I will turn 78 in a week. I remember as a child going out into our little family garden with a salt shaker and eating fresh picked tomatoes, still warm from the midday sun.. Most people today have no idea how good a tomato can taste.
67 years old here. My dad grew a very large garden with many different vegetables. He also had an apple, peach, pear and prune orchard. When I got married and moved away I couldn’t figure out why all the fruit and vegetables we bought at the grocery stores had little to no taste. We went home to visit a few months later and stayed with my parents. Guess what the flavor of the fruit and vegetables were great. On our way home I told my wife we are going to save our money and buy 10 or 20 acres of land, build a house and I’m going to grow my own fruit and vegetables. It took a while but we did just that. We eat flavorful food now. Fruit, vegetables ,beef , pork, chicken and eggs.
The good thing here in Greece is that we are a mountainous country. The terrain does not allow much mechanization and this saved the taste of our crops.
I have an East Coast take on this, having grown up working on farms is South Jersey in the 1970’s. South Jersey is why New Jersey’s nickname is the Garden State. In the 1930’s Rutgers University bred three different varieties of tomato- the Morton, the Ramapo, and the Rutgers. Those three varieties were what the farms of South Jersey grew from the 1930’s up until the early 80’s. These tomatoes had an exceptional taste and earned New Jersey the best tasting tomato capital of the world. In the late 1970’s however, the companies that shipped those tomatoes began complaining that the tomatoes didn’t ship well, as they wanted to expand the market. They actually demanded that farmers produce varieties that would ship better, forcing the farmers to turn to newer varieties that held up to shipping but were lacking in flavor. As a side note, after farmers stoped planting the three varieties produced from back in the 30’s, those varieties were thought to have been lost, as in extinct. Then in the early 2000’s a retired Rutgers professor discovered that he still had some seeds. However those seeds were so old that attempts to get them to germinate were unsuccessful so seeds were sent to Israel, where more sophisticated technology and technics were available. Professor’s at an Israeli university were successful in getting seed to germinate and thus the Rutgers, Morton, and Ramapo varieties were brought back from extinction, and are now available online. If you have the right soil and climate, and like to grow tomatoes, I guarantee these are the best tomatoes you have ever eaten!I
@@angelachouinard4581 Good question! Joseph Campbell started the company in Bridgeton NJ back in the mid- late 1800’s. He was apparently a fruit merchant. Bridgeton at one time the seat of Cumberland County, used to have at least one tomato processing plant that I know of. In my day it was Hunt’s. The county had multiple tomato and pumpkin processing plants, the small town of Cedarville had Pappa’s and one other. South Jersey’s soil is very sandy, and sand is the main component in glass. So Owen’s Illinois also opened a glass factory in Bridgeton, along with Kerr Glass and Wheaton’s in Millville, no doubt they produced many of the bottles and jars Campbell’s and the other processing plants would have needed. The whole area was a great place to grow and produce fruit and vegetables, and to process and can them. So to answer to your question, I’d say that it’s highly likely that Mr Campbell started his business because of these favorable conditions, along with the great tasting South Jersey tomatoes.
When he said, "the tomato doesn't taste the same as the tomato from 60 years ago," I thought, "I wouldn't know - I wasn't around in the 1930's." Somewhat later I realized 60 years ago was 1964. How did that happen? Dang, I'm old!
I am lily white guy who was born in Africa. The fruit and veg taste like "heaven". I travelled to Britain and Denmark and Sweden, and oh my gosh what tasteless the fruit and vegetables were. Whenever I saw fruit that came from Africa, I would by them instead. Most of the tomatoes in EU are grown in Greenhouses, all vertically. I worked for 3 weeks in a tomato greenhouse. WOW, what backbreaking work that was! You would sit on your leg push trolley and you would twist your torso left to pick and then twist to the right and pick. It certainly was an experience
Well, HISTORY GUY; you've solved a riddle that has devilled me for decades. When I was a student back around 1970, I worked part-time at a local greengrocery - this was in the UK. Tomatoes being sold at that time had a flavour to die for. And the best of the lot - and slightly more expensive - were Dutch tomatoes. Munching one of those seemed to release 3 or 4 different strong & savoury flavours by degrees and without doubt they were my favourite of all the fruit and veg that was on sale. A sandwich of fresh bread, salted butter, Dutch tomatoes and mature cheese was truly the Food of the Gods in terms of flavour. Today, even the best "vine ripened" taste like cardboard. I've frequently asked random people, what has happened, but such is the fickleness of human memory and fashion that I've invariably been dismissed as a delusional old duffer. People have no idea how they've been cheated by the urge for profit. Strawberries have pretty much gone the same way too. Our foods are truly being ruined by big business...
This is why it's so important to keep a personal garden - so these heritage cultivars and growing techniques aren't lost (more than they already have been).
As a teen growing up in the early 1970s in Southwestern Ontario i still remember at the end of each summer the thrill of bringing home baskets of beautiful large ripe beefsteak tomatos. All you needed was a napkin and a salt shaker and you were set. For any young teen growing up now this is pretty much impossible now because those strains or varities don't exist,teens now have the latest video game to look forward to, not very tastey.
You might be surprised! Most of the really enthusiastic heritage breeders I know (vegetable and animal) are in their 20s or younger. I think a lot of the new generation are fed up with consumerism, and are taking an active interest in older ways. It gives me hope for the future.
My brother raises ‘heirloom’ tomatoes and I feel sorry for folks who don’t have access to fresh homegrown tomatoes. His different varieties of heirlooms taste incredible!
They didn't save the tomato industry, they killed it and raised a macabre parody in its place. The really sad part is how many clueless people just accept that this is what a tomato is. Another once good thing ruined by greed Today I grow my own indoors after mastering the fine art and skill of container gardening. The yield is but small, but for my needs, they serve well.
They also ship them very green/unripe so they're less likely to bruise and they get red by the time you buy them. The whole process just sucks for taste.
As a botanist tomatoes are definitely a fruit. A big part of why tomatoes have lost their flavour (in Canada anyway) is that they are bred for early harvesting and picked unripened (green) for shipping and shelf life convenience. A vine ripened, hand cultivated Roma, Sungold or Apero tomato will provide an unparalleled sweetness over any hothouse or beefsteak tomato.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket Classifying the tomato as a vegetable brought in more revenue. At the time of the lawsuit, imported vegetables were subject to a 10% tariff while imported fruits were not. An importer of Caribbean tomatoes, John Nix, argued that they were fruits and, thus, not subject to the tariff. The Supreme Court found that, while tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, etc. were biologically fruits, they were considered and treated as vegetables in the common language of the people. [Nix v. Hedden 149 U.S. 304 (1893)] As usual, it all boils down to money.
I still remember my grandfather walking to our garden we had, picking a tomato off the vine, and eating it like an apple. This was in the 70s. We would slice them up and put sugar on them, my mom would can them so we could enjoy them even in the dead of a Minnesota winter.
Spent my afternoons and summers helping on my grandad's subsistence farm. Was plowing behind a mule by 10 years old. It isn't just tomatoes that taste better coming from your own ground.
I have been raising and canning tomatoes for over 50 year. My Mom and Dad did the same. I have only eaten store bought tomatoes in salads in restaurants.
Most of us don't keep a garden. People I know that try to grow tomatoes produce about the same tasteless product because of poor available seeds. Farmer's markets for the most part buy from the same wholesalers that supply supermarkets. They buy boxed produce, take it back to a roadside location, often from the back of a pickup, and pretend they are selling local farmer produce. I don't bother with anymore either.
@@Theywaswrong I want to clear up a possible misconception you may have. Like you, my sister believed that farmer's markets were selling "boxed produce", because the boxes were the same as what she saw in the supermarket. When in reality, only a handful of box makers make boxes for produce, rendering all the boxes with the same generic logos.
This brings back memories of working on a tomato farm, in Hanover County, Virginia (home of the semi-famous, Hanover Tomatos, a minor character in Patricia Cornwall novels) as a pre/teen in the 60's for $5.00 a day. We set the plants using a young plant in a clod of dirt. One man following a wagon, picking up two plants at a time, using a grave diggers shovel, handing off, one to one side, then one to the other. Don't make him wait. Then we would set the clod, cover it with dirt like a dog digging a hole. Plain old stoop work. Repeat for hours. Then later we'd come back and put a wooden stake about 3 feet tall next to the plant, the over time tie the plant to the stake with a loose knot. Then sucker the plants (remove branches that weren't going to produce fruit) until finally there was fruit on the vine to be picked. Up and down the rows for hours, about 10-12 hours day at least six days, and sometimes after church on Sunday. Hard work, but for a 12-16 year old boy, it was the path to manhood. We were expected to work like men, and when we did, we were treated like men. Lunch was provided, either an almost feast at the farmers house, or maybe just bologna and bread, and an RC Cola out in the field. I wish I could do it all over again, but I'm an old man now, and the farm is a subdivision. Such is progress.
