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Author Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O  (Read 13000953 times)

wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133590 on: May 08, 2018, 03:59:33 am »

Without exception, domesticated strawberries taste abhorrent.  If you want real strawberry flavor the way it was meant to be tasted, you must eat the teeny tiny wild kind. Those are not a commercially viable crop because of fragility, spoilage, and cost of harvest. You have to grow them yourself, and the yields are small. 

They are totally worth it though.

Similar story with selectively bred domestic tomatoes.  If you want actual flavor, you need an ugly heirloom tomato. The kind with green stripes and ugly blobby apearance and all-- and it has to ripen on the vine.

Same story with domesticated blueberries.  The tiny birds eye size wild ones have such amazing flavor; the big domestic ones just taste like purple mush.
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133591 on: May 08, 2018, 04:36:25 am »

Dunno what kind of strawberries you guys have over there but the domesticated ones here are pretty damn good. The first few batches usually aren't that sweet but as they ripen more properly they become damn tasty little things.

Similarly for tomatoes, there's several varieties, most are generally fine but imo the beefheart one is probably the juiciest and tastiest of the bunch.


Also original banananana taste? You mean the nigh-inedible wild banananas? Or the banananana flavoring, which is actualy how an older, now nearly exticnt (yay for plant cloning and disease) breed tasted like. Producers mostly kept it like that because people were used to it, even tho bananananas today don't taste the same.

Edit:

Oh right, my wtf today. Got contacted by a company for a job. Now the WTF part is, I sent them an email about a potential interview a month ago, then we exchanged some emails trying to hash out how it'd happen, them saying they aren't always here or whatever and me saying it's not an issue of time they just gotta say when and where and I'll be there. That was the last of it, this morning I got a reply saying they couldn't contact me because I hadn't given them my phone number and that I should call to arrange an interview. This completely fine and I'll probably go just to see what's it about, but why wait a goddamn month for this :V
« Last Edit: May 08, 2018, 04:54:01 am by Jopax »
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IcyTea31

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133592 on: May 08, 2018, 04:45:18 am »

"Strawberry flavour" tastes like neither wild nor cultivated strawberries. That's my point.
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Jopax

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133593 on: May 08, 2018, 04:55:30 am »

True, tho I was replying to wierd with that one, the point about bananananana flavor still stands tho, it's the actual flavor but of a different breed.
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133594 on: May 08, 2018, 04:59:20 am »

It's not just me bro.

https://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152944880/bigger-means-better-not-with-strawberries

Americans seem to be obsessed with larger sizes, but this has resulted in a tremendous loss of flavor profile for the berries.
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Kagus

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133595 on: May 08, 2018, 05:24:15 am »

Beefheart tastiest tomato? Y'all out yo damn minds, and I don't even like tomatoes.

I've had plenty of entirely palatable domesticated strawberries, but I absolutely agree that wild strawberries are on another level entirely. And I have no idea what artificial strawberry flavor is even supposed to taste like, because it certainly isn't strawberries. Same for watermelon flavor, but watermelon Jolly Ranchers are still the best.

Artificial banana flavor has never sat well with me either... Reminds me of epoxy resin. Somehow it surprises me that there used to be a banana with that flavor naturally, but nature be naturin'.


Also, while comparing vanilla to silver is fun, 1kg of vanilla is a hell of a lot more than 1kg of silver... Kinda the whole reason the spice trade was as popular as it was, since you could get more value out of smaller loads and save on space/weight.

Like, you don't need a bad harvest of saffron for it to be worth more per kilo than precious metals, but you need a hell of a lot more gold to make a dinner plate than you need saffron to make a dinner.

wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133596 on: May 08, 2018, 05:35:57 am »

I did not say beefheart specifically.  I said heirloom tomato.  There are all kinds of heirloom tomato.  These were not bred to be pretty. They were bred to be flavorful and productive.  They are often ugly as sin.

Spoiler: See these guys. (click to show/hide)

The reason why "Pretty tomatoes" taste awful is because the same genes that control uniform coloring, also control chlorophyll production in the fruit, and this reduces the sugar content that develops in the fruit. It also has been implicated in reduced production of flavinoids and other factors.

Heirloom tomatoes mostly have those genes intact, and so have richer and fuller flavor profiles.  They are just ugly.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2018, 05:40:51 am by wierd »
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Kagus

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133597 on: May 08, 2018, 05:41:53 am »

I was responding to Jopax's assertion that beefhearts are some of the juiciest and tastiest tomatoes around.

