The marketing in these, from what I understand, stems from the drive for developing a tomato that transports across the country without going bad. Another reason to buy and eat local foods. So they’ve developed a tomato for selling, but lost its integrity as a tomato. I rarely buy them from the grocery store. It’s just not worth spending my money for a flavorless tomato.

This pale supermarket tom (bought by DS) sat on a table in the sun for nearly 3 weeks without visibly changing at all. On cutting it open this is what I found – germinating seeds. Tom was definitely not decaying, which I thought was necessary for the breakdown of the inhibitory seed coating, so what else are they doing to these not-truly-tomatoes?

I just tried a Kumato—the brown tomato being heavily marketed these days as having taste. It did have some flavor—mostly sweetness. Still lacking the complexity of many heirlooms, and not “tomatoey” in flavor. The skin is very tough. But its popularity does show that some people are catching on that uniformly red supermarket tomatoes have no flavor, and are willing to buy other colors for flavor.