I'm at the other end. I (little red-haired girl) picked tomotoes with my step father's migrant family. And cukes. You really don't want the sunburns I got before the age of 14, when I refused to go anymore. I grow tomatoes at home now, when I can. All the fields that were healthy veggies around here are now corn and beans, and killing the soil.
Garrison Keillor said of the grocery store tomato: “they are STRIP MINED in Texas.” Compared to the tomatoes grown in Lake Woebegon backyards and elsewhere, he couldn’t have said it better.
I'm blessed to be living in a semi-rural (rural farm land that is slowly disappearing from housing developments) area, where there are still local farmer's that sell produce from roadside stands. Heirloom tomatoes, in multiple varieties (ever seen a purple tomato?) abound... I am so spoiled by their superior tastiness and freshness, that if I'm ever an forced to go back to supermarket produce, which I think I will eventually will be forced into, as more and more of the local farms disappears under the bulldozer.... I'm going to have a real difficult time adjusting. So much so, it just may force me into finally growing my own. But it's not only tomatoes... strawberries, cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, green beans and OMG white sweet corn... everything tastes way better and different than the mass produced plastic stuff sold in supermarkets. Part of the reason why super market produce has no flavor is they keep it in cold storage to extend the selling life. Nothing destroys the flavor more that something being kept in cold storage for weeks, before being placed in the produce section for sale. I have a novelty Southern recipe cookbook called "White Trash Cooking" by Ernest Mickler. It has a recipe for "Kitchen Sink Tomato Sandwich"; two pieces of bread (lightly toasted optional), coat with 1/4 inch of mayo on each slice, 2 vine ripened medium tomatoes, slice 1/4 inch thick and layer on bread, salt & pepper. Bring slices of bread together, roll up your sleeves and commence eating over of the kitchen sink as the juice runs down and drips from your elbows.... fat chance of that happening with store bought tomatoes!
@@Theywaswrong Yeah, I stopped going to those organized "Farmer's Markets" when I saw many of the seller pulling stuff from commercial packing boxes that go to supermarkets. Where I buy, there's no doubt about the origin of what they sell. The roadside stands are alone the edge of thier fields and nothing is in a box.
I have been growing tomatoes for years, wondering why they are so much better than the ones you could buy in a store, which feel taste-less in comparison. So I researched, and the reason is not directly because of mechanical harvest. It is so much easier to harvest and transport tomatoes when they are still green. Ripe tomatoes get bad in a few days, or even faster if handled. but green tomatoes do not have this problem. So today tomatoes are harvested and transported before they are ripe. But there is not a lot of money to be made from selling green tomatoes. Another discovery solved this last problem. When green tomatoes are exposed to ethylene gas (a powerful plant hormone) they ripen really quickly. So today tomatoes are harvested and transported green, and for just a day before they are put in shops they are exposed to ethylene gas. This plant hormone forces them to ripen really fast, and the next day good-looking red tomatoes can be sold in the supermarket. But this forced fast ripening of the tomatoes do not develop the same aromas as the natural slower ripening of tomatoes. And this is the real reason why store-bought tomatoes today do not taste as good as the home-grown ones.
Thanks for this interesting video, History Guy! This comment section is a joy to read. I'm 69 and I remember great tasting tomatoes from when I was a kid in California (1960s) and then from my grandmother's garden in Arkansas. I can't stand the taste of store-bought tomatoes.
In the summer of 1973 I worked on a tomato harvester in Lawrence County Illinois. It was on the prairie between Lawrenceville Illinois and Vincennes Indiana. The harvesters were on loan to the Powell Farm from Jolly Green Giant. The machine dug the entire tomato plant up out of the ground, up a conveyor belt to chains that jerked slack and taunt knocking off the tomatoes onto more conveyor belts on the sides of the machine. We separated the tomatoes to another conveyor belt and dirt clods and rotten tomatoes were discharged back to the ground. The good tomatoes were run up another conveyor belt to a semi trailer running next to our harvester. We were told the harvest was just for the production of catsup. It was a dirty experience for this 15 year old. I think I earned $1.15 an hour and all the tomatoes I could eat. I don’t recall there ever being another such harvest.
I used to pick tomatoes by hand every September in Eastern WA. Some of my first memories are crawling around in a blazing hot tomato field picking tomatoes to take home and can. I still have a scar on my knee from a pull tab aluminum can top. Love the video! Thank you History Guy!
Thanks Lance. Here at our home in TN, we celebrate the first ("REAL") tomatoes of the season each April or May. The South loves their locally grown tomatoes. Tomato pie, tomato gravy, canned tomatoes for winter, tomato sandwiches with a small bit of mayo and light salt and pepper, and of course, salads - not much better. Not uncommon around here for growers to take a nice tomato straight off the vine and eat it like an apple. That's a bit much for me, but each year in spring we await rescue from tasteless, cardboard store-bought "tomatoes".
As a person with a bit of produce purchasing experience, Almost all tomatoes and bananas are shipped green. They are "ripened" by using ethylene gas in sealed coolers. Check out the backend of any grocery.
Thanks for the great video THG! I met your mom at an ag journalist meeting for the NCBA and she gave me a THG challenge coin that I bring with me to any historical sight! If you don’t mind can I request you do a video on the not so distant history of the Commodity check off programs? Love your content and I’m glad I got to meet your lovely mother who has to be the source of your brilliance!
In the late 60's I picked tomatoes on a 17 acre Northern California farm. We had 50 lb lug boxes on a cart. These were for fresh market and not for the local canneries. I became and still am a bit of a tomato snob.
They're now trying to 'splice' or interbreed heirloom tomatoes back into commercial varieties to get the flavor back😮 I grow a variety called Everglades, they're tiny but prolific and taste amazing😅
Very well-done story. I think about these sad tomatoes often. Thankfully, we can buy cheap San Marzano tomatoes in a can from across the pond and they make a delicious Sunday gravy.
Victoria Coren Mitchell made that comment on QI (a British TV series). Then she tried a tomato in a fruit salad and said it was much better than she'd expected.
Throughout my childhood in California, my mom grew tomatoes in the backyard. We would try different varieties, but they were all good. She got to the point where she could get these softball sized beefsteak tomatoes that were to die for. Tomatoes you find in the store that taste like Styrofoam, just are a disgrace. Thanks for the history lesson, Professor.
I'm 31 and in Alaska but i grew up until age 8, in California. As a kid, my taste buds just weren't able to appreciate the fine taste of the tomato fruit. I see that as a blessing now, as going from vine ripened tomatoes, to the styrofoam hunks of crap we insultingly call tomatoes today, would have made my already severe childhood depression way worse!
I noticed a clear change in tomato quality in the early 2000s in Texas, I want to say it was 2002 or 2003. A hurricane hit Florida and the tomatoes were never the same after that, you could say I was a Burger King afficionado and it was clear their tomato supplier changed at that point and things just fell apart from there. I will forever remember the days of the $0.99 whopper with tasty tomatoes.
Growing up, I spent alot of time out in the family garden tending to the plants and doing a crap ton of weeding by hand. I always treated it as a form of punishment back then but looking back, it didn't matter what type of vegetable one might be talking about, EVERYTHING grown in that garden was perfect and delicious when compared to store bought vegetables. Sadly, today I don't currently have a garden as I'm too busy, I try to buy my vegetables from local farm stands over grocery stores even if they are more expensive for the best taste possible and to support the very few farmers left in my area.
What about the "Flavor Saver" tomato? It was the first genetically engineered food (I think) from the early 1980's. It was bought out and buried by Monsanto in favor of their round up resistant crops, ultimately giving genetically engineered foods a bad reputation, even though it was a good product. Would you consider looking into that story for us?
Very fascinating. Explains why there's so much sugar in tomato ketchup and sauces. We DO grow our own heirloom varieties, but it a constant battle to keep them protected from pests.
@@deplorabledegenerate2630 Yep. My father was a farm boy and we used to grow them in our backyard. But, for some reason, he bought seeds from the commercial varieties and we all disliked the taste.
