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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

#91

Post by ivanche »

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.

It's not only home grown, you need the right seed too. I'm almost sure you didn't have one. Earlier tomato varieties are simply discontinued because of low yield, short shelf life etc.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#92

Post by schrijver »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #29
trte9343r4 wrote: post #27

Croatia has horrible food, locals can not afford quality food. This country was overrun by tourists, and is now more expensive than Italy. Recent adoption of Euro was the last nail in a coffin. Go to Greece, if you want "authentic local tomato from street-market".

>more expensive than italy Related: had some friends down from a northern country and they were as amazed at the taste and cost of the tomatoes, as they were at the fact they came from the country my guests came from. We figured from growth to packing to transportation to purchase, made the tomatoes 'just right' on the day we got them. Not had anything similar since for taste, including those i bought last night.

I imagine these were Dutch tomatoes—I’ve heard the best ones don’t actually get sold in the Netherlands, as the Dutch consumers don’t care enough to pay a premium. These get exported to the south instead, where the costumers are more discerning.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#93

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> if you travel into the past is that everything is going to taste better

To a point. Go too far and you get the nonsense wild types we had to domesticate to be tasty.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#94

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato

Plenty of supermarkets near farms or in urban cores have fresh heirloom tomatoes that put generic backyard ones to shame. Eating well doesn’t require continuous effort. Invest time in learning to source well. After that, it’s higher quality for the same amount of effort. (Of course if you’re willing to expend the effort, fresh tomatoes grown from good seed can’t be beaten.)

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#95

Post by downut »

j7ake wrote: post #85
jklinger410 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Without meaning to be critical, but just to expand the conversation a bit, what does the word "beef" mean in your comment?

Let's broaden the scope, and consider lean and fatty versions of say "grass fed beef" vs. "industrial beef".

The word "fatty" here is just a placeholder for "less than 85% lean" ("lean" is problematical, as is "fatty", too). (How those map to "tough" and "tender" is related but of course the skill of the cook now matters too).

I would rank flavor and texture of those 4 choices this way:

freshly slaughtered as grassfed fatty > industrial fatty > grassfed lean > industrial lean.

Now add in "aged for several weeks" or how about a carefully managed 4 weeks (not that hard). The ranking changes slightly, but for all 4 the result is remarkably superior in flavor.

I've recently eaten on a sailing school boat in the Golfo de California slices of a trashier tuna than bluefin caught about 30 minutes before, and it was outstanding. Almost all US grocery stores will sell you a right proper many day aged raw tuna, and they suck. Of course it's correct that you can go to that market in JP and get a counter example.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#96

Post by lbourdages »

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 had my first good tomato last year. It was a supermarket tomato, but it was a very expensive heirloom variety. Purple in color, with a wild shape a bit like those in TFA.

Definitely the best tomato I ever had, and it kinda ruined other tomatoes as I have tried (unsuccessfully) to find one of the same caliber since then. Tomato season is coming, so I might be able to find something close. Crossing fingers.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#97

Post by jddj »

SoftTalker wrote: post #69
pnut wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I boil six eggs every Sunday and eat one every morning. Same pan, same cooking element, same timing, ice bath with the same volume of water and cube quantity, everything identical from one week to the next. Have been doing it for at least seven years straight. I want my yolks to be crystalline in texture, at the transition point between runny and chalky. Not precious about yolk colouring. Must be easy to peel. There…

I've always thought a lot had to do with the age of the eggs. Very fresh eggs are usually harder to peel. I usually let eggs sit at least a week or two after purchase before I use them (this is in the USA where eggs are sold refrigerated).

It's the opposite for poaching, fresh hold together much better

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#98

Post by voyager7 »

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…

What country is that?

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#99

Post by Reason077 »

The thing about tomatoes is they always taste and smell a lot better when fresh off the vine than they do when they've been picked when under-ripe in order to spend a few weeks in storage and transport before they got to you.

I think this applies, more or less, wherever you are in the world and no matter what variety of tomato. One of the reasons why they're such a popular thing to grow in your own home garden.

Re: Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood

#100

Post by koolba »

SoftTalker wrote: post #68
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…

It's not really the tomatoes, it's that they are harvested green and then artificially ripened when they are ready to be sold. This allows much longer shelf life but the texture of the flesh and the flavors never fully develop. Of course different varieties have different flavors but even a standard supermarket "beefsteak" will taste so much better picked ripe off the vine than bought at the store where it has been i…

It’s also the tomato itself which is bred to resist bruising so that it looks pretty on the super market display. Unfortunately those cultivars also taste like meh.

Tastier tomatoes with thinner skins bruise more easily. They also require more labor intensive picking by hand vs bulk via machine.

Lookup the Rutgers tomato. Its a delicious one that at one point was the most popular tomato in all of the USA. It was bred for flavor, not shelf life! It fell out of favor when factory farming took over as it cannot be harvested by machine without bruising.

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