Rants
& Raves
I don't know about you, but I remember when, in the not too distant past (well ... less than 30 years), fruits and vegetables had a more pronounced taste. Perhaps it's middle age setting in ... taste buds deteriorating, faulty memory ...
No ... I think it's more than just aging brain cells and papillae. The fruits and vegetables we find in the markets (at least here in my part of the Midwest) are, for the most part, quite nice to look at; you know the ones ... brightly colored, firm, nearly bruise free ... and TASTELESS!!!!
I bought some tangerines just the other day; they weren't the pretty bright orange (dyed?) ones. They smelled a bit like tangerines, looked like tangerines, and tasted like ... well ... like an orange that had most of the flavor sucked out of it. There wasn't even a hint of tangerine flavor let alone any other flavor; the taste was just a slightly tart, slightly sweet nothing with a hint of something like an orange flavor.
For those of you who live in warm climes like California, Arizona, Florida, and Texas where something (other than a coniferous tree or two) actually grows all year 'round -- I hope the produce is better. If it's anything like it is here then I'm forced to wonder ... "Who's behind this plot"? My guess is that somewhere in the mix a market "expert" (or two ... or a 100) has asked or answered the wrong questions.
Do the marketing people really think we'd rather have something that looks good instead of something that tastes good? On what do they base this presumption? My experience with marketing people is that they'll always tell you what the trend is, but they can't tell you how they know. Hmmm ... maybe they really didn't do any research or, more likely, they think they know more about what the consumer wants than the consumer him/herself. Remember marketers, you, too, are a consumer ... what would you buy?
I've stopped buying "fresh" tomatoes in the supermarket. Late in the summer, you used to be able to find a few "home grown" tomatoes in the supermarket; I haven't seen much of that recently, either. If I'm making something that depends on the "flavor" of a tomato, I've found I'm better off using the canned variety. They may not be fresh, but at least they taste like tomatoes.
According to the California Tomato Commission, "The tomatoes grown in California today are fresher, redder, riper and more healthful than ever before. Growers and shippers use a wide variety of techniques to provide consumers with this improved tomato". NOTE -- they don't claim they have any more TASTE than ever before. Here's a link to the CTC site's chart that attempts to dispel all those terrible myths about commercially grown tomatoes. And ... here is a link to an article about one of the previous attempts to engineer a better tomato (Lessons from the Tomato). I think it helps explain why the ones we find in the supermarket are so mediocre.
I'm going to pick on tomatoes for a while although they are but one of many fruits and vegetables that have lost any resemblance to what I remember; strawberries also come to mind, but I'll save that rant for another time.
Perhaps grocers AND growers nationwide should take notice of something that was reported in southwest Florida this past spring. In the St. Petersburg Times (April 25, 2001) they note that consumers will actually buy an UGLY tomato if it tastes good ... isn't that contrary to good business (or marketing) sense? The grower, Garagiulo, was originally talked out of bringing it to market because "[it] wasn't hard enough or pretty enough to sell". I hope someone had good market research to back that claim up ... yeah, right! Anyway, the Garagiulo company heard (probably not from a marketing or advertising company) that consumers were demanding tomatoes with taste and apparently looks were of secondary concern. Guess what? The grower is going to start growing the ugly tomatoes year round to keep up with demand. We can only hope that this won't mean the demise of another good tomato.