I guess this explains why I loved tomatoes as a kid, would pick and eat them like they were fruit but don't like them now. Growing up, I had fresh tomatoes from the vines as a kid, but after moving to the US, they never tasted right. Now, I'll eat tomato products, just not the plain tomatoes by itself.
My children never tasted store bought tomatoes, cucumbers, zukes, peas, beans, corn until they left the house. With the price of food skyrocketing, they are setting up gardens wherever they might be.
@@nickc247 Heritage Roma tomatoes, overwhelmingly, some cherry, also heritage. I didn't think that was the issue. I have never thought I was growing something the stores didn't have stocked. It's 1: natural fertilizer 2: No insecticides, which does make it more difficult to grow, and 3: picked when they're ripe. The History Guy didn't mention it, but commercially grown tomatoes have to be picked when they're still green, or they'll be rotting before they get them to the store. There's nothing the farmers nor distributors can do about that. The middle man gasses them with ethylene to make them ripen. They are predictably tasteless no matter what. Any vegetable is tastier when home grown. Cucumbers taste like candy.
@@davidtaylor5204 Yes, especially number 3. That is the reason homegrown taste better. However, the original tomatoes you mentioned can't be found. What you are growing are the modified versions. This was what the core of this video was about.
Pity they are seasonal.......sure your could can them as my mom did back in the day for soups, stews and sauces, but having them fresh year round from your own garden here in BC is a not runner. Might be possible with a greenhouse perhaps.
Most people in the USA can grow tomatoes in their yard. Tomato plants are cheap. Find wood ash from clean burned wood just a little and your urine. It's free. Mix urine with water in a 5 gallon bucket. 10% urine to 90% water. Use cardboard without shiny stuff or plastic tape. Plain cardboard is best. Use fall leaves on cardboard. This keeps soil moisture more moist so the soil doesn't dry out. Keeps soil a little cooler. No weeding. Water the soil with urine water one or two times a week. Use water from a rain barrel if you can. Remember to water the soil not the plants. The urine will break down in the soil as a natural organic fertilizer. The plants cannot tell the difference in fertilizers be it man made miracle grow or organic from you. Organic fertilizer is much more forgiving so you're less likely to kill or damage your tomato plant. I do this with all the plants in my yard. Lilacs love it. Bushes love it. It doesn't smell and people will not notice unless they put their nose to the ground. In chemical fertilizer you'll see urea as a man made fertilizer. Urea sounds similar to urine don't it. They're both nitrogen. If you're taking medicine all the time or chemotherapy than please do not use that for a fertilizer.
I did it this year and don't know if that's why I got an astonishing crop of tomatoes like never before: 40 on my one plant which grew when I must have eaten a tomato outside and a seed escaped. I put it in a sunny position outside and watered it with the mixture twice a week. Maybe commercial growers buy better cropping varieties than an amateur gardener can buy. I've kept some seeds so I'll see how they grow next year.
This is the reason why when I buy tomatoes at the store, I usually buy Roma Tomatoes. They have more flesh, less seeds, easier to cut and a generally better flavor. Not to mention they are much cheaper. And yet, ironically, they were never intended for sandwiches or salads, being used almost exclusively in cooking - namely making sauces and soups. Indeed, when I once made little sandwiches with those tomatoes, for a pot-luck reception, the people there liked how well they tasted, compared to those "water bomb" tomatoes that are usually used. When I tell them what they are, they look at me like I'm from another planet, and say "Isn't that what's used in spaghetti sauce?' Afterwards, they get a little weirded out and stop eating the sandwiches. When I tell them that they DID taste good, they say they aren't used to it - one even stubbornly (and a bit angrily) told me that fresh tomatoes are SUPPOSED to be bland! Amazing how people's pretensions can blind them to new things and different approaches - going so far as to keep them, willingly, in a culinary "dark age", even in the face of actual evidence from tasting the things themselves!
I grow several different tomatoes, but when the season is over and I have to buy from the store, Roma is the only one I will buy. Tastes better than supermarket junk and doesn't water down my food. Especially salads and tacos. People who grew up on supermarket produce have no idea what produce is supposed to taste like.
@@morrismonet3554 that is also known as the Roma tomato… I live around and went to school with the people who grow those tomatoes and grew up with the initial builder in my back yard…
I'm sorry you're surrounded by such narrow - mindedness. Tell some people that life is "supposed to" suck and they will make darn sure it sucks. Roma tomatoes, from Rome unsurprisingly, are also what's used in caprese salad. A true joy.
I graduated from a California high school in 1971. My last two years, the Mexican guys in my class got special permission to leave school to pick tomatoes during the harvest season.
@@mkshffr4936 If you live in an apartment, it's not easy to produce your own beef or pork. Coconuts, bananas, avocados, shrimp, etc. are best left to the pros.
Most of this stuff is the result of artificial selection, not GMOs. Genetic modification is the synthetic process of altering genes instead of altering the same genes with longer, more difficult to achieve cross pollination and random genetic mutation. GMOs are so unpopular in the US that we wouldn't even accept them as a solution to the ongoing banana blight when our banana varietal is sterile, thereby excluding them from the widest concern category for informed opposition to GMOs, the chance of cross-pollination with a natural variety causing unpredictable consequences for the species. Ironically, you may theoretically be able to make a crisp tomato capable of withstanding harvesting without impacting the flavor profiles quite as much should you use GMOs, so long as the gene specific to the taste isn't also directly responsible for the strength of the plant. But that would just never happen in today's social climate because people don't seem to realize the potential health impacts of modifying specific genes in specific plants would have to be evaluated on a specific level, much like they honestly should be with the level of artificial selection we've put into engineering plants
My, your channel has grown. 635 comments in 4 days! Amazing. When I lived in Delaware, I would see trucks full of tomatoes go down the highway where every single tomato was green. I would learn that they throw an ethylene bomb in the back of the truck, seal it up, and wait for the gas to turn the tomatoes red. I never again questioned why tomatoes are tasteless. I grow my own now and can them for winter enjoyment. I currently have tomato plants in bloom in my greenhouse for my first attempt at winter hot-house tomatoes.
Not only are they tasteless because of selection for physical resilience, but also because of how our soils are mineral depleted, and hydronic fertilizers focus mostly on NPK. This means that the plants don't have the necessary precursors to do their chemistry to make complex flavonoids and terpenes. Having adequate NPK means that the fruits will grow big, but are significantly less nutrient-dense. That's why they're flavorless, it's all water. In healthy soil there are fungi, nematodes, bacteria, protozoa, etc. that all play important roles in converting organic material into nutrients in forms that are available to plants. A plant that only has it's NPK needs met may only be able to produce monoterpenes, while a plant that has every nutrient available to it can go on to produce diterpenes, triterpenes, etc. I'm not trying to push soil vs hydro, "organic" or "conventional", as all have their use cases and any method could theoretically provide adequate nutrients. It's just that, currently, the most nutrient dense produce is still grown in soil with all of the healthy flora and fauna of the soil food web.
Nice! I studied food science in college and been in food industry almost 25 years. I love these topics. The tomato grower and harvesting was still end up consolidated, regardless, how many varieties of tomatoes. It has been the nature of farming and agriculture in California for the past 40 years.
In the UK ours are still round. But they don't taste all that. But they do give a boost to a cheese sandwich at times. Nice low calorie bulk when added grilled to a breakfast too.
Lots of things seem to be losing flavor nowadays, such as apples. I don't even buy Honeycrisps (once a favorite) anymore because I got tired of them having almost no flavor! :( Crunchy water is no fun.
I enjoyed this story. It brought back fond memories of picking and eating the sweetest tomatoes in the world from our family garden when I was a child.
My mom had a small garden when I was growing up, in which we mostly grew tomatoes because, for whatever reason, they thrived in our Kansas climate. Anyway, I loved going out to the garden after school with a salt shaker, picking them still warm from the afternoon sun, and gorging myself. They were sooo good- sweet and fragrant. The tomatoes you buy in the grocery store might as well be a different fruit/vegetable altogether.
Until only a couple of years ago, believe it or not, the trains on one of the major rail line in the U.K. still dumped the ‘sewage’ from the onboard toilets out on to the sleepers between the tracks as the train moved. The rules said not to use the toilets whilst the train was in the station. Anyway, at our local station (end of a branch line) mysteriously tomato plants began growing up from between the rails where the train stopped….
