[HN Gopher] Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island chil...
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Tomato nostalgia as I relive my Croatian island childhood
Author : gascoigne
Score : 73 points
Date : 2024-08-04 05:58 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.croatiaweek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.croatiaweek.com)
| rini17 wrote:
| 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.
| 317070 wrote:
| Why is capitalism failing us here? Why do we need to grow our
| own?
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| 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.
| gameman144 wrote:
| 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)
| gostsamo wrote:
| Because it is capitalism. Really good tomatoes are at their
| best for a few days only which makes them hell to transport.
| That's why modern tomatoes are bred for color ans size, but
| inside they are actually green with very hard core and very
| little natural sugar.
| ein0p wrote:
| Simple: quality tomatoes are hard to transport and they don't
| last when on the shelf. The closest thing to a "real" farm
| tomato you can buy at a reasonable price is "Kumato" from
| Trader Joe's. It's a pale imitation of a real tomato picked
| off the plant when it's ripe, but at least it reminds me of
| it, whereas a "regular" store bought tomato doesn't taste
| anything like the real thing.
| chongli wrote:
| Letting a tomato go fully ripe on the plant is an easy way
| to attract birds and lose a substantial amount of the crop.
| There's no reason for it either. Once the tomato reaches
| the breaker stage (starting to change colour) it is
| internally cut off from the mother plant and will not be
| adversely affected by being harvested.
| ein0p wrote:
| 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.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Source: anecdotal
| ein0p wrote:
| Anecdotal is when someone else told you something and you
| used that data without verifying. The correct term in
| this case is "empirical".
| chongli wrote:
| No I'm talking the flavour of the tomatoes from my back
| yard, some of which I picked brown and others I picked
| fully red. They tasted identical once ripened indoors.
| But you don't need to take my word for it. Google tomato
| breaker stage.
|
| The difference between store bought tomatoes and home
| grown is the cultivar. Mine are heirloom tomatoes.
| They're much uglier and softer than store bought
| beefsteak tomatoes, but way tastier. There's no way these
| would ever ship because they turn ripe for a few days and
| then turn to mush. They also bruise incredibly easily.
| nickpp wrote:
| Like all free market failures, the culprit is regulation.
| Regulated food, local and weekend markets reduced competition
| by discouraging and removing small retailers until large
| supermarket chains remained de facto monopolies.
|
| Those chains must serve very large number of customers so
| they must focus on produce that is easy to pick, store and
| sell. Looks good and survives (even gets ripe during)
| transit. Taste is often secondary.
|
| You wanna fight that? Fight all regulations for small and
| local producers, even if it sounds like it's well intended
| (hygiene, quality standards, subventions). Talk to your
| representative about it too. Finally, buy local and from
| smallest producer you can find.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| You seriously think that small shops would be competitive
| if there were no subsidies? No hygiene I could maybe buy,
| but it goes hand in hand with quality, and there is
| practically no regulation for that: it's self imposed by
| the consumer picking pretty produce.
| nickpp wrote:
| The consumer learns very quickly what they like. Eat a
| good tomato, you'll look for one next time. The local
| fruit shop was even a joke in Seinfeld, I believe.
|
| The closing of the small grocery store and producer can
| be mostly attributed to regulation.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| No. They can be attributed to not being able to compete
| against big chains despite heavy regulation in favor of
| small businesses.
|
| Big chains can offer what the average consumer wants in
| greater variety and cheaper, at more places and longer
| hours. They can gauge prices, do better marketing, have
| better stock, and wage price wars. They have more power,
| and what's the purpose of that if not abusing it?
|
| Less regulation would just mean even worse food and less
| small shops.
| nickpp wrote:
| Chains have whole departments dedicated to compliance.
| They chew through any new regulation you throw at them.
|
| I get my groceries from a tiny neighbor market here in
| Eastern Europe. Usually from women of surrounding
| villages. Their main worries are in this order: raising
| market space fees (these go to the city) and new checks
| and rules they need to follow.
