The Tomato Question Illuminated

Eventually someone was going to examine the question of why so many tomatoes are so tasteless and awful and how that came about. Well, as Walt Kelly said, "We have met the enemy and he is us".

www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/06/28/155917345/how-the-taste-of-tomatoes-went-bad-and-kept-on-going

It turns out that that in their urge to make tomatoes a uniform shape and a uniform red, and therefore more shippable and more salable, tomato growers bred out what made them sweet and delicious. We still have the previous tomatoes and we call them heirlooms. Here is an example of a particularly tasty one.

At the bureau we have spent the later summer and early fall rigorously testing the deliciousness of these odd shaped objects by cutting them up and applying salt, pepper, chopped shallots and olive oil.

We are happy to report that they are very delicious.