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I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

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Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#101

Post by lmm »

mikesabbagh wrote: post #66
opinion-is-bad wrote: post #28

Interesting, but not that dissimilar to the United States. I grow a couple thousand acres of tomatoes in California, all of which are for processing into juices and pastes. These tomatoes are all transported in open-topped trailers by semi, and the losses have always bothered me. There is a tight turn just after leaving our property and the pile of tomatoes there grows steadily with the season as they roll off the to…

another interesting fact: if you see a plant growing on human sewage solids, it must be a tomato plant!! https://i.imgur.com/qByHRvo.jpg

I don't think it "must" be? Tomatoes are very common in that situation because their seeds can survive passage through the human digestive system, but if a different plant's seed happened to coincidentally land there there's no reason it couldn't grow too?

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#102

Post by el_benhameen »

Wistar wrote: post #31
opinion-is-bad wrote: post #28

Interesting, but not that dissimilar to the United States. I grow a couple thousand acres of tomatoes in California, all of which are for processing into juices and pastes. These tomatoes are all transported in open-topped trailers by semi, and the losses have always bothered me. There is a tight turn just after leaving our property and the pile of tomatoes there grows steadily with the season as they roll off the to…

The fusarium fungus fact is truly useful info. Thank you.

Indeed. I had great success with a tomato garden for two years, and then absolutely failed at it this year. I think I've finally found the cause.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#103

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

amirhirsch wrote: post #32
davidhunter wrote: post #9

We (Optimal Agriculture) have built an autonomous growing system for high-tech greenhouses and have achieved 'superhuman' performance in a recent tomato trial. We collect a bunch of sensory data about the crop and growing environment, run cloud-based optimisation, and then control the actuators of the greenhouse autonomously (lighting, screening, heating, cooling, irrigation, etc). We are turning $100M greenhouse fac…

I have been somewhat obsessed with the idea of floating greenhouses. The economics are different than operating a farm on land but with automation it could be possible to deliver superior produce directly to coastal population centers at lower costs.

Where would you get water? Desalination is still terribly energy intensive.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#104

Post by vram22 »

kyteland wrote: post #74
yissp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading that when they were first brought to Europe via the Columbian exchange people were reluctant to eat them fearing they were also poisonous. Now it's hard to imagine, e.g. Italian cuisine without tomatoes.

They feared that because people were being poisoned. Pewter plates were common at the time and the tomatoes acid leached the lead out causing acute lead poisoning!

Then any other equally acidic food on pewter plates should have caused lead poisoning too? E.g. if they ate salads in those days, with a squeeze of lemon juice?

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#105

Post by hardwaregeek »

6177c40f wrote: post #89
dustintrex wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McSweeney's has a not-inaccurate take on the joys of CSA membership: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/faq-about-your-csa

Fairly accurate, though I love CSAs (and I suspect this is a loving parody by the author). What I find especially funny is > What the hell am I supposed to do with all these turnips? Do people really not know what to do with turnips? Turnips are amazing- roast them, put them in soups, they're great. Now radishes, on the other hand, those are a mystery to me.

When in doubt, ferment them! Turnips and radishes both ferment really well. Just make a 2% brine, i.e. weigh the turnips and the water used to cover them, then add 2% of that weight in salt. Put in a clean jar or even a plastic container and check every day. I add some garlic, chili peppers, etc.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#106

Post by girvo »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #52
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tomatoes don’t contain any alkaloids..nicotine is a very different kind of alkaloid. Tomatoes contain a diff kind of alkaloid from other nightshades. Tomatine levels drop as fruit ripens. Hardly addictive.

Having said that…if we want to talk about addictive alkaloids in our food.. Vanillin, Cocaine and Capsaicin are closely related alkaloids and all have addiction potential.