| pocketarc wrote:
| While I think there may be something to that, I think
| there's a simpler, more "it's just normal capitalism"
| explanation:
|
| Making deals with every local small-time producer would be
| a big pain. Why do that when you can make a single deal
| with a giant monster of a tomato producer, and sell their
| tomatoes (especially since as the sibling comment points
| out, local tomatoes won't be as pretty and as uniform in
| quality)? There's economies of scale, prices are lower, the
| supply chain will be simpler, it's all better for the
| supermarket chain.
| nickpp wrote:
| Small grocery shops can and will deal with small
| producers. The fact we are losing both in favor of giant
| chains is largely due to regulation and subsidies.
|
| Otherwise we'd have plenty of boutique retailers and
| producers charging more for better quality produce
| optimized for different factors.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| I don't understand what is regulated here, so that it
| prevents small sellers from being competitive. Is it
| packaging?
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| He is complaining about grading of fruit, so that the
| buyer doesn't have to inspect every single delivery but
| can instead order X fruit, grade Y, and it will conform
| to standard.
| oezi wrote:
| Nonsense. Like many market failures it is about consumers
| facing decisions but lack good information to make their
| purchase decision or need to optimize over too many
| competing product parameters.
|
| For supermarket produce there isn't a good way to judge
| product quality before buying. There is some quality
| improvement with paying more but usually the improvement is
| very little compared to the price increment. For instance,
| a supermarket might sell tomatos at 2.99 for regular
| tomatos and 4.99 for a premium/organic variety. The taste
| will only marginally differ so that only few people buy
| premium. This prevents economies of scale for the better
| product to drive down the price.
|
| Very little about this is about regulation.
| rini17 wrote:
| Because economy alone can't solve all our problems? Someone
| probably promised you it will, but that's scam.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Because market forces, of course, and they look like this:
| https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-developing-perfect-
| green...
|
| A chile pepper optimized for mechanical harvest, because
| right now the fruit needs to be cut from the stem, but if you
| can shake it off you can spare yourself the farmworker.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Do you not have a farmer's market near you? Good tomatoes are
| available if you want them, and they are in season.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Capitalism has given us the most "efficient" tomato for the
| market. If you want to optimize for something else, you're
| trying to solve a different problem.
| misja111 wrote:
| 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.
| vinnyvichy wrote:
| Oh man ... next up is growing your own pizza, fugget about it
| (>the supermarket)! Even with no sun!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41060621
|
| >Why the Wisconsin pizza farm movement is an idea whose time
| has come
|
| (UPDATE: sorry to the Croatians being overrun by tourists..
| guys .. Croatian food is so-so ;)
|
| tomatoes, olive oil, cheese, it's nice to be reminded that
| Croatians (and their Yugoslav brothers, secretly,) gave the
| middle finger to Stalin et al
|
| https://www.quora.com/Did-pizza-exist-in-the-Soviet-Union
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| TBH as I age and have eaten a fair share of pizza, I prefer
| no pizza than bad pizza.
| barrenko wrote:
| Reminder that it's still not quite known why the Soviet Union
| stopped the quite planned invasion of Yugoslavia.
| gniv wrote:
| I think I want to finally do this. I _can_ find excellent
| tomatoes around here (France), but they are 27 euro/kg, more
| than beef.
| inciampati wrote:
| Buy a cheap flight to south Italy and gorge yourself.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> They are not demanding
|
| I have to disagree on this one. They are prone to a myriad of
| diseases, mainly fungus: Phytophthora infenstans, Fulvia fulva,
| Botrytis cinerea, Mosaic Virus, Stolbur disease, and if you
| don't spray them with the right substances you'll lose a
| substantial part if not the whole crop, oftentimes lose it even
| if you spray them.
|
| Other than that I agree that home grown tomatoes are better. Of
| course you mustn't be stupid and buy some supermarket seeds,
| those are awful. Use local varieties, several of them as there
| are subtle differences in taste and flavor. Like "oxheart" for
| instance:
| https://gomagcdn.ro/domains2/planteieftine.ro/files/product/...
|
| Although I can buy local varieties from the grocery market and
| I do, they might not be just as good as a fresh one from the
| garden. Part of the reason is the difficulty in storing them,
| if you stack them one over another they will get crushed and
| you won't sell crushed tomatoes to the customers. So farmers
| tend to pick them when they aren't fully ripe and I freaking
| hate unripe tomatoes. Still they tend to be way better than
| supermarket "plastic tomatoes" offering.
