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8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, February 2, 2005 Basic Black by Arthur Black You say tomato; I say yuck "Come quickly! I am tasting tasting the stars!" So spake a venerable Benedictine monk by the name of Pierre Perignon in a French vineyard nearly four centuries ago. He had just put to his lips a brand new variety of wine for the first time. The world would come to know this wine as champagne. I wonder what the old Monk would say if I could guide him down the produce aisle of any modern Canadian supermarket and persuade him to bite into a 'vine-ripened' imported tomato. My guess is he'd say something something like: "Mon Dieu-- I am tasting cardboard!" . Most of our tomatoes at this time of year come from Florida. The Panhandle State ships out over a billion pounds annually and Canada is the number one export market. MORRIS FUNERAL CHAPEL LTD. SERVING DURHAM REGION SINCE 1841 ALL FUNERAL SERVICES PREARRANGED AND/OR PREPAID BURIAL - CREMATION -TRANSFERS WHERE PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE IS IMPORTANT" FUNERAL DIRECTORS PAUL R. MORRIS DOUG R. RUTHERFORD GARY M. CONWAY DEBRAD. CAMPKIN 905-623-5480 A DIVISION ST- BOWMANVILLE - AT QUEEN ST. My question is 'Why?' Why do we continue to purchase purchase and eat these tasteless blobs? Exactly what the hell have they done to the good old 'love-apple' that used to taste so fine? Actually, I can answer that question: they've graded them* just like eggs. A No. 1 tomato is firm, smoothskinned smoothskinned and almost perfectly spherical. A No. 2 tomato is round and only slightly rough. . A No. 3 is a just a little misshapen misshapen and perhaps ever so slightly blemished. Notice something missing there, kiddies? That's right - taste. There are absolutely no points awarded for what a tomato does to your palate. That's because 'taste' doesn't doesn't even register on the agriculture agriculture industry's radar screen. Over the past half century, century, plant engineers have busted their humps to breed new tomato varieties that have greater yields, hardier pest resistance and shorter growing seasons. But according to Donald Davis of the University of Texas Department of Chemistry Chemistry and Biochemistry, we paid a price for thosè 'advances'. "When you select for yield," says Davis, "crops grow bigger and faster, but they don't necessarily, have the ability to make or uptake nutrients at the same, faster rate." Which means not only does the Brave New World tomato not taste anything like the tomatoes grandma used to grow, it's a pale reflection in the nutrition department as well. A study conducted by the aforementioned University of Texas concluded that a typical tomato grown today contains 40 % less vitamin C, 40 % less protein and 40% fewer minerals minerals than a tomato grown in 1950. No wonder they taste so bad. Solution? Easy. All Florida Florida has to do is start shipping Joe Procacci's tomatoes. Joe is a Florida tomato grower who does produce tomatoes just like grandma used to grow. They're luscious, succulent, aromatic and very, very popu- Because you love your MedicAlert®.The bracelet with an emergency hotline linked to your medical record.- call 1-866-734-9422 or visit www.medicalert.ca. <D Medic Alert Lets You Live Life. lar. Just three years after Joe started marketing them to grocery stores, his sales tripled. Unfortunately, Joe's tomatoes tomatoes have one other characteristic characteristic that separates them from the others: they are ugly. Kinda lumpy and misshapen with irregular bumps and bulges. In fact the official name of the variety he created is the Ugly Ripe. And that's the problem. The Orlando-based Tomato Committee, which vets all tomatoes that leave the state, has banned the sale of Joe Procacci's Ugly Ripes because they're, well, too ugly. The committee claims it hasn't banned Procacci's produce produce at all. He just has to throw out the fruits that don't come up to the Number 2 grade--you know--smoothskinned, know--smoothskinned, firm and almost perfectly perfectly round. Which is to say, pretty well every Ugly Ripe tomato Procacci grows. Last year, come harvest time, he ended up ploughing under more than 20 tons of tomatoes--every day. That's why this winter you will search in vain at your supermarket for Procacci's homely provender. The Ugly Ripe is not available. That is why the tomatoes you buy will uphold the tradition of winter store-bought tomatoes in Canada. They will slice well, fry nicely, stew adequately, keep indefinitely. And taste like mulched Yellow Pages. Nice and round, though.