Tomato thoughts
Thanks for all your replies to the posting on tasty Turkish tomatoes and all that flows from them. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I read most of them while lounging by a pool. Although I really did intend to reply promptly, jumping on the inflatable plastic crocodile just seemed more appealing.
Now I am back. The beard came off this morning, and I will have to think about socks and ties again. I am off on my travels this evening and blogging will resume. But first some thoughts about your thoughts.
There seems to be a consensus view. Of course, the greatest number do not always get it right but most of you seem to think the way to eat more flavoursome veg is to grow your own, and if you can’t avoid supermarkets, shop around, eat seasonally and go organic.
I’m not convinced, although happy to be persuaded by science, that simply not using pesticides makes anything tastier. I suspect "organic" has become a symbol for a smaller scale, more traditional way of farming. Some of the points about minerals sound convincing.
I was surprised there was not more reaction in favour of supermarkets: some do stock high quality goods.
But I can't agree with those like Tim Port who say "pay more, and you’ll find what you want". It is true, to an extent, that you can pay for higher quality. I must admit it used to irritate me hugely that the supermarket I used most often in Britain used to have some of its more expensive tomatoes and other fruit labelled "grown for flavour". As opposed to what? Grown for throwing? Grown as a still life model? It’s rather like labelling a book "produced for reading". But that's not my main point: I don’t think any amount of money would find me such a lemony lemon in Britain as the one I had in Turkey.
In France, at the beginning of my holiday, I stopped at a roadside stall overflowing with peaches and melons and vegetables of every shape and size. I asked which were the tastiest tomatoes. The chap in charge enthusiastically suggested a selection: green, orange, yellow, zebra-striped, cherry tomatoes smaller than cherries... They made part of a great hors d’oeuvre on our first night. I would love to say they burst with that real flavour. They were good, but not a patch on those Turkish toms and I suspect nothing like Pete Porchos' Iraqi tomato.
I'll ignore Kevin's charge of going native, and leave aside for the moment whether it's anything to do with EU regulations, but I suspect he may have a point about seed varieties.
Thanks Tania, I will order more puntarelle next time I am in Rome.
And that spice in the Turkish coffee: is it Melengic or Mahlep/Mahlab or Marmiar or Malabathrum? I will have to try them all. But the best suggestion must come from Rayner that it was . Spice indeed would be the variety of life. Much more on this if the 91Èȱ¬ ever appoints me editor. It’s a big job but I could do it.
Thanks you once again for those who liked the article: it really does matter to me. And during the holiday I really wanted to share with you my thoughts on more food topics, particularly the unnecessary decline of the hors d’oeuvre. But I have to finish packing my Wellingtons for a trip to a Polish peat bog, and then prepare for a big meeting in Portugal on the European . So I will put writing about food to one side of my plate, until there’s another holiday, but I will return to this most delicious of subjects.
I’m Mark Mardell, the 91Èȱ¬'s North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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Well, a lot of fruit (especially tomatoes) IS 'grown as a still life model', in that it's grown to look good, weigh a lot and last long on the shelf, so as to attract customers and maximise profit, so if the supermarket stocks a minority that is 'grown for flavour' then we should probably express our gratitude...
...some of the techniques used in organic farming (avoiding artifical fertilisers as well as pesticides) lead to a richer soil which may contribute to flavour...
Personally, I am not an organic fundamentalist, but we do regularly eat organic food. The main difference is that (overhere in the Netherlands) one often gets other ("older") vegetable/fruit races than in non-organic food. Organic Brussels sprouts actually (still) taste slight slightly bitter.
Many tomatoes for within the EU are grown here in Holland in massive greenhouses using hydroponic systems, grown in rockwool under high sodium pressure lamps which illumante the night skies. Needless to say they taste like that too or not as is the case, I've never had a good Dutch tomato, ever. Even tomatoes grown in my native Lancashire are infinately better, dispite the use of chemicals at least they get soil and occassional Lancastrian sunshine!
Organic Brussels sprouts actually (still) taste slight slightly bitter.
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That's good news as the bitter taste is the chemical which helps prevent bowel cancer.
For what is is worth tomatoes are best not kept in the fridge.
Welcome back Mark, I've missed your writing while you were away.
Turkish tomatoes? You obviously have not tried Bulgarian tomatoes. Anyone who has ever tried Bulgarian tomatoes will tell you that they are the sweetest tomatoes in the world.
It is a bit of a mystery to me, why fresh food in Italy and France can taste so much better than what you get in other countries. Eating produce in Tuscany and Sicilan islands, the flavours were stunning, even for the simplest of dishes such as bruchetta.