|
| One tip, pick the smaller tomatoes, they tend to be sweeter. Or
| at least that's what I noticed.
| rini17 wrote:
| I lost some crops myself but tomatoes still fared better than
| other vegetables. It's not like some enormous investment?
| Having homegrown tomatoes every other year is better than
| nothing. If you have kids, it's a good lesson about
| difficulty of obtaining food from nature.
|
| I had success with mycorrhizal "good" fungi (brand Symbivit),
| they were keeping bad fungi away with visible difference
| between treated and untreated plants.
| jowdones wrote:
| Well it's depressing. My mother has a fairly large garden
| (some 1500 sqare meters) and takes quite some amount of
| labor to tend to it. So you work all spring and early
| summer only to see the crops wither away... makes you go on
| depression pills or just abandon the whole darn thing and
| buy Duch imported plastic vegetables.
|
| A bit unrelated, nowadays my mother was telling me a memory
| from her teenage years in the 60s. In early summer she'd
| come home for the weekend from boarding school in the city
| and her mother (my grandma) would greet her with lunch and
| a salad made from fresh cucumber and onion (add salt, oil
| and vinegar). It would be too early for tomatoes but she
| still remembers the taste of that early salad.
| rini17 wrote:
| 1500sqm is absolutely not needed for occasional
| nutritional enrichment. That's why I mentioned pot on
| balcony. But yes, being forced as kid to help tending big
| garden does leave some scars.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> being forced as kid to help tending big garden does
| leave some scars
|
| Heh, brings back trauma memories :) But I guess it's
| countryside vs city life. I see my city-boy kid and his
| friends, bored, staring at screens whenever they can and
| generally having a hard time figuring out what to do with
| their free time. Having grown in the countryside, the
| answer to that was easy "tend to the crops". It's not
| backbreaking work but can take huge chunks of your time
| and it's not exactly enjoyable, I mean I'd definitely
| have done something else, even staring at a wall but that
| wasn't an option. And it wasn't just me of course,
| everyone I knew was doing that. I recall with some
| amusement a friend of mine, in the context of summer
| vacation (hence lots of crop tending to do), exclaiming
| at some point "man, I can't wait for the school to start
| so I can get some relaxation".
| 317070 wrote:
| It's been a long lasting peeve of mine. I Live in London, where
| you can easily satisfy every kink, even the most exotic fruits
| and spices are found in every corner of the city.
|
| Yet, for the love of me, I cannot find any tasty tomato. Even if
| money is no issue, it just doesn't seem to exist? A giant void in
| a huge market? At this point, I'd pay 10x prices without
| blinking.
|
| It's fair that I cannot find them in winter, but even now, the
| heart of summer when they are the best, I cannot find any
| remotely resembling the ones found in big quantities in random
| Balkan supermarkets.
|
| How is it not a thing? Did Isle of Wight crush the market? Is it
| just me and there is no market?
| mirsadm wrote:
| I find pretty much all fruit and vegetables to be rubbish in
| Scotland. The only exception is the couple of things grown
| here. Which is baffling given if you fly for couple of hours
| you can get fantastic produce everywhere.
| inciampati wrote:
| You need sun and local intensive agriculture to grow them well.
| They taste better the more hot and stressed they are. It's just
| not something available in the UK?
| randunel wrote:
| Most Polish and Romanian shops sell tomatoes, but their prices
| are not capped at PS2/kg like Sainsbury's do.
| Const-me wrote:
| Here in Montenegro I go to a nearby green market, "zelena pijaca"
| in our language, and similar stuff is usually available. Often
| more expensive than the ones from Netherlands but still,
| commercially available without black market.
|
| However, availability of the good stuff depends heavily on the
| time of the year.
| wafflemaker wrote:
| 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 anybody from Poland visits us, they need to bring some
| malinowy (raspberry) tomatoes. Premium price, color slightly
| pinkish rather than true red, shape is a little bulbous, like a
| pumpkin, rather than perfect round like regular tomatoes.
