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Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

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Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#81

Post by misja111 »

317070 wrote: post #4
rini17 wrote: post #2

Oh my. Everyone who cares about tomatoes grows their own, supermarkets are for the rest. They are not demanding and will grow anywhere there's sun, including in pot on balcony.

Why is capitalism failing us here? Why do we need to grow our own?

It's not, at least not where I live, in Switzerland. There are many different varieties to choose from in the supermarket nowadays, from cheap and tasteless to more expensive and tasty. It's the same in the Netherlands by the way.

The problem is not capitalism, it is the preference of the consumers in your area.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#82

Post by imp0cat »

dsego wrote: post #76
apavlinovic wrote: post #30

I am Croatian, and I know exactly what the article is referring to. So much that we decided to grow our own tomatoes this year. The imported junk we get from Netherlands is abysmal compared to anything grown locally, and the reality is that we want the good stuff for ourselves, not the tourists. We were very lucky to have a great harvest of cherry, monte carlo, and plum tomatoes this year, all of which serve a differ…

Another croatian chiming in, I get most of my vegetables from my mother's garden, I think that's true for a lot of croats who live in the cities but have parents in the countryside.

So, where in Makarska region should one go to get some? ;)

Are those "local" sellers near the beach really local? Or do they just resell stuff from Kaufland/Lidl to naive tourists for inflated prices?

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#83

Post by dsego »

imp0cat wrote: post #82
dsego wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another croatian chiming in, I get most of my vegetables from my mother's garden, I think that's true for a lot of croats who live in the cities but have parents in the countryside.

So, where in Makarska region should one go to get some? ;) Are those "local" sellers near the beach really local? Or do they just resell stuff from Kaufland/Lidl to naive tourists for inflated prices?

I don't know, the green market (pazar) should be local farmers (OPG), but a common story is that some of them buy at supermarkets and resell at higher prices.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#84

Post by ein0p »

the_gipsy wrote: post #38
ein0p wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re talking the peak flavor tomato that “capitalism” purportedly can’t produce, that is only available when you pick it from the vine, already ripe. It is true that tomatoes will ripen if picked “brown”, but they’re less flavorful than vine ripened. Source: picked a few tons of tomatoes every summer as a kid.

Source: anecdotal

Anecdotal is when someone else told you something and you used that data without verifying. The correct term in this case is “empirical”.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#85

Post by j7ake »

jklinger410 wrote: post #72
specproc wrote: post #40

For those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato. I live in a small, agricultural country and the article resonated. Over the last 10 years supermarkets and imported vegetables have become a much more important part of our national diet. It's such an important staple food. Historically very cheap (because widely grown) wildly divers…

I have ran into this with meats as well. I had never had shrimp until I got some fresh in Baltimore. I had never eaten beef until I had some freshly butchered in Garden City, KS. A quote I heard from some movie that released recently was..."the one thing to remember if you travel into the past is that everything is going to taste better." The cost of modernization has been a net decrease in quality of foods across th…

Best beef isn’t fresh actually, it is aged for several weeks.

Similar with a lot of fish like tuna.

Sometimes it’s not about as fresh as possible, but how it is grown and processed.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#86

Post by j7ake »

em500 wrote: post #32
wafflemaker wrote: post #14

I'm Polish expat living in Norway. There are no tomatoes to be had in Norway... Just kidding. I'm actually kind of alright with the small ones (pearl tomatoes), any other don't taste like tomatoes. I believe, that the Norwegian people are so used to blandly tasting vegetables, that the worst and least ripe product parties are send to Norway. But my wife and her family are tomato people. Every time we visit Poland or…

I won't comment on the tomatoes, but as far as eggs are concerned, I'm skeptical that any claims about people being able to taste any diffence would hold up in a proper blind taste test. Conclusion from Serious Eats when they attempted to do that: It was pretty clear evidence that as far as eggs go, the mindset of the taster has far more bearing on the flavor of the egg than the egg itself. https://www.seriouseats.co…

Blind folded is not a proper taste test though.

One uses all the senses when eating. For eggs the quality of the yolk is obvious by looking.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#88

Post by gameman144 »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #6
317070 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is capitalism failing us here? Why do we need to grow our own?

Capitalism gives you perfectly uniform porno-tomatoes and watered ketchupy tomato sauce. No surprise, capitalism extract profits on all ends - production, storage, and distribution and it doesn't result with tasty aromatic tomatoes.

Capitalism would absolutely love to give you delicious and peak-quality tomatoes. If consumers were willing to pay the additional cost needed to harvest and handle more heirloom-variety tomatoes, there would be a huge incentive to provide them.

If people aren't willing to pay the premium needed, then the revealed preference is for the easily harvestable varieties. Farmers markets and local producers that sell to fewer people who will pay that premium are likewise capitalism's answer to this problem (i.e. saying "Industrial agriculture can't meet the consumers' needs, but local farmers can.")

Capitalism need not be industrial-scale, it just needs to fill consumer demand somehow (which is why small business are so crucial)

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#89

Post by kjkjadksj »

morsch wrote: post #79
specproc wrote: post #40

For those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato. I live in a small, agricultural country and the article resonated. Over the last 10 years supermarkets and imported vegetables have become a much more important part of our national diet. It's such an important staple food. Historically very cheap (because widely grown) wildly divers…

People keep writing this, but the tomatoes I grew myself and those grown by friends as well as local very small scale growers haven't lived up to the hype. Presumably this just isn't a good place to grow tomatoes. But I guess Provence should be, and they weren't exactly impressive either. Maybe I'm just not that into fresh tomatoes.

Good heirloom tomatos are almost like a berry. So juicy and flavorful. There’s nothing like it. Maybe you need seeds from American growers.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#90

Post by GOONIMMUNE »

My understanding is that this has less to do with the specific location the tomatoes are grown, and more to do with the distance from the point of consumption they are grown. If the tomatoes have to travel a long distance, they will be picked before ripe so that they are more hardy during transit. Unfortunately this significantly alters the taste for the worse. I don't really live in the U.S. anymore, but I used to pay extra for "tomatoes still on the vine" which would be a small step up. The best of course were those grown in your own garden.
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