Tomatoes Why Bother

I just cooked up one of my pasture raised beef patties with melted cheddar, home grown tomato, crisp lettuce, Red pepper relish, Mayo and onion. I realized after I sliced my fresh picked off the vine tomato, that I was getting tasteless food when I go out to eat. The burger sandwich was full of flavor with a sweet juicy tomato, fresh lettuce and a good quality burger from one of my Black angus cows. I buy 5x6 tomatoes for our Cafe, there is  no comparison to the tomato I just ate and the ones I serve to my customers, and eat at other restaurants. It just dawned on me this morning on how far backwards we have come as a nation that we grow for the masses and forfeit quality. The tomatoes I buy for my Cafe are an embarrassment compared to what I grow at home. I usually grow them for the Cafe in my garden so I can offer a better tomato during the summer months. I don't think I will ever order a tomato on a sandwich again, I would rather have the memory of a home grown juicy succulent ruby red tomato than a slice of tasteless hot house junk. How far do we have to go as a nation before we demand better ??????????????  BillyB....   Tasteless in Seattle

Ah, BillyB, you're tasteless wherever you roam.
 
I recently sliced up a tomato I got from a local farm market for an antipasto and it was wonderful. I can't help wondering who dreamed up the tasteless tomato.

The sad part is that you can't even get a decent tomatoes anymore without jumping through hoops. There are some supermarket chains in the northeast that feature "local" or "regional" grown produce during the summer. But the tomatoes they sell are the same flavorless variety they sell year round. These varieties ship well and have a long shelf life. Unless you go to the boutique restaurant suppliers or farm markets, that is all there is available for sale.

David you are right----"shelf life" is the magic word. (or words)
In the good old days we had corn when corn was "in" we had tomatoes during it's season--- peaches, strawberries, etc etc etc ---now they sell terrible substitues for the real thing--out of season, all year long. 
Sorrry Billy but that's the way it is.  Nothing we can do but abstain.

I just always tell them to hold the tomato anyway. No disappointments there.

I worked in a tomato greenhouse.
Tomatoes are picked when they show a trace of a pink star at the blossom end. Supermarkets want fruit shipped that is unripened (storage life)
Home grown tomatoes are picked vine ripened a big difference in flavor. (Also variety plays a further role in flavor).
A lot of people never experience true flavor such as you described BillyB.

Amen BillyB.  I miss my grain fed beef I purchased from Sand Lake Market up in Michigan.  Then last year I move to Florida.. You'd think the tomatoes be fresh down here.. What a joke. Tasteless and stored in a fridge to really kill any flavor that may have been there.  Spent over a year down here working as a chef, and quality is not a priority it seems.
 

I'm in Florida this week.  Just went to the guy selling tomatoes  from the back of his truck and it was 10.1 on the ten scale.
 
Meanwhile, the chains down here -- despite the tv commercials where the clipbaord carrying, smiling guy from the store is out in the field shaking hands with the farmer -- can't come up with anything but a hollow tasting, yellow-ish on the inside, insult.
 
Bottom line is the backyard burger I just had was as good as could be (without the benefit of my own grain fed cattle.)

When we had our carryout joint, we had a tomato patch and even grew some lettuce on the property. My customers loved my BLT's, it was the fresh garden picked beefeater tomatoes that moved them out of the door, juicy and oh so sweet! I think growing my own now a days is technically illegal, as they are not jacked up with enough pesticides and God knows what else, and I am not a government certified tomato farmer. In other words I would be in non-compliance with the Department of Compliance. I think that is how it works in the Nanny State?
 
Mike

I was going to say about the same thing as wheregregeats. I've been all over and the best Tomato I ever ate was while in Central Florida, but it was from a farmers market, not a supermarket.  

BillyB    if you grow your own try one only BullsHeart. Swear off Beef Steaks forever.
But if going out to eat I know most sliced don't meet my expectations and never hold it against the owner.

We tend to buy only Roma tomatoes. Way back when I had a house and garden, that is what I raised. The store bought ones tend to be more tasteless but still have more flavour than the usual "beef steak" tomato. I also like a good antique variety tomato (Black Krim will make you die!). I just sliced up some local (as in from someones back yard) that a couple was selling on the Plaza last Friday. Kinda small but not much smaller than the Romas we use.