|
| You can actually get them (or other good tomatoes) even in many
| supermarkets, tho it's best to go to a local produce market. And
| ofc best ones can be had from people growing their own.
|
| Same really goes for eggs - there is another dimension to taste
| and you get more sated eating less, if you can buy eggs from
| someone feeding the chicks properly. Though, if I had a car and
| knew a good source, I could probably buy better eggs here in
| Norway. However, supermarket eggs (and meat too) are much better
| in Norway. Most likely due to more stringent rules for animal
| farming, as Norway is not part of the EU and can have it's own,
| more strict rules. For example, Norwegian bacon doesn't smell
| like men's locker room after a football game (compared to
| swedish) and doesn't have a ton of water leave it when frying.
| em500 wrote:
| 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.com/what-are-the-best-eggs
| pnut wrote:
| 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 are absolutely differences in egg quality when it comes
| to boiling them.... Specific brands (some of the
| expensive/omega/free range etc ones too) reliably come out
| gelatinous and fiddly to peel. Some come out rubbery. Some
| just taste wrong and bland, even when I sprinkle with Maldon
| salt flakes. Not one egg, the entire batch.
|
| Over years of trial and error, I found a brand where I can
| guarantee a consistent textural outcome from my process, and
| every morning I exclaim "THAT is a good boiled egg" after
| finishing it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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).
| jddj wrote:
| It's the opposite for poaching, fresh hold together much
| better
| willyt wrote:
| I find that the cheapest kind of eggs poach much better
| because they have a much higher turnover in the supermarket
| so they are much fresher. The fancy omega eggs and other
| specialty ones are quite old in comparison.
| j7ake wrote:
| 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.
| Animats wrote:
| Romanian giant tomato. Buy seeds for US$3.99.[1]
|
| This would be a good project for the Open Source Farming Robot.
| Assuming you actually want a kilogram sized tomato.
|
| [1] https://www.davesseed.com/product/romanian-giant-tomato/
| schoen wrote:
| Looks like that particular supplier is in Tasmania and only
| ships to Australia!
| Animats wrote:
| It's a variety of beefsteak tomato, and those are widely
| available. At WalMart, even.[1] They're unusual, but not
| rare.
|
| [1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Beefsteak-Tomato-Plants-Two-
| Live-...
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| just grows your own
| Scoundreller wrote:
| get high off your own supply
| trte9343r4 wrote:
| 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".
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Just had a week on various Croatian islands. It's true that we
| were shocked by the cost of the food (EUR18 for a pizza in a
| restaurant) although put it down to the cost of importing the
| various ingredients. I wouldn't say any of the food was
| "horrible" though. We had a tremendous "meat plate" of grilled
| marinated chicken, pork and steak with potatoes.
| senko wrote:
| (Croat lounging on the Croatian coast right now)
|
| No, prices are high because they've been jacked up as high as
| the market will bear. As an example, an cup of coffee at a
| beach bar in a random coastal village (EUR2.5) is about the
| same as in the (touristy) center of London (PS2).
|
| The effects will probably be seen the next year.
|
| As other commenters noted, Croatia has historically been mass
| budget tourism location, largely undiscovered by
| comparatively wealthier western tourists (aside from
| Germans). Ultra-low taxes for "mom and pop" short-term
| rentals exacerbated the mass low-quality buildout.
|
| Now it's at a point where prices went up fast (due to euro,
| overall inflation and the tourist demographics changes), but
| the quality didn't catch up yet (generalizing a lot here).
|
| There's also been more vocal "anti tourist" sentiment
| (echoing protests in Barcelona, but just people complaining
| on blogs and in news) that will for sure get more momentum in
| the next few years.
| jq-r wrote:
| While I agree that the prices (of everything) went up, it
| wasn't due to adoption of euro. The grocery prices
| dramatically rised in the year before euro adoption due to
| inflation and then continued to rise after that.
|
| Also I do find it kind of funny when tourists are
| complaining about prices of food in touristy places. I've
| eaten a hamburger in Chicago which was $15 and food prices
| (restaurants etc) are comparatively much higher then in
| Croatia.