That's insanely nasty. Trains are just allowed to dump human waste untreated onto the ground? In America RV's are required to have a black water tank. I have no idea if our trains are like yours but my goodness I hope not.
University of Florida has been developing a tomato bred to taste good. Really good. It's called the Garden Gem and they will send you seeds. I heard about it in the book "The Dorito Effect" (all about taste), got my hands on some seeds and have been very happy every summer since.
I grew up in Hayward, Hunt's cannery was a big employer for our town. Glorious smells issued forth from the factory at B and Main Street, Hayward, California. I miss that town...
I grew up on home grown vegetables and some fruits it’s all wonderful compared to grocery stores. One of my favorite ways to enjoy the first homegrown tomatoes of the year is White bunny bread with a big spoonful of Hellman’s mayonnaise on each side with a couple of layers of homegrown tomatoes sprinkled with salt. When the tomato and mayonnaise juices start flowing it’s one of the best things I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. It makes summertime just that much more enjoyable down here in this heat.
As a really small wanna be truck patch gardener. Ive alwayse wondered why folks fight the hightunnel tomatoes. Its the same spot of ground thats grown them before. They are just under a cover. The mechanical farming stuff is just amazing! Thank you
I took a page from my sisters book and bought some grow lights for my big closet. She laughed when I sent her a picture of flats full of tiny tomato plants, bell peppers, cucumbers, and squash. All started from heirloom seeds. I'm still harvesting tomatoes and peppers daily, but I'm running out of storage space. I have stewed tomatoes, salsa, sun-dried tomatoes, dehydrated tomatoes and tomato skins for seasoning. Yesterday I finished my second batch of ketchup from scratch. My kids love the homemade pickles, salsa, ketchup I've made these past couple of months. A couple of months ago, my son took a bite out of a cucumber I had just picked, he won't eat the ones from the store now.
I'm 74. When I was in high school, I worked as the boom operator on a tomato harvester one summer. Ive done a lot of other ag work including picking peaches and cutting apricots, but no job was worse than working on the harvester. But, I was thankful to be making my $1.75/ hr.
M&S have three main tomato varieties, two are on the vine, taste really good and have a lovely aroma when you open the pack. The third one, cheap, uniform in shape and size has virtually no taste or aroma even when cooked yet people continue to buy them.
Having worked in greenhouses, I saw that tomato’s were picked as soon as they started to turn red. Through experience you could pick a tomato that people would call green but you knew it was on the turn. The feed for tomato’s is all chemicals mixed up in a 1000 gallon container and pumped to the individual plants. The chemicals give the plants every nutrient they need except the taste.
Good topic! I remember reading about this, during college in the early 1980s 'Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times, : the Hightower report' covered the mechanization of the agriculture industry. It painted a sad picture of quantity over quality
I am from England. Most supermarket tomatoes grown in England taste wonderful. In the same stores, those from the Netherlands and Spain taste like water. I don't know why, but I vote with my wallet.
When you talk about changes to the supply chain and other areas of production, you should include auto body and glass shops that make a fortune in repair revenue during harvest season. When those "rock-like" projectiles bounce out of the trailers on the way to the processing plant, they do a LOT of damage.
It’s so easy to grow your own and the taste is so much better, I don’t know anyone who’s ever grown their own who would buy a store bought one unless it was utter desperation.
12:20 - Jokes on them: most of our tomatoes here in the National Capital Region either come from Mexico or Canada (Canada where they grow tomatoes in hydroponic farms using subsidized electricity from Ontario Hydro...)
Thanks for reminding me that my tomato patch has pretty much puttered out for the year. I won't be able to stand a store bought one for several months.
5$ for the plant. 10$ for the dirt. 10$ for the fertilizer. 10$ for the pot. 5$ for the plant stand. I might get a tomato out of it. Do it again next year.
I believe that the other reason why small garden tomatoes taste better is because you pick them when they are ripe. I suspect that commercially grown tomatoes are harvested a couple of weeks before they are completely ripe because they are more firm and survive the mechanical harvesting process with less damage. I think that those extra couple of weeks on the vine add a lot to the flavor.
Now I know why Mrs. Flege's tomatoes were so amazing! Hand grown, hand picked and placed in a box next to the road. Buy on the honor system. RIP Mrs. Flege.You are missed.
Less than 60 days until my 60th trip around the sun,we grew up on locally grown and hand picked tomatoes and could immediately tell the difference between real tomatoes and the ones on fast food burgers,sold in grocery stores,tomato paste,etc and never liked the modernized version of tomatoes, and modern green tomatoes do not fry up the same way as the real deal,and have nowhere the flavor,or great taste... We still grow the same tomatoes as back then and pick them by hand down here and since they're from the same seeds they haven't changed in taste,coloring,smell,feel,or anything...
I will turn 78 in a week. I remember as a child going out into our little family garden with a salt shaker and eating fresh picked tomatoes, still warm from the midday sun.. Most people today have no idea how good a tomato can taste.
We'd pick them off the vine and eat them like apples.
I'm 70 and I stopped buying tomatos. They just taste so bad. Waste my money.
I grow my own so I only eat tomatos in the summer/fall. Such is life.
I am 74 next week and did the same thing. I was for ever leaving the salt shaker in the tomato patch. 9:17 9:19
Simply put, you just made me smile.
67 years old here. My dad grew a very large garden with many different vegetables. He also had an apple, peach, pear and prune orchard. When I got married and moved away I couldn’t figure out why all the fruit and vegetables we bought at the grocery stores had little to no taste. We went home to visit a few months later and stayed with my parents. Guess what the flavor of the fruit and vegetables were great. On our way home I told my wife we are going to save our money and buy 10 or 20 acres of land, build a house and I’m going to grow my own fruit and vegetables. It took a while but we did just that. We eat flavorful food now. Fruit, vegetables ,beef , pork, chicken and eggs.
The good thing here in Greece is that we are a mountainous country. The terrain does not allow much mechanization and this saved the taste of our crops.
Italy also has tomatoes that 😂taste
All fine and well but your country has been an economic sht-hle for decades. At least have something to be proud of.
Thats not true. Tomatoes are also bad in Greece now.
@@mrk1224 Not all of them.
I have an East Coast take on this, having grown up working on farms is South Jersey in the 1970’s. South Jersey is why New Jersey’s nickname is the Garden State. In the 1930’s Rutgers University bred three different varieties of tomato- the Morton, the Ramapo, and the Rutgers. Those three varieties were what the farms of South Jersey grew from the 1930’s up until the early 80’s. These tomatoes had an exceptional taste and earned New Jersey the best tasting tomato capital of the world. In the late 1970’s however, the companies that shipped those tomatoes began complaining that the tomatoes didn’t ship well, as they wanted to expand the market. They actually demanded that farmers produce varieties that would ship better, forcing the farmers to turn to newer varieties that held up to shipping but were lacking in flavor. As a side note, after farmers stoped planting the three varieties produced from back in the 30’s, those varieties were thought to have been lost, as in extinct. Then in the early 2000’s a retired Rutgers professor discovered that he still had some seeds. However those seeds were so old that attempts to get them to germinate were unsuccessful so seeds were sent to Israel, where more sophisticated technology and technics were available. Professor’s at an Israeli university were successful in getting seed to germinate and thus the Rutgers, Morton, and Ramapo varieties were brought back from extinction, and are now available online. If you have the right soil and climate, and like to grow tomatoes, I guarantee these are the best tomatoes you have ever eaten!I
What a great story, I got a twofer one today, thanks😊
@@rebeccamartin2399 thanks, now you know more than you ever wanted about tomatoes!
Thanks for sharing. Great story. Weren't those Jersey tomatoes what started Campbell's soup in Camden NJ?
@@angelachouinard4581 Good question! Joseph Campbell started the company in Bridgeton NJ back in the mid- late 1800’s. He was apparently a fruit merchant. Bridgeton at one time the seat of Cumberland County, used to have at least one tomato processing plant that I know of. In my day it was Hunt’s. The county had multiple tomato and pumpkin processing plants, the small town of Cedarville had Pappa’s and one other. South Jersey’s soil is very sandy, and sand is the main component in glass. So Owen’s Illinois also opened a glass factory in Bridgeton, along with Kerr Glass and Wheaton’s in Millville, no doubt they produced many of the bottles and jars Campbell’s and the other processing plants would have needed. The whole area was a great place to grow and produce fruit and vegetables, and to process and can them. So to answer to your question, I’d say that it’s highly likely that Mr Campbell started his business because of these favorable conditions, along with the great tasting South Jersey tomatoes.
