201–210 of 257 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to tell you tomatoes are flavourless in Europe as well.
Yep. You have to grow own tomatoes to have good ones. Which is something only few people are willing and have option to do.
> “It turns out that a lot of the genes that coded for the flavor-producing compounds were on the same chromosomes as the genes for the yellow striped skin,” Traverso explains, “so as you favored the more consistently colored apples, you were essentially disfavoring the same genes that coded for great flavor. This is also why so many cultivars of tomato and cucumber taste like moist cardboard. Once you taste what the…
Nearly nobody under the age of 35 is aware that popcorn used to taste like corn. Not like modern ears of corn, which are bred mostly for sweetness; more like tortilla chips, whose corn is still (somehow) cultivated for corn flavor. Corny. [edit] … also I’m baffled by how, every time I “hold the tomatoes” on my burger or salad, someone will invariably say “don’t you like tomatoes?” and I have to go on this dumb rant a…
Since apples are propagated by grafting (cloning), has anyone kept original ("heirloom"?) Red Delicious stock from before it was optimized for looks? I'd be very curious to try one!
I recently watched a youtube video about why avocados cannot be grown by seed and learned about grafting. Interesting stuff. Didn't know apples also were grown through grafting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anyone can grow a pot of heirloom tomatoes outside in the summertime and end up with tomatoes that blow everything at the supermarket out of the water, if you can manage the pests. You can get pretty great produce at certain farmers markets, too.
After shelling out ~$50-$100 for intitial setup, you too can harvest $5 worth of tomatoes! And as you say, if you can keep the pests free, but that also requires for money to add to that inital purchase. The insect/worms/catepillars in my area are more vicious than rodent invasions. If you get catepillars, they can wipe out an entire plant in a day.
Perhaps a regional thing.
I think it's quite interesting that it's taken so long for a lackluster tasting food to decline in popularity. When I moved to the US from Western Europe, the relative difference in food quality was quite apparent and I distinctly remember noticing this first with the apples: At first I thought I might have chosen a bad batch, but after a couple of more buys I realised that these apples looked 'perfect' but always ta…
Its not just the perfect look that Red Delicious was bred for but shelf life. Those things take forever to rot compared to other apples and hide bruising, but they end up with dry mealy texture and very thick waxy skin. They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters.
> “It turns out that a lot of the genes that coded for the flavor-producing compounds were on the same chromosomes as the genes for the yellow striped skin,” Traverso explains, “so as you favored the more consistently colored apples, you were essentially disfavoring the same genes that coded for great flavor. This is also why so many cultivars of tomato and cucumber taste like moist cardboard. Once you taste what the…
It’s not just flavor that has been bred out. Also nutrition, and not just from tomatoes. Consumers can not visually see flavor or nutrition. They can see color, size, and uniformity of surface texture and shape. So the vegetables are bred for what can be seen and immediately considered in a buying decision.
Though there are also a whole lot of edible plants out there that don’t hold up at all to distribution, if you aren’t picking it by hand and eating it the same day it will be ruined.
> “It turns out that a lot of the genes that coded for the flavor-producing compounds were on the same chromosomes as the genes for the yellow striped skin,” Traverso explains, “so as you favored the more consistently colored apples, you were essentially disfavoring the same genes that coded for great flavor. This is also why so many cultivars of tomato and cucumber taste like moist cardboard. Once you taste what the…
Somehow I don't seem to have the same experience as most people in this thread. Sure, homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers taste quite a bit better than what I usually buy at the supermarket, but it certainly isn't perfect vs. inedible. Possible explanations I can think of: 1. My taste perception is just broken because I am relatively young and have been raised on low-quality produce. 2. My local supermarkets just happen…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nearly nobody under the age of 35 is aware that popcorn used to taste like corn. Not like modern ears of corn, which are bred mostly for sweetness; more like tortilla chips, whose corn is still (somehow) cultivated for corn flavor. Corny. [edit] … also I’m baffled by how, every time I “hold the tomatoes” on my burger or salad, someone will invariably say “don’t you like tomatoes?” and I have to go on this dumb rant a…
you would probably love the dorito effect https://www.amazon.com/Dorito-Effect-Surprising-Truth-Flavor... Its a book about the incentives and technologies that came together to result in the deflavorization of food and the rise of the "flavoring" industry as a whole. Of the interesting things in there is one guy using a mass spectrometer to identify flavor compounds at scale to engineer a tomato that is hardy and shi…
That explains why red apples taste horrible but what happened to grapes? I remember when grapes were the dark bluish/blackish concord types and now, the supermarkets mostly carry green and purple grapes which taste awful in comparison.
Massive. Flavorful. Crisp.
Looks like it was made in a GMO factory. Tastes like heaven. Envy über Apples.