It turns out that there’s no scientific explanation: there's nothing different about the soil in North America. They have the ability to grow produce that is just as delicious as what’s grown in Europe. It's just that they choose not to. It all comes down to differences in culture and preference.
In Italy, France, and other parts of Europe, taste is the most important factor in growing and selling produce, since that is what customers want. They have higher standards that would not accept a gigantic mealy tomato in the middle of January; rather, they would wait for smaller, juicier, more flavorful tomatoes in the right season.
Growers in North America, on the other hand, have responded to decades of pressure to grow bigger, heavier fruits and vegetables that are uniform in appearance. Customers want their produce all-year-round, even if it’s out of season, and they want to pay minimal price. Picking larger tomatoes, for example, costs the grower less because it takes less time and labor to yield more product.
Harry Klee is a tomato grower from Florida who developed a great-tasting, nutrient-rich tomato called the Garden Gem that will never be sold in the United States because it’s considered too small. He told Belluz:
“The bottom line here with the industrial tomatoes is that tomatoes have been bred for yield, production, disease resistance. The growers are not paid for flavor — they are paid for yield. So the breeders have given them this stuff that produces a lot of fruit but that doesn’t have any flavor.”
This greatly distresses Klee. "I have a lot of worries, and one is that we are raising a whole generation of people who don’t know what a tomato is supposed to taste like," he said. "If they go to Italy and buy a tomato at a roadside stand, it’s a life-changing event." For now most Americans are stuck with massive, perfectly red, eminently tasteless tomatoes.
American shoppers favor access over seasonality
Cooking with seasonal produce is often regarded by the best chefs as the key to more flavorful meals. But, whether for financial reasons or time constraints, Americans seem to want their produce available at all months of the year.
That inevitably has an impact on taste. Buying out of season means the produce has to be picked long before it has ripened and then shipped very long distances from the southern United States, or Mexico, or Central America. That journey can batter the flavor out of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Klee pointed out that Europe also has out-of-season produce in its stores. The difference is that locals will generally demand and pay for better quality. "The Italians, probably more than anybody, have a higher standard," he said. "At their best, they’re only getting their tomatoes in season. But the reality is that most Americans don’t like seasonality. We’ve developed a system to give people in the northern US a tomato in January."
Most supermarket tomatoes sold in North America share a genetic mutation that makes them all round, smooth, and deep scarlet red when ripe. The only problem is that this widely-embraced mutation deactivates a gene that produces the sugars and aromas that are