Cool
When he said, "the tomato doesn't taste the same as the tomato from 60 years ago," I thought, "I wouldn't know - I wasn't around in the 1930's." Somewhat later I realized 60 years ago was 1964.
How did that happen? Dang, I'm old!
The song “When I’m 64” comes to mind.
I still feel like the 90’s were 20 years ago
You are not alone.
Happens to us all! I guess our 20s are "our time" and people before that are old and after they are young!
I am lily white guy who was born in Africa. The fruit and veg taste like "heaven".
I travelled to Britain and Denmark and Sweden, and oh my gosh what tasteless the fruit and vegetables were.
Whenever I saw fruit that came from Africa, I would by them instead.
Most of the tomatoes in EU are grown in Greenhouses, all vertically.
I worked for 3 weeks in a tomato greenhouse. WOW, what backbreaking work that was!
You would sit on your leg push trolley and you would twist your torso left to pick and then twist to the right and pick.
It certainly was an experience
Grew buckets and buckets of heirloom tomatoes in my first garden this year. I'll never go back.
Cherokee purples. You can cross pollinate them with other tomatoes and end up with tasty results.
Increased CO2 is great for veggies!
@@patmcbride9853 So are Hurricanes ... Plenty of water !
@@Andres_1970 🤣
@@JoshJones-37334that affects the next generation of fruit not this one
Well, HISTORY GUY; you've solved a riddle that has devilled me for decades. When I was a student back around 1970, I worked part-time at a local greengrocery - this was in the UK. Tomatoes being sold at that time had a flavour to die for. And the best of the lot - and slightly more expensive - were Dutch tomatoes. Munching one of those seemed to release 3 or 4 different strong & savoury flavours by degrees and without doubt they were my favourite of all the fruit and veg that was on sale. A sandwich of fresh bread, salted butter, Dutch tomatoes and mature cheese was truly the Food of the Gods in terms of flavour. Today, even the best "vine ripened" taste like cardboard. I've frequently asked random people, what has happened, but such is the fickleness of human memory and fashion that I've invariably been dismissed as a delusional old duffer. People have no idea how they've been cheated by the urge for profit. Strawberries have pretty much gone the same way too. Our foods are truly being ruined by big business...
But at least the produce is cheap and plentiful, they might respond. (We won't talk about agrichemicals.)
This is why it's so important to keep a personal garden - so these heritage cultivars and growing techniques aren't lost (more than they already have been).
As a teen growing up in the early 1970s in Southwestern Ontario i still remember at the end of each summer the thrill of bringing home baskets of beautiful large ripe beefsteak tomatos. All you needed was a napkin and a salt shaker and you were set. For any young teen growing up now this is pretty much impossible now because those strains or varities don't exist,teens now have the latest video game to look forward to, not very tastey.
You might be surprised! Most of the really enthusiastic heritage breeders I know (vegetable and animal) are in their 20s or younger. I think a lot of the new generation are fed up with consumerism, and are taking an active interest in older ways. It gives me hope for the future.
My brother raises ‘heirloom’ tomatoes and I feel sorry for folks who don’t have access to fresh homegrown tomatoes. His different varieties of heirlooms taste incredible!
Love me a good ol heirloom beefsteak tomato
There is nothing better than fresh tomatos sliced on home made bread and mayo
Garden fresh tomatoes and home made bread I agree, but not the mayo.
They didn't save the tomato industry, they killed it and raised a macabre parody in its place. The really sad part is how many clueless people just accept that this is what a tomato is. Another once good thing ruined by greed
Today I grow my own indoors after mastering the fine art and skill of container gardening. The yield is but small, but for my needs, they serve well.
So that's why store bought tastes like sadness
They also ship them very green/unripe so they're less likely to bruise and they get red by the time you buy them. The whole process just sucks for taste.
Always awful.
Grow it yourself or you not eating right.
best description
Hahahaha lol.
When I buy fresh tomatoes, I spend a little extra to get the vine-ripened ones.
As a botanist tomatoes are definitely a fruit. A big part of why tomatoes have lost their flavour (in Canada anyway) is that they are bred for early harvesting and picked unripened (green) for shipping and shelf life convenience.
A vine ripened, hand cultivated Roma, Sungold or Apero tomato will provide an unparalleled sweetness over any hothouse or beefsteak tomato.
As a laymen even I know tomatoes are fruit. The idea SCOTUS found otherwise is absurd.
Roma is awfull. blee...
@@dataroman8111 not if you grow your own they’re not. They’re an excellent sandwich and sauce tomato.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket Classifying the tomato as a vegetable brought in more revenue.
At the time of the lawsuit, imported vegetables were subject to a 10% tariff while imported fruits were not. An importer of Caribbean tomatoes, John Nix, argued that they were fruits and, thus, not subject to the tariff. The Supreme Court found that, while tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, etc. were biologically fruits, they were considered and treated as vegetables in the common language of the people. [Nix v. Hedden 149 U.S. 304 (1893)]
As usual, it all boils down to money.
Vegetable: Edible plant or *edible part of a plant.*
Fruit: Seed bearing *edible part of a plant.*
A tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable.
I still remember my grandfather walking to our garden we had, picking a tomato off the vine, and eating it like an apple. This was in the 70s. We would slice them up and put sugar on them, my mom would can them so we could enjoy them even in the dead of a Minnesota winter.
Spent my afternoons and summers helping on my grandad's subsistence farm. Was plowing behind a mule by 10 years old. It isn't just tomatoes that taste better coming from your own ground.
The SCOTUS decision of 1893, although it sounds ridiculous, was due to the law that taxed fruits at a higher rate than vegetables.
Yes, it was regarding a tariff.
The supreme Court will ignore the dictionary in order to fund the government a few more bucks. That's what Nix taught me.
@@jonchowedictionaries deserve to be remembered.... Tell that to liberals!😂
I have been raising and canning tomatoes for over 50 year. My Mom and Dad did the same. I have only eaten store bought tomatoes in salads in restaurants.
Most of us don't keep a garden. People I know that try to grow tomatoes produce about the same tasteless product because of poor available seeds. Farmer's markets for the most part buy from the same wholesalers that supply supermarkets. They buy boxed produce, take it back to a roadside location, often from the back of a pickup, and pretend they are selling local farmer produce. I don't bother with anymore either.
@@Theywaswrong I want to clear up a possible misconception you may have. Like you, my sister believed that farmer's markets were selling "boxed produce", because the boxes were the same as what she saw in the supermarket. When in reality, only a handful of box makers make boxes for produce, rendering all the boxes with the same generic logos.
This brings back memories of working on a tomato farm, in Hanover County, Virginia (home of the semi-famous, Hanover Tomatos, a minor character in Patricia Cornwall novels) as a pre/teen in the 60's for $5.00 a day. We set the plants using a young plant in a clod of dirt. One man following a wagon, picking up two plants at a time, using a grave diggers shovel, handing off, one to one side, then one to the other. Don't make him wait. Then we would set the clod, cover it with dirt like a dog digging a hole. Plain old stoop work. Repeat for hours. Then later we'd come back and put a wooden stake about 3 feet tall next to the plant, the over time tie the plant to the stake with a loose knot. Then sucker the plants (remove branches that weren't going to produce fruit) until finally there was fruit on the vine to be picked. Up and down the rows for hours, about 10-12 hours day at least six days, and sometimes after church on Sunday. Hard work, but for a 12-16 year old boy, it was the path to manhood. We were expected to work like men, and when we did, we were treated like men. Lunch was provided, either an almost feast at the farmers house, or maybe just bologna and bread, and an RC Cola out in the field. I wish I could do it all over again, but I'm an old man now, and the farm is a subdivision. Such is progress.
❤
I'm at the other end. I (little red-haired girl) picked tomotoes with my step father's migrant family. And cukes. You really don't want the sunburns I got before the age of 14, when I refused to go anymore. I grow tomatoes at home now, when I can. All the fields that were healthy veggies around here are now corn and beans, and killing the soil.
I wouldn't call it "progress".
Memories of visiting my grandparents in Virginia and eating Hanover tomatoes. They are the best tomatoes I have tasted anywhere.
We would all do well to experience some version of your early years.
Garrison Keillor said of the grocery store tomato: “they are STRIP MINED in Texas.” Compared to the tomatoes grown in Lake Woebegon backyards and elsewhere, he couldn’t have said it better.