|
| At the same time, the prices in the grocery stores are
| completely out of control due to high taxes and makes
| living on the coast or islands as a local miserable and
| very expensive. Needless to say that housing is also
| totally out of wack, Croatia is not going in a good
| direction for it's own citizens.
| imp0cat wrote:
| The effects will probably be seen the next year.
|
| People say this every year and yet, it's always the same -
| the beaches get more crowded, the prices are higher, there
| seems to be no end to this.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >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.
| schrijver wrote:
| 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.
| kungito wrote:
| Croatia is having its "bully" tourism phase. They have been
| historically super cheap and undiscovered location up until
| 5-10 years ago and now that they are in EU and Schengen and
| it's actually nicer than some bigger mediterranean countries
| everyone started piling in. The locals which aren't really
| business savvy started doubling/tripling prices to see how far
| it can go without providing additional services or raising the
| quality to another level. From business perspective it does
| make actual sense since last few seasons after corona have been
| breaking records every year. Until there are actual
| consequences for raising per night booking prices from 100EUR
| to 200EUR from year to year nothing will change. I think that
| the reality is that people "in the know" like polish/chech
| families are being priced out because traditionally they didn't
| have as many western european tourists like Dutch or French and
| now it's on their radar
| trte9343r4 wrote:
| > think that the reality is that people "in the know" like
| polish/chech families are being priced out
|
| Not really. They are not poor anymore, and can afford it. But
| quality is just not there compared to Italy, Greece, Egypt...
|
| Only benefit for Polish and Czech tourist, they understand
| local language.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| I would be wary with "Slavic familiarity" while visiting.
| Slavs in Balkans furiously hate each other. It's safer to
| speak German or English.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Right, but that was mostly the issue of all the former
| Yugoslavia nations.
|
| Czechs 1) were not a part of Yugoslavia 2) have a long
| tradition of visiting the Adriatic sea.
| They are not poor anymore, and can afford it.
|
| The price increase in Croatia in the last few years is
| insane, especially near the tourist spots (= seaside).
| Czech people who want to save some money now usually turn
| to the other Balkan countries that are still quite cheap.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Last time I visited Croatia the summer two years before
| adopting EUR and all hospitality services wanted EUR. When I
| requested prices in kuna they were dismissive with "just
| convert from EUR to kuna in Google". I could easily spend
| less money while in Italy, Spain, or Greece. They aspire to
| place themselves as Switzerland of Adriatic, mostly for
| Germanic speaking tourists. Who wouldn't want to charge Swiss
| prices, duh. I say good luck Croats!
| imp0cat wrote:
| Yeah, Euro was widely accepted even before the country
| switched to it. But the prices were much lower.
| imiric wrote:
| > Croatia has horrible food
|
| Anthony Bourdain disagreed[1]:
|
| > This is world class food, this is world class wine, this is
| world class cheese. The next big thing is Croatia.
|
| This was in 2012, before Croatia joined the EU, but the culture
| of quality cuisine doesn't change in a decade.
|
| I can't speak about the prices, but I'm sure there are
| affordable restaurants and markets outside of touristy zones.
| Go to any popular place in the world, Greece included, and
| you'll pay the tourist tax.
|
| [1]: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8h8rqf
| apavlinovic wrote:
| 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
| different purpose:
|
| - Cherry for salads and side dish
|
| - Monte Carlo for cooking
|
| - Plum tomatoes for everything in between
|
| Croatia has incredible food, especially the local, homegrown
| stuff, and it is well worth the effort to get it.
|
| Here's an image of some of our crop: https://imgur.com/5FfdvG6
| defrost wrote:
| > Croatia has incredible food ..
|
| and a great 80's power pop surf band:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZCuCg-UM-U
|
| ( even if they were ex-pat croatians )
| dsego wrote:
| 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.
| imp0cat wrote:
| 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?
| dsego wrote:
| 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.
| sethammons wrote:
| My brother's mom talks about how tomatoes are not tomatoes
| anymore. They used to be soft and much tastier but it was bad for
| shipping. Old cartoons would show tomatoes splattering when
| thrown. The tomatoes I grew up with bounce.
