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Food

Terrible Tomatoes May Soon Be a Thing of the Past

Many of us know that a hothouse tomato can't compare to a ripe, in-season one. But researchers have discovered a way to make turn those mealy balls of fruit water into something genuinely delicious.
Photo via Flickr user rebeccaanchondo

The first rule of food club is to understand tomato season. Say what you will about the locavore movement, shopping at farmer's markers, or any of the other faddish claptrap that has infected the yuppie world of food, because an in-season tomato makes it abundantly clear to anyone with a working tongue that ingredients do not always taste the same 365 days a year.

A tomato plucked from its stem in the summer months is juicy, both savory and sweet, and altogether delicious. A hothouse tomato—that is, one grown in a greenhouse at any point during the year—is a mealy ball of tomato-tinged water and leather.

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That's because most commercial tomatoes, like many commercial fruits and vegetables, are picked underripe so that they don't bruise or spoil before they find their way into your shopping cart. They are then treated with ethylene gas to ripen them on demand, and then stored at cold temperatures to halt the process before they reach grocery shelves. (Second rule of food club: Don't put ripe tomatoes in the refrigerator. If you're not ready to eat them, you shouldn't be buying them.)

But if you happen to live in an area of the world where garden-fresh tomatoes are simply not an option—or if you give no fucks about food rule number one—there is a little hope on the horizon.

Researchers have discovered that blanching the tomatoes in a hot water bath before they're put in cold storage significantly diminishes their typically terrible taste and texture.

Jinhe Bai, a scientist at the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, and his team dipped green tomatoes in a 125-degree bath for a full five minutes before letting them cool to room temperature, and finally chilling them to just over refrigerator temperature. They found that the fruits tasted better and had more flavor compounds than conventionally treated tomatoes.

"Chilling suppresses production of oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur-containing heterocyclic compounds, ketones, alcohols and aldehydes, including 13 important aroma components of tomato flavor," explained Bai in a press release. "But hot water-treated fruit actually produced higher concentrations of these important aroma contributors, even with subsequent chilling."

At this point, the researchers are experimenting with the hot water bath at different points during the ripening process. It sure beats another method they tried: treating tomatoes with methyl salicylate, a.k.a. one of the active ingredients in Ben-gay.

You can bet those tomatoes didn't bruise.