I have often referred to Keillor on various subjects. This is the first time I have seen someone else mention him.
I'm blessed to be living in a semi-rural (rural farm land that is slowly disappearing from housing developments) area, where there are still local farmer's that sell produce from roadside stands. Heirloom tomatoes, in multiple varieties (ever seen a purple tomato?) abound... I am so spoiled by their superior tastiness and freshness, that if I'm ever an forced to go back to supermarket produce, which I think I will eventually will be forced into, as more and more of the local farms disappears under the bulldozer.... I'm going to have a real difficult time adjusting. So much so, it just may force me into finally growing my own. But it's not only tomatoes... strawberries, cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, green beans and OMG white sweet corn... everything tastes way better and different than the mass produced plastic stuff sold in supermarkets. Part of the reason why super market produce has no flavor is they keep it in cold storage to extend the selling life. Nothing destroys the flavor more that something being kept in cold storage for weeks, before being placed in the produce section for sale.
I have a novelty Southern recipe cookbook called "White Trash Cooking" by Ernest Mickler. It has a recipe for "Kitchen Sink Tomato Sandwich"; two pieces of bread (lightly toasted optional), coat with 1/4 inch of mayo on each slice, 2 vine ripened medium tomatoes, slice 1/4 inch thick and layer on bread, salt & pepper. Bring slices of bread together, roll up your sleeves and commence eating over of the kitchen sink as the juice runs down and drips from your elbows.... fat chance of that happening with store bought tomatoes!
I can't find any roadside "farmer's market" produce that doesn't come from the same tasteless produce suppliers for supermarkets.
@@Theywaswrong Yeah, I stopped going to those organized "Farmer's Markets" when I saw many of the seller pulling stuff from commercial packing boxes that go to supermarkets. Where I buy, there's no doubt about the origin of what they sell. The roadside stands are alone the edge of thier fields and nothing is in a box.
I have been growing tomatoes for years, wondering why they are so much better than the ones you could buy in a store, which feel taste-less in comparison. So I researched, and the reason is not directly because of mechanical harvest.
It is so much easier to harvest and transport tomatoes when they are still green. Ripe tomatoes get bad in a few days, or even faster if handled. but green tomatoes do not have this problem. So today tomatoes are harvested and transported before they are ripe. But there is not a lot of money to be made from selling green tomatoes. Another discovery solved this last problem.
When green tomatoes are exposed to ethylene gas (a powerful plant hormone) they ripen really quickly. So today tomatoes are harvested and transported green, and for just a day before they are put in shops they are exposed to ethylene gas. This plant hormone forces them to ripen really fast, and the next day good-looking red tomatoes can be sold in the supermarket.
But this forced fast ripening of the tomatoes do not develop the same aromas as the natural slower ripening of tomatoes. And this is the real reason why store-bought tomatoes today do not taste as good as the home-grown ones.
Thanks for this interesting video, History Guy! This comment section is a joy to read. I'm 69 and I remember great tasting tomatoes from when I was a kid in California (1960s) and then from my grandmother's garden in Arkansas. I can't stand the taste of store-bought tomatoes.
I appreciate you History Guy! You deserve to be remembered!
He's a liar. Another lying grifter.
He appears to be alive that's kind of a creepy thing to say
@@ChromeDome420 An you're an asshat.
@@ChromeDome420-How so? But I do believe he’s a lefty Democrap... (he let politics slip once early on. No respect for him since)
In the summer of 1973 I worked on a tomato harvester in Lawrence County Illinois. It was on the prairie between Lawrenceville Illinois and Vincennes Indiana. The harvesters were on loan to the Powell Farm from Jolly Green Giant. The machine dug the entire tomato plant up out of the ground, up a conveyor belt to chains that jerked slack and taunt knocking off the tomatoes onto more conveyor belts on the sides of the machine. We separated the tomatoes to another conveyor belt and dirt clods and rotten tomatoes were discharged back to the ground. The good tomatoes were run up another conveyor belt to a semi trailer running next to our harvester.
We were told the harvest was just for the production of catsup. It was a dirty experience for this 15 year old. I think I earned $1.15 an hour and all the tomatoes I could eat.
I don’t recall there ever being another such harvest.
I used to pick tomatoes by hand every September in Eastern WA. Some of my first memories are crawling around in a blazing hot tomato field picking tomatoes to take home and can. I still have a scar on my knee from a pull tab aluminum can top. Love the video! Thank you History Guy!
Thanks Lance. Here at our home in TN, we celebrate the first ("REAL") tomatoes of the season each April or May. The South loves their locally grown tomatoes. Tomato pie, tomato gravy, canned tomatoes for winter, tomato sandwiches with a small bit of mayo and light salt and pepper, and of course, salads - not much better. Not uncommon around here for growers to take a nice tomato straight off the vine and eat it like an apple. That's a bit much for me, but each year in spring we await rescue from tasteless, cardboard store-bought "tomatoes".
I was just talking to my mother about tasteless tomatoes yesterday!
As a person with a bit of produce purchasing experience, Almost all tomatoes and bananas are shipped green. They are "ripened" by using ethylene gas in sealed coolers. Check out the backend of any grocery.
Thanks for the great video THG! I met your mom at an ag journalist meeting for the NCBA and she gave me a THG challenge coin that I bring with me to any historical sight! If you don’t mind can I request you do a video on the not so distant history of the Commodity check off programs? Love your content and I’m glad I got to meet your lovely mother who has to be the source of your brilliance!
In the late 60's I picked tomatoes on a 17 acre Northern California farm. We had 50 lb lug boxes on a cart. These were for fresh market and not for the local canneries. I became and still am a bit of a tomato snob.
They're now trying to 'splice' or interbreed heirloom tomatoes back into commercial varieties to get the flavor back😮
I grow a variety called Everglades, they're tiny but prolific and taste amazing😅
4th of Julys have a good flavor.
Very well-done story. I think about these sad tomatoes often. Thankfully, we can buy cheap San Marzano tomatoes in a can from across the pond and they make a delicious Sunday gravy.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing it doesn't belong in a fruit salad.
My favorite fruit is Avocado. 😇
Victoria Coren Mitchell made that comment on QI (a British TV series). Then she tried a tomato in a fruit salad and said it was much better than she'd expected.
no
@@mkshffr4936 An avocado isn't a fruit, it's an indulgance😁
Philosophy is asking whether ketchup is a smoothie
Throughout my childhood in California, my mom grew tomatoes in the backyard. We would try different varieties, but they were all good. She got to the point where she could get these softball sized beefsteak tomatoes that were to die for. Tomatoes you find in the store that taste like Styrofoam, just are a disgrace. Thanks for the history lesson, Professor.
I'm 31 and in Alaska but i grew up until age 8, in California. As a kid, my taste buds just weren't able to appreciate the fine taste of the tomato fruit. I see that as a blessing now, as going from vine ripened tomatoes, to the styrofoam hunks of crap we insultingly call tomatoes today, would have made my already severe childhood depression way worse!
I like the new intro video part . My Grandfather complained about damn hothouse tomatoes in the 70s
You do it again. You find a way to take something as common and ubiquitous as a tomato and turn it into a compelling lesson in history.
I noticed a clear change in tomato quality in the early 2000s in Texas, I want to say it was 2002 or 2003. A hurricane hit Florida and the tomatoes were never the same after that, you could say I was a Burger King afficionado and it was clear their tomato supplier changed at that point and things just fell apart from there. I will forever remember the days of the $0.99 whopper with tasty tomatoes.
I go to Farmer markets to get tomatoes when they are in season. I've always hated tomatoes at Walmart because they taste like nothing but water
In the UK strawberries are totally tasteless unless you grow your own
The imported Spannish ones are..abysmal
@@somethingelse4878 they pick em before they are ripe.
@@Kickthelighter they're sour like a lemon
Why did the tomato turn red?
It saw the salad dressing.
😂
groan😂
Thanks Dad!
Terrible. Good job.
This joke had to be a thousand years old.
Incredible video with yet ANOTHER incredible video opening (the rolling farm)!
Growing up, I spent alot of time out in the family garden tending to the plants and doing a crap ton of weeding by hand. I always treated it as a form of punishment back then but looking back, it didn't matter what type of vegetable one might be talking about, EVERYTHING grown in that garden was perfect and delicious when compared to store bought vegetables. Sadly, today I don't currently have a garden as I'm too busy, I try to buy my vegetables from local farm stands over grocery stores even if they are more expensive for the best taste possible and to support the very few farmers left in my area.