| specproc wrote:
| 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 diverse, and rich in flavour and
| nutrients. I love our _real_ tomatoes. Traditionally served in a
| simple salad with cucumber, salt and herbs, but so good you can
| just cut them up, leave them in the sun for an hour, and devour.
|
| Supermarket tomatoes are a blight upon humanity: much higher in
| cost (where I live), devoid of taste, and available in only a
| handful of varieties. I dread the slow march of progress through
| our table.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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 in a cooler for two months.
| telesilla wrote:
| As far as I understand, greenhouse tomatoes, such as those
| from the Netherlands, lack flavour which the sun gives. Best
| tomatoes I ever had were In Cadiz in south of Spain, they
| were from the nearby town of Conil and had so much fullness
| and deliciousness, the plate was offered only as tomatoes and
| olive oil and we were satisfied. If you're in the area, ask
| for these tomatoes by name and you'll not be disappointed.
|
| In Mexico I've seen hectares and hectares of tomatoes left to
| rot on the vine because the price fell so low it wasn't worth
| to pick them. I'm still mourning all that unmade pizza sauce.
| koolba wrote:
| 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.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| 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 the board. "Real" foods (and many other products)
| are actually incredibly expensive. We don't count this along
| with inflation, but we should.
| jghn wrote:
| I get most of my meat from a local livestock farm. While I
| love the pork, and generally prefer the beef (took a while to
| get used to the more natural grass fed flavor), the thing
| that was real eye opening was the poultry. The chicken &
| turkey I get from them tastes ... well, it actually tastes
| like something.
| j7ake wrote:
| 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.
| downut wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| morsch wrote:
| 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.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Good heirloom tomatos are almost like a berry. So juicy and
| flavorful. There's nothing like it. Maybe you need seeds from
| American growers.
| ivanche wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.)
| lbourdages wrote:
| 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.
| voyager7 wrote:
| What country is that?
| elorant wrote:
| I live in Greece. While a lot of what the article says resonates
| with me, there's a small detail that changes everything. Climate
| change. The last two years I haven't eaten a decent tomato during
| summer. We had excessive heat waves the last two years,
| especially this year the whole summer is with temperatures above
| 35 which is unprecedented. This wrecks havoc in crops. It doesn't
| affect tomatoes only, fruits also aren't as delicious as they
| used to be, cucumbers seem tasteless and the list goes on.
| Eduard wrote:
| ah, the tomato supremacy chauvinism prevalent in Europe. Deeply
| rooted in all countries south the Alps. It is one of the last
| bastions standing hindering true unification.
|
| I have faced it so many times. It goes like this:
|
| - be from north of Alps, e.g. Germany
|
| - be on visit in south of Alps, e.g. country bordering
| Mediterranean Sea such as Spain
|
| - order dish containing tomato
|
| - unasked, get lectured by local acquaintance how "your"
| country's produce tastes trash and that you don't know how
| heavenly "their's" is.
| schoen wrote:
| Since the tomato (though not our modern varieties) first
| evolved in Mexico, isn't there some sense in the idea that it
| would grow better in hotter countries?
|
| (I'm sure that's not the only factor to which the "our tomatoes
| are best" advocates would attribute their tomatoes' quality.)
| moltar wrote:
| If anyone here is into these kinds of tomatoes, and is around the
| region - there'll be a tomatoe fest and a tasting competition in
| the north of Portugal.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/TomateDouro
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| I live near Lisbon and the tasty tomatoes from my childhood are
| now completely gone. Anything you can buy in any supermarket is
| absolute garbage, so much so that I only ever use prepackaged
| chopped tomatoes these days (those still taste decent).
|
| One of these days I should get in my car and drive all the way
| to the Douro just to fetch a bunch of tomatoes, I guess.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I remember the real tomatoes, they were larger and juicier, but
| lasted much less.
| j7ake wrote:
| If Dutch tomato's are all you can buy fresh, then try canned
| tomatos from Italy (eg San Marzano) to get actual flavor.
| GOONIMMUNE wrote:
| 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.
| Reason077 wrote:
| 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.
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