Another one... and then you snap out of it and find half the box is already in your stomach.
Satisfies all your fantasies about tomato flavor
The tomato that tastes like childhood
So delicious you can't stop eating