Document 245220
Why supermarket tomatoes come last in every taste test! Since we did our famous tomato taste test twenty years ago at Heronswood with top chefs (including Stephanie Alexander), garden writers and seed merchants, we have found two explanations for the complete dominance of heirloom garden varieties over supermarket hybrids. 1. According to US food authorities the modern tomato has the highest dissatisfaction rating of any supermarket item. With these same supermarket hybrids offered in Australia we can be sure it applies in Australia too. Breeding for shelf life always supersedes flavour. 2. Considering that modern plant breeders have integrated a slow ripening gene into the supermarket hybrids, the fruit can never develop sugars and ripen but the fruit still looks red, shiny and impressive – like an ageless celebrity film star. The 1993 taste test was won by Tommy Toe. In our 2013 taste test (see table below), fifteen varieties were regarded as better than the garden standard Grosse Lisse – ten of these superior varieties having been introduced in the last few years. Because a taste test of thirty varieties can be wearying on the taste buds, Amish Paste, Mortgage Lifter and five other top tasting tomatoes were excluded which, had they been listed, would take the list of superior heirlooms to between twenty and twenty-five. Top tasting tomatoes Equal 1st Hungarian Heart Equal 1st Jaune Flammé Finally, if every publicly owned heirloom variety tastes better than the supermarket hybrids that make up 95% of supermarket tomato sales, what has this got to say about modern plant breeding over the last fifty years? The 2013 tomato taste test by 16 chefs, garden and media experts Held in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, February 2013 Ranking Overall score Variety =1 =1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 77.40% 77.30% 74.50% 74.00% 73.00% 72.30% 72.07% 70.70% 68.80% 67.40% 66.80% 66.50% 66.30% 65.90% 65.50% 65.20% 64.40% 64.00% 63.07% 61.00% 60.70% 60.20% 57.30% 54.36% 54.07% 54.00% 54.42% 42.46% Hungarian Heart Jaune Flammé Tommy Toe Black Cherry Wild Sweetie Wapsipinicon Peach Lemon Drop Ananas Noir Black Russian Periforme/Granny’s Throwing Purple Smudge Green Zebra Rose de Berne Green Grape Black Krim Violet Jasper Grosse Lisse (standard) Tigerella Brown Berry Tondo Piccolo Brido (Franchi) Redunda (Franchi) Beams Yellow Pear Roma Virus Free Swanson Marglobe Malinche (Monsanto) Nepoline Supermarket F1 HL = Heirloom introduced by Diggers. F1 = Commercial supermarket variety. OP = Open Pollinated See Diggers Winter Garden 2013 for the full taste test story! 6 • Diggers Garden Annual 2013/14 1993 Rank Colour — — 1 — 14 — — — — — — 16 — — — — 15 12 — — — — — — — — — 29 Pink Orange Red Red Opaque Lemon Yellow/black Black Red Orange Yellow/green stripe Pink Olive Black Black Red Yellow/red stripe Brown Red Red Yellow Red Red Red Red Red Red Average Heirlooms Average Commercial Size Oxheart Apricot Apricot Cherry Pea Apricot Grape Beefsteak Apricot Large pear Beefsteak Apricot Apricot Grape Mini beefsteak Apricot Large Apricot Cherry Apricot Obvate Cherry Plum Obvate Obvate Obvate Obvate Obvate Type Intro date HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL HL F1 F1 HL F1 F1 OP F1 F1 F1 2007 2001 1993 2011 1994 2005 2005 2012 1992 2012 2012 1991 2012 2007 1996 2012 — 1992 2007 — — — — — — — — — 2013 – 68.90% 1993 – 60.93% 2013 – 49.70% 1993 – 49.80% 2nd Tommy Toe 3rd Black Cherry 4th Wild Sweetie 5th Wapsipinicon Peach 6th Lemon Drop
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