The bitterness of winter tomatoes...

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2 ... rentPage=1

Slave labor! I read this two weeks ago and shrank into my chair - not because I buy those tomatoes but because I see them in all the stores that I shop (except Costco) and don't say anything. Unacceptable on my part!!

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes?currentPage=1

Wow. I never felt so good about eating seasonal produce (and belonging to a local CSA). I'll be thinking about this tomorrow when I pick up my week's selection of veggies. I must admit, however, that the decision not to eat winter tomatoes was made for aesthetic rather than ideological considerations: tasteless hardly begins to describe how bad they are.

Mark Lipton

[David M. Bueker]

Ugh. Thank you for the link Chef. I think I am done with tomatoes (except my own - or from the nearby family farm). I'll also take a look at the local mega-mart & bring a copy of hte article for the produce manager (who I see every Sunday morning).

Now my mind is running in circles about other tomato products & how they may relate to this story.

Putting the "Super" in Supermarket

Plenty more stories like this to uncover I'm sure - it's what you get when you squeeze the supply chain as they do.

And to think immigrants have the nerve to take jobs like this away from Americans.

David -

I am guessing - only based on what I see around here - that products like canned tomatoes and tomato paste may not have similar issues associated with them. I believe most of the tomatoes grown for these purposes are machine-harvested and trucked to processing plants. (Or at least, the tomatoes that don't end up scattered on Sacramento-area off ramps end up at the plants.)

[Jenise]

Slave labor! I read this two weeks ago and shrank into my chair - not because I buy those tomatoes but because I see them in all the stores that I shop (except Costco) and don't say anything. Unacceptable on my part!!

KIM! Great to see you, you've been away too long.

[David M. Bueker]

David -

I am guessing - only based on what I see around here - that products like canned tomatoes and tomato paste may not have similar issues associated with them. I believe most of the tomatoes grown for these purposes are machine-harvested and trucked to processing plants. (Or at least, the tomatoes that don't end up scattered on Sacramento-area off ramps end up at the plants.)

Good points. Thanks.

We had a tomato spill on our highways not long ago.

And I remember frequently observing large open gondola trucks of ripe, red tomatoes on their way to the canners in Northern California - machine harvested, and not in lugs.

Another thing I used to stress to my students - don't be afraid of the canned tomatoes for cooking. They are picked fully ripe whereas the "fresh" winter tomatoes in supermarkets are hard and green when harvested and have to be gassed to obtain color.

There was a little problem in California with grape pickers a few of you might recall, though.

There appears to be no Cesar Chavez in Florida yet.

Hi Jenise - have some spare time on my hands these days so I can get out and about a little more. George says "Hello" to you!!!

Slave labor! I read this two weeks ago and shrank into my chair - not because I buy those tomatoes but because I see them in all the stores that I shop (except Costco) and don't say anything. Unacceptable on my part!!

KIM! Great to see you, you've been away too long.

And I remember frequently observing large open gondola trucks of ripe, red tomatoes on their way to the canners in Northern California - machine harvested, and not in lugs.

Another thing I used to stress to my students - don't be afraid of the canned tomatoes for cooking. They are picked fully ripe whereas the "fresh" winter tomatoes in supermarkets are hard and green when harvested and have to be gassed to obtain color.

There was a little problem in California with grape pickers a few of you might recall, though.

There appears to be no Cesar Chavez in Florida yet.

Indeed, Chef, I recall those incidents in CA quite well. Years afterward, when I went to work briefly in the pesticide industry and saw the human toxicity data on parathion, I began to fully understand the brutality of their plight. Sad to say, what those illegales are going through in FL may be as bad or worse in the end.

Mark Lipton

We had a tomato spill on our highways not long ago.

And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.