And you somehow managed to find a picture of heirlooms that actually look nice, shame on you!

Jopax

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133598 on: May 08, 2018, 06:02:07 am »

Again, no idea how they are in your part of the world but here they look kinda like some of those heirlooms in that picture and they're about as tomato as they get.

I think this might be one of those "my nutella isn't the same as your nutella" types of situations where yes it's generally the same thing in name but there's regional variation to take into account.

If you're ever in the balkans I suggest you try the produce, it's pretty damn good.
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Kagus

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133599 on: May 08, 2018, 06:26:03 am »

Looking at some other photos, that does seem to be the likely case. What gets marketed as "Beefheart" in the states is generally just extra-large, very symmetrical tomatoes that are the epitome of everything wrong with breeding for appearance. They're huge and a very "clean" pale red color, but have almost no flavor and are extremely watery.

You ever get those massive, translucent tomato slices on fast food burgers or whatnot? That's beefheart. Or at least what gets passed as being such.

wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133600 on: May 08, 2018, 06:39:13 am »

Jopax:

In the US, people do not cook anymore.  No. Really. They don't cook any more. It is becoming a lost skill.
As such, the people tend to buy based on appearance, rather than actual quality. (Again, because they do not have the needed skills or knowledge to pick good produce.)

You can see that exemplified in this totally ordinary looking US supermarket produce section.


Note the uniform size, color, texture, and shine of those McMatos. All are bland and flavorless, and often do not properly yield to the gentle touch like a properly ripe tomato should.  People just do not know any better, and are known to simply NOT BUY proper tomatoes when they are presented on the shelf.

If your supermarkets stock actual proper tomatoes, and people still know how to shop for them, use them, and how to cook delicious food at home-- GOOD.

That is not the case on this side of the salty pond.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2018, 06:51:06 am by wierd »
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Yoink

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133601 on: May 08, 2018, 06:53:48 am »

Supermarkets can't win, really - often the veggies on sale at the local one look bruised and horrid, so I avoid them, considering all the horror stories one hears about old, preservative-packed vegetables being shuffled around their produce section for months or years after they should have been either eaten or scrapped.

Who knows, maybe they just have more-natural produce on sale, but after winding up with awful, stale fruit and veg on at least a couple of occasions, I'd much rather go to an actual fruit shop/grocer (or whatever they're supposed to be called) for fresh veg.

...Of course, I have no qualms about buying tinned beans and bags of lettuce or spinach. >.>
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Frumple

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133602 on: May 08, 2018, 07:04:03 am »

"Strawberry flavour" tastes like neither wild nor cultivated strawberries. That's my point.
Eh? No, it tastes like cultivated ones at the absolute least. Not a 100% match but it's close enough you can tell the similarity.
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pisskop

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133603 on: May 08, 2018, 07:05:01 am »

I recently found out about the joys of wholefoods market.   Best produce section Ive ever seen on a reliable basis.
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #133604 on: May 08, 2018, 07:06:25 am »

One should always wash their produce before use. If nothing else, because other people have handled the produce with their nasty bare hands, and who knows here those have been.

A small bruise, a healed over scar on the tomato, a slight shriveling on the pepper...  Those things are death sentences to supermarket produce. they are literally thrown into a landfill. People think that a growth scar on the tomato means it has been mishandled. No, it means it was exposed to rain. Yes, RAIN. (Basically, when the tomato was ripening, it rained, and the tomato plant pushed lots of water into the fruit, and the skin could not contain the pressure, and it split. The fruit then healed over during the rest of the ripening process, leaving a brownish tough scar. It is a superficial blemish, and you should just cut that bit of skin off. No big whoop.) A slight bruise on the tomato can come from some slackjawed maroon being told that you should gently squeeze the tomato to determine ripeness, and not knowing what they are doing, and crushinating the poor thing. If you cannot tell the difference between a mishandled tomato, and a nearly rotten one, you should not be buying tomatoes. :P

For starters, ripe (and also nearly rotten) tomatoes have a distinct smell (respectively.) When shopping for produce, the appearance is inconsequential; you are going to cut the silly thing up, not turn it into a table decoration. Select for proper odor, texture, and indicators of proper ripeness. Most people do not know all the little things you should look for when selecting quality produce. Appearance is the least concerning. Bad texture from improperly ripened produce, bad (or worse still, ODORLESS!!) smelling produce, and produce with active decay are what you should avoid, not uniformity of color, shiny skin, uniform shape/size, etc.
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