What about the "Flavor Saver" tomato?
It was the first genetically engineered food (I think) from the early 1980's. It was bought out and buried by Monsanto in favor of their round up resistant crops, ultimately giving genetically engineered foods a bad reputation, even though it was a good product.
Would you consider looking into that story for us?
Very fascinating. Explains why there's so much sugar in tomato ketchup and sauces. We DO grow our own heirloom varieties, but it a constant battle to keep them protected from pests.
I first noticed the taste difference in 1971. It's when the local farmers switched to Floridade tomatoes.
I am a 'young un' born in the 80s, but was raised on a farm so I had access to actual food.
It is surreal how different it is.
@@deplorabledegenerate2630 Yep. My father was a farm boy and we used to grow them in our backyard. But, for some reason, he bought seeds from the commercial varieties and we all disliked the taste.
I guess this explains why I loved tomatoes as a kid, would pick and eat them like they were fruit but don't like them now. Growing up, I had fresh tomatoes from the vines as a kid, but after moving to the US, they never tasted right. Now, I'll eat tomato products, just not the plain tomatoes by itself.
@@MacTX get ya some 5 gallon bucket and grow a few. They aren't hard to keep happy.
Seriously, I've had it with you assholes constantly making me feel like shit because of where I was born. Go to hell.
My children never tasted store bought tomatoes, cucumbers, zukes, peas, beans, corn until they left the house. With the price of food skyrocketing, they are setting up gardens wherever they might be.
As much as your homegrown tomatoes probably taste much better than the store bought, sadly, they are the same type of tomato.
@@nickc247 Heritage Roma tomatoes, overwhelmingly, some cherry, also heritage. I didn't think that was the issue. I have never thought I was growing something the stores didn't have stocked. It's 1: natural fertilizer 2: No insecticides, which does make it more difficult to grow, and 3: picked when they're ripe. The History Guy didn't mention it, but commercially grown tomatoes have to be picked when they're still green, or they'll be rotting before they get them to the store. There's nothing the farmers nor distributors can do about that. The middle man gasses them with ethylene to make them ripen. They are predictably tasteless no matter what. Any vegetable is tastier when home grown. Cucumbers taste like candy.
@@davidtaylor5204 Yes, especially number 3. That is the reason homegrown taste better. However, the original tomatoes you mentioned can't be found. What you are growing are the modified versions. This was what the core of this video was about.
Home grown tomatoes eaten fresh off the vine are just the best! Yum yum yum yum. We're getting them right now o in early Autumn and love it.
Pity they are seasonal.......sure your could can them as my mom did back in the day for soups, stews and sauces, but having them fresh year round from your own garden here in BC is a not runner. Might be possible with a greenhouse perhaps.
Most people in the USA can grow tomatoes in their yard. Tomato plants are cheap. Find wood ash from clean burned wood just a little and your urine. It's free. Mix urine with water in a 5 gallon bucket. 10% urine to 90% water. Use cardboard without shiny stuff or plastic tape. Plain cardboard is best. Use fall leaves on cardboard. This keeps soil moisture more moist so the soil doesn't dry out. Keeps soil a little cooler. No weeding. Water the soil with urine water one or two times a week. Use water from a rain barrel if you can. Remember to water the soil not the plants. The urine will break down in the soil as a natural organic fertilizer. The plants cannot tell the difference in fertilizers be it man made miracle grow or organic from you. Organic fertilizer is much more forgiving so you're less likely to kill or damage your tomato plant. I do this with all the plants in my yard. Lilacs love it. Bushes love it. It doesn't smell and people will not notice unless they put their nose to the ground.
In chemical fertilizer you'll see urea as a man made fertilizer. Urea sounds similar to urine don't it. They're both nitrogen. If you're taking medicine all the time or chemotherapy than please do not use that for a fertilizer.
I did it this year and don't know if that's why I got an astonishing crop of tomatoes like never before: 40 on my one plant which grew when I must have eaten a tomato outside and a seed escaped.
I put it in a sunny position outside and watered it with the mixture twice a week.
Maybe commercial growers buy better cropping varieties than an amateur gardener can buy.
I've kept some seeds so I'll see how they grow next year.
Home grown and vine ripen are the best.
This is the reason why when I buy tomatoes at the store, I usually buy Roma Tomatoes. They have more flesh, less seeds, easier to cut and a generally better flavor. Not to mention they are much cheaper. And yet, ironically, they were never intended for sandwiches or salads, being used almost exclusively in cooking - namely making sauces and soups.
Indeed, when I once made little sandwiches with those tomatoes, for a pot-luck reception, the people there liked how well they tasted, compared to those "water bomb" tomatoes that are usually used. When I tell them what they are, they look at me like I'm from another planet, and say "Isn't that what's used in spaghetti sauce?' Afterwards, they get a little weirded out and stop eating the sandwiches. When I tell them that they DID taste good, they say they aren't used to it - one even stubbornly (and a bit angrily) told me that fresh tomatoes are SUPPOSED to be bland!
Amazing how people's pretensions can blind them to new things and different approaches - going so far as to keep them, willingly, in a culinary "dark age", even in the face of actual evidence from tasting the things themselves!
I grow several different tomatoes, but when the season is over and I have to buy from the store, Roma is the only one I will buy. Tastes better than supermarket junk and doesn't water down my food. Especially salads and tacos. People who grew up on supermarket produce have no idea what produce is supposed to taste like.
The Roma tomato is exactly the tomato he is talking about.
@@timcrew1982 Wrong. It is the hybrid round tomatoes he's talking about. Pay attention.
@@morrismonet3554 that is also known as the Roma tomato… I live around and went to school with the people who grow those tomatoes and grew up with the initial builder in my back yard…
I'm sorry you're surrounded by such narrow - mindedness. Tell some people that life is "supposed to" suck and they will make darn sure it sucks. Roma tomatoes, from Rome unsurprisingly, are also what's used in caprese salad. A true joy.
I graduated from a California high school in 1971. My last two years, the Mexican guys in my class got special permission to leave school to pick tomatoes during the harvest season.
Well,
that solves a long running mystery in my mind
I have always known homegrown tomatoes taste way better than store bought tomatoes.
Yep! Home grown anything is always better!
Homegrown garlic is fantastic
There are plenty of things that are definitely not worth growing at home
@@MikehMike01For example?
@@mkshffr4936 wheat, sugar, corn, soybeans, onions, garlic, carrots
@@mkshffr4936 If you live in an apartment, it's not easy to produce your own beef or pork. Coconuts, bananas, avocados, shrimp, etc. are best left to the pros.
Not a single word on GMOs
What???
Most of this stuff is the result of artificial selection, not GMOs. Genetic modification is the synthetic process of altering genes instead of altering the same genes with longer, more difficult to achieve cross pollination and random genetic mutation. GMOs are so unpopular in the US that we wouldn't even accept them as a solution to the ongoing banana blight when our banana varietal is sterile, thereby excluding them from the widest concern category for informed opposition to GMOs, the chance of cross-pollination with a natural variety causing unpredictable consequences for the species.
Ironically, you may theoretically be able to make a crisp tomato capable of withstanding harvesting without impacting the flavor profiles quite as much should you use GMOs, so long as the gene specific to the taste isn't also directly responsible for the strength of the plant. But that would just never happen in today's social climate because people don't seem to realize the potential health impacts of modifying specific genes in specific plants would have to be evaluated on a specific level, much like they honestly should be with the level of artificial selection we've put into engineering plants
My, your channel has grown. 635 comments in 4 days! Amazing. When I lived in Delaware, I would see trucks full of tomatoes go down the highway where every single tomato was green. I would learn that they throw an ethylene bomb in the back of the truck, seal it up, and wait for the gas to turn the tomatoes red. I never again questioned why tomatoes are tasteless. I grow my own now and can them for winter enjoyment. I currently have tomato plants in bloom in my greenhouse for my first attempt at winter hot-house tomatoes.
Not only are they tasteless because of selection for physical resilience, but also because of how our soils are mineral depleted, and hydronic fertilizers focus mostly on NPK. This means that the plants don't have the necessary precursors to do their chemistry to make complex flavonoids and terpenes. Having adequate NPK means that the fruits will grow big, but are significantly less nutrient-dense. That's why they're flavorless, it's all water.
In healthy soil there are fungi, nematodes, bacteria, protozoa, etc. that all play important roles in converting organic material into nutrients in forms that are available to plants. A plant that only has it's NPK needs met may only be able to produce monoterpenes, while a plant that has every nutrient available to it can go on to produce diterpenes, triterpenes, etc.
I'm not trying to push soil vs hydro, "organic" or "conventional", as all have their use cases and any method could theoretically provide adequate nutrients. It's just that, currently, the most nutrient dense produce is still grown in soil with all of the healthy flora and fauna of the soil food web.
Nice! I studied food science in college and been in food industry almost 25 years. I love these topics.
The tomato grower and harvesting was still end up consolidated, regardless, how many varieties of tomatoes. It has been the nature of farming and agriculture in California for the past 40 years.
In the UK ours are still round. But they don't taste all that. But they do give a boost to a cheese sandwich at times. Nice low calorie bulk when added grilled to a breakfast too.
Lots of things seem to be losing flavor nowadays, such as apples. I don't even buy Honeycrisps (once a favorite) anymore because I got tired of them having almost no flavor! :( Crunchy water is no fun.
I had home grown Tomatoes growing up. I
miss that taste. 😔 I guess I need to grow
them myself. Mom grew the other ones.🤗
They were good. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The solution for a good tomato is grow your own. Every body can do it everywhere in the US.
I enjoyed this story. It brought back fond memories of picking and eating the sweetest tomatoes in the world from our family garden when I was a child.
My mom had a small garden when I was growing up, in which we mostly grew tomatoes because, for whatever reason, they thrived in our Kansas climate. Anyway, I loved going out to the garden after school with a salt shaker, picking them still warm from the afternoon sun, and gorging myself. They were sooo good- sweet and fragrant. The tomatoes you buy in the grocery store might as well be a different fruit/vegetable altogether.
An excellent show, sir. kudos again
Thank you for the lesson.
Until only a couple of years ago, believe it or not, the trains on one of the major rail line in the U.K. still dumped the ‘sewage’ from the onboard toilets out on to the sleepers between the tracks as the train moved. The rules said not to use the toilets whilst the train was in the station. Anyway, at our local station (end of a branch line) mysteriously tomato plants began growing up from between the rails where the train stopped….
That's insanely nasty. Trains are just allowed to dump human waste untreated onto the ground? In America RV's are required to have a black water tank. I have no idea if our trains are like yours but my goodness I hope not.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket the trains have been replaced now and store their human waste much like an aeroplane does.
When I was a kid. Quite a few people went down to the town’s sewer plant to get the tomato plants. They would grow in the what was called cake.
Love the new opening!
University of Florida has been developing a tomato bred to taste good. Really good. It's called the Garden Gem and they will send you seeds. I heard about it in the book "The Dorito Effect" (all about taste), got my hands on some seeds and have been very happy every summer since.
I grew up in Hayward, Hunt's cannery was a big employer for our town. Glorious smells issued forth from the factory at B and Main Street, Hayward, California. I miss that town...
I grew up on home grown vegetables and some fruits it’s all wonderful compared to grocery stores.
One of my favorite ways to enjoy the first homegrown tomatoes of the year is
White bunny bread with a big spoonful of Hellman’s mayonnaise on each side with a couple of layers of homegrown tomatoes sprinkled with salt. When the tomato and mayonnaise juices start flowing it’s one of the best things I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.
It makes summertime just that much more enjoyable down here in this heat.
As a really small wanna be truck patch gardener. Ive alwayse wondered why folks fight the hightunnel tomatoes. Its the same spot of ground thats grown them before. They are just under a cover. The mechanical farming stuff is just amazing! Thank you
I took a page from my sisters book and bought some grow lights for my big closet. She laughed when I sent her a picture of flats full of tiny tomato plants, bell peppers, cucumbers, and squash. All started from heirloom seeds.
I'm still harvesting tomatoes and peppers daily, but I'm running out of storage space. I have stewed tomatoes, salsa, sun-dried tomatoes, dehydrated tomatoes and tomato skins for seasoning. Yesterday I finished my second batch of ketchup from scratch.
My kids love the homemade pickles, salsa, ketchup I've made these past couple of months.
A couple of months ago, my son took a bite out of a cucumber I had just picked, he won't eat the ones from the store now.
HEY HG ! No kidding ! I grew tom's this year, (and I truly rocked it)(o.k. for once) they were great !
I'm 74. When I was in high school, I worked as the boom operator on a tomato harvester one summer. Ive done a lot of other ag work including picking peaches and cutting apricots, but no job was worse than working on the harvester. But, I was thankful to be making my $1.75/ hr.
M&S have three main tomato varieties, two are on the vine, taste really good and have a lovely aroma when you open the pack. The third one, cheap, uniform in shape and size has virtually no taste or aroma even when cooked yet people continue to buy them.
There is a BIG difference between a store-bought tomato and a homegrown tomato. The homegrown wins the taste test every single time.
Having worked in greenhouses, I saw that tomato’s were picked as soon as they started to turn red. Through experience you could pick a tomato that people would call green but you knew it was on the turn. The feed for tomato’s is all chemicals mixed up in a 1000 gallon container and pumped to the individual plants. The chemicals give the plants every nutrient they need except the taste.
Good topic! I remember reading about this, during college in the early 1980s
'Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times, : the Hightower report' covered the mechanization of the agriculture industry.
It painted a sad picture of quantity over quality
I am from England. Most supermarket tomatoes grown in England taste wonderful.
In the same stores, those from the Netherlands and Spain taste like water.
I don't know why, but I vote with my wallet.
When you talk about changes to the supply chain and other areas of production, you should include auto body and glass shops that make a fortune in repair revenue during harvest season. When those "rock-like" projectiles bounce out of the trailers on the way to the processing plant, they do a LOT of damage.
Gen-X kid here. I hated tomatoes until I started growing my own.
History that I didn’t need to know, that I will never forget! Very well done, sir
I appreciate you and thank you for making content.
It’s so easy to grow your own and the taste is so much better, I don’t know anyone who’s ever grown their own who would buy a store bought one unless it was utter desperation.
12:20 - Jokes on them: most of our tomatoes here in the National Capital Region either come from Mexico or Canada (Canada where they grow tomatoes in hydroponic farms using subsidized electricity from Ontario Hydro...)
Thanks for reminding me that my tomato patch has pretty much puttered out for the year. I won't be able to stand a store bought one for several months.
I cut back on my tomato plants this year. Only planted 30 tomatoes. This year they didn't produce very well. None of the garden performed well.
Start canning next year.
If you can tomatoes with onions, garlic, salt, and pepper; you have a tomato base that you can use for a multitude of dishes.
I've already started a batch of cherry tomatoes indoors!
7:28 A bold claim
5$ for the plant. 10$ for the dirt. 10$ for the fertilizer. 10$ for the pot. 5$ for the plant stand. I might get a tomato out of it. Do it again next year.
So that’s why small garden tomatoes taste so much better. We can plant the better varieties. Very interesting!
I believe that the other reason why small garden tomatoes taste better is because you pick them when they are ripe. I suspect that commercially grown tomatoes are harvested a couple of weeks before they are completely ripe because they are more firm and survive the mechanical harvesting process with less damage. I think that those extra couple of weeks on the vine add a lot to the flavor.
Homegrowns are in a class by themselves.
Growing tomatoes at home rules. I love how mine look and smell, and obviously, taste. Thank you for the lesson history guy!
Highly recommend Early Girls. We're still getting delicious, huge, low-seed tomatoes in October, and we got our first tomato in May.
Cool intro.
Going to listen to Guy Clark's "Home Grown Tomatoes" song next.
Always a good choice.
For a musical summation check out Guy Clark's song "Homegrown Tomatoes."
Now I know why Mrs. Flege's tomatoes were so amazing! Hand grown, hand picked and placed in a box next to the road. Buy on the honor system. RIP Mrs. Flege.You are missed.
Thank you!
Less than 60 days until my 60th trip around the sun,we grew up on locally grown and hand picked tomatoes and could immediately tell the difference between real tomatoes and the ones on fast food burgers,sold in grocery stores,tomato paste,etc and never liked the modernized version of tomatoes, and modern green tomatoes do not fry up the same way as the real deal,and have nowhere the flavor,or great taste... We still grow the same tomatoes as back then and pick them by hand down here and since they're from the same seeds they haven't changed in taste,coloring,smell,feel,or anything...
Yep! If you want to taste any good veggies, or fruits go to a hometown Farmers market and get heirloom tomatoes, they are an eye opener.