I don't agree that it relates to price, there is something about the freshness of local produce that gives it a much better flavour than something that has ripened artificially in a truck, boat or warehouse.
I have grown veg at home too, and I think home-grown tomatoes taste a lot better than any supermarket variety. I moved from the the UK to Sweden some years ago, and was dissapointed by quality of fruit and veg available in the average supermarket. OK the growing season here is short compared to southern Europe, but after shopping around I found it is possible to get reasonable quality fresh fruit and veg without paying premium prices. Small markets are very good if you can find them and the 'value' supermarkets in areas with more diverse population seem to do a lot better for choice and quality. It is down to the consumer to be smarter and vote with their shopping basket! Rotting onions and fly ridden fruit should not be the norm in the average supermarket!
May I suggest that the coffee spice may not have been a spice at all but rather mastic, derived from a resin? I keep meaning to look for it in my local shop.
Being French I too mourn ripe and tasty summer fruits which can apparently travel to Paris yet don't make it to London from the South.
Who knows, with global warming I may soon be able to grow exotic fruits on my balcony...
I have been living in the US for about six years now, and the food item that I miss the most is tomatoes.
I am not going be able to describe how they taste,smell and look but I can say that whenever I am down, I think of my grandparents and their breakfast table full of fresh tomatoes.
I tried to find the same taste here in the US but I couldn't. Even four organic tomatoes (that I paid about $8.00 for) didn't give me the same satisfaction.
I agree with other comments and I hope that Turkey won't lose these great tastes to agri-business.
Mark.
Go to the New York to find the best-looking and most flavourless tomaoes in the world
Tomatoes
I live in Moscow. The best place to buy tomatoes is the local market. You can buy Dutch at around 35 rbl/kilo, Georgian at 70, Uzbek and Azeri maybe 150. The Dutch look really nice - bright skin, no blemishes. The Uzbek and Azeri tomatoes look like they have esacped from Chernobyl (I have not seen Ukrainian tomatoes, by the way) The Uzbek and Azeri tomatoes are an aenemic pink and have horrible worts which you have to cut off. If you do not know what bthese things are, you would not buy them, let alone eat them. But they are the best. I know Turkish tomatoes, and they are almost as good as these.
How to choose? Here, price is a good guide. The EU stuff is a quarter of the Uzbek/Azeri produce.
Of course, you could taste!
I used to be very cynical about organic produce because as a student it seemed like a lot of extra money. Having thought about it though, I remember the best tomatoes I ever ate, they were fed with water mixed in with sheep droppings. If it works on a small scale why not on a large scale?
Of course it still seems like a lot of extra money...
To be honest I like to read your blog for the political insights, and not to gain knowledge about fruits & vegetables.
I hope you'll be back on track soon!
Another thing that just sprang to mind: strawberries taste much better if you do not wash them first with water. This advice is probably safer to use on organic than non-organic fruit.
The Arrakis office just hasn't been the same since the Scattering.
He who controls the kahve controls the universe?
I commented before on this topic, but I thought I'd share some questions about the WTO's precautionary principle. Touted as a principle that keeps countries from exporting harmful products to their fellow WTO signatories, it certainly seems to me that the PP allows countries to export food that "causes no harm", as opposed to "delights the consumer". So if you're in France and you go to the supermarket to find really cheap, really ordinary tomatoes imported from somewhere, right next to the essentially identical great, local tomatoes, which one are you going to pick? You can't always tell the difference in the store. And as lower income families make the cheaper choice, and such importers are rewarded with market share, the local providers suffer. But it's hard to keep such standards-eroding produce out of the market unless you've got a Jose Bove (/dna/onthefuture/A706736) making a ruckus.
This is a challenge for the better producers -- how do they signal their quality, not just their compliance with the PP, or other food safety standards? It comes to branding and word-of-mouth, I'm afraid.
Perhaps this is the right time for some smart private company to put together an online ePinions, with sponsored taste-offs, for the world's produce, meats and so on. We sure could use more information as consumers, so we can tell which of those seemingly plump, juicy red tomatoes tastes fabulous, and which tastes like eating a water balloon.
JF Jansen,
Hey, I hope my comments on the EU, WTO and the precautionary principle provide some political perspective on the vegetables arrayed on Mr. Mardell's plate...
:)
To J.F. Jansen: The quality of food, like that of the other necessities of life, is determined by politics. Who controls the granary (or tomato production) controls you.
Here's another one: Unlike mercy, the quality of tomatoes IS strained. Our vegetable love shall grow ... oh forget it.