So what's wrong with Genetically Engineered Tomatoes??
"Better Living Through Chemistry"

One of my pet peeves. You will never get a decent tomato from a chain supermarket. It is infuriating to pay good money for the dry tasteless crap that passes for a tomato today.

Tomatoes have been bred to withstand shipping thousands of miles and to hold up to the rigors of commercial packing plant. While tomatoes are still packed by hand, the conveyor belt beats the crap out of them. They are also picked slightly green because they will continue to ripen after that have been picked. Basically about 2 to 3 days after they are in the field, they can be in a store being bought by a customer.
 
I lived in a rural area. My first (and second) paying job was working in a tomato field (suckering tomatoes at the age of 8yo). I knew lots of folks who worked our local community run tomato packing plant.

I blame McDonalds. I remember when they came out with their 'McLean' Burger. It was their first sandwich to have live vegetative matter (lettuce and tomato). I know the quarter pounder had real chopped onions and all the other burgers got canned onions (brother worked at a MickeyD), but this was a real first for Mickey's.
 
I bought a few of those burgers and was amazed at how the tomato was bright red every time. Then I realized McDonalds wouldn't put vegetative matter out there if they couldn't consistently control the quality and color of it (I don't see the managers queuing up at the regional produce market at 4:00am). I realized these were engineered tomatoes, and now I see them every week in my grocery store...hard as a rock and tasteless but bright red and gorgeous looking...drives me nuts!

Cosmos


I blame McDonalds. I remember when they came out with their 'McLean' Burger. It was their first sandwich to have live vegetative matter (lettuce and tomato). I know the quarter pounder had real chopped onions and all the other burgers got canned onions (brother worked at a MickeyD), but this was a real first for Mickey's. 

You might be forgetting the McDLT, which preceded the McLean by almost a decade.  
 
I think it's a stretch to blame McDonalds, who have rarely incorporated tomatoes into their sandwiches, by your own admission, for the state of tomatoes today.  That would be quite a stretch indeed. 

You'd be amazed just how much of your food is "Engineered"!
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/engineered-foods-allowed-on.html
http://www.rense.com/politics6/gms.htm

The tomatoes here in Florida are truly terrible. Even during the summer when good tomatoes could shipped in from other places we still get the crappy ones. I'm trying to grow some again but they actually harder to grow here then you would think. We start the plants in August here and grow them through the fall-winter months because they won't set fruit in summer heat. There are a lot of disease and bug problems to contend with.

I picked the last of the tomatoes a few weeks ago, The ripe tomatoes were nice and juicy and full of flavor. The green tomatoes that I let site in a box are starting to get ripe. The color isn't the same, and the taste isn't either. I guess the answer to why they are tasteless is because they pick to soon and get ripe off the vine................Bill

I have heard that they have some delicious tomatoes at the farmers markets/farm stands in Jersey during the summer. Don't know what variety but with as many Jersyites as we have around here you would think we could get a better tomato here in Florida. Many years ago there was truck on the side of the road selling Grainger County (Tennessee) tomatoes. I stopped to buy some and the guy told me he had picked up the tomatoes in Tennessee the day before and drove 750 miles straight though to his spot. Those tomatoes were selling like proverbial hotcakes.

There are probably a few dozen varieties of tomatoes grown in NJ for the farm stand and speciality market. The classic is a Beefsteak tomato. But the average supermarket in NJ sells those "engineered" tomatoes during the height of the growing season. Marketing hype what it is, they hang up signs reading "locally grown". But they are not the same varieties the farm stands sell.

In a previous post, during the summer, I mentioned that Summer 2010 was great for tomatoes. Once the days got shorter, and the nights cooler, even my home growns were not that great. Farm stand fruit, grown in "high tunnels" (unheated plastic greenhouses) was good for another month. Here in Massachusetts we are now into the long winter season (even though it is still "fall"). I agree that the winter fruit does not compare, but compared to the gas ripened stuff sold up to a few years ago, I think that the supermarket greenhouse product is good. I buy them all winter.

If the tomato does not enhance the flavor and appearence of your product then its a cost you can live without. Just keep 2-3 on hand for those people who think they MUST have them. Make a show of it. offer a 1/2 priced sandwich for anyone thet brings you a REAL Garden ripe tomato.