> Vanillin, Cocaine and Capsaicin are closely related alkaloids

Based on which metric? Neither vanillin nor capsaicin are tropane alkaloids.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#107

Post by vram22 »

optymizer wrote: post #92
6177c40f wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairly accurate, though I love CSAs (and I suspect this is a loving parody by the author). What I find especially funny is > What the hell am I supposed to do with all these turnips? Do people really not know what to do with turnips? Turnips are amazing- roast them, put them in soups, they're great. Now radishes, on the other hand, those are a mystery to me.

Not sure what to do with turnips, but let's fix this radish situation right now. Radishes are awesome! I like to eat them raw with just a bit of salt, but for a general cooking frame of reference, you can use radishes anywhere you would use a cucumber. Here's some salads I like to make with radishes: ======================== = default radish salad = ======================== * radishes (thin round slices) * chopped sc…

That last salad recipe seems mouth-watering. Ugh (speaking to myself). I must make salads more often. So fast and easy too.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#108

Post by sva_ »

optymizer wrote: post #73

I'm a big fan of tomatoes - we used to grow them at home in Europe, and I swear to you I have found 0 tasty tomatoes in the US, aside from this one tomato that my friend's boss grew in his garden, which tasted almost like a tomato should. Sometimes I feel like entire generations of people in the US don't know what a good tomato tastes like because they've never had a proper tomato. I find the tomatoes in US stores bl…

> I find the tomatoes in US stores bland and watery. They must be collected when green and ripe on the truck or in the store.

I once read somewhere that many commercial tomato varieties have lost their flavor because they have only been selected for appearance (red/flawless). But I don't know if that is true.

Luckily I found that here in Europe, recently, there have been very flavorful cherry tomatoes in the grocery stores again, but they cost between 6 to 7 euro/kilo (the watery ones around half the price.)

In selecting delicious cherry tomatoes, I observed two criteria:

1) they'll have a somewhat rough surface, rather than smooth - like little particles

2) they'll often have little yellow dots at the top around the stem

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#109

Post by morelisp »

tharkun__ wrote: post #64
fy20 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone who didn't know this: tomato, tomatillo, potato, eggplant, pepper and tobacco are all from the same family Solanaceae aka nightshade. There are many other plants in the same family (they have worldwide distribution), but a lot of them are poisonous. Even more fun: It's possible to graft plants of different species within the family, so you can create a plant that grows both potatoes and tomatoes. https://e…

And in fact potato fruit are poisonous! Just remember that when you grow potatoes and you get those "nice small tomatoes" on the potatoes that do bloom and fruit :) Luckily not many bloom and fruit usually, so most people that just grow a few potatoes for fun don't even get tempted. Then again they don't ripen red anyway, so I guess there's that to "save the curious". EDIT: Anyone else have an unusually many potatoes…

The bigger warning to any potential potato farmers is to make sure you keep the potatoes underground; any tuber above ground will also have heightened levels of solanine. If they're light-skinned they'll also turn green from chlorophyll, which helps identify them a bit, but better to make sure they're well-buried.

(All my potatoes had a couple fruits this year, but I'm in Germany, so I have no clue if that data is relevant...)

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#110

Post by tdrdt »

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #28

Interesting, but not that dissimilar to the United States. I grow a couple thousand acres of tomatoes in California, all of which are for processing into juices and pastes. These tomatoes are all transported in open-topped trailers by semi, and the losses have always bothered me. There is a tight turn just after leaving our property and the pile of tomatoes there grows steadily with the season as they roll off the to…

Dutch fact about tomatoes: almost all tomatoes from the Netherlands are grown in greenhouses and most are grown on rockwhool. Computer systems fertilize water that flows through the rockwhool.

The seedlings are grown in labs and then sold to the greenhouses. And while it is not really organic food, most greenhouses don't use chemicals to keep pests and diseases out. A lot of times different kind if insects are used for this. So it is as bio as it gets.

But you can argue about the taste. While they are as healthy as soil grown tomatoes I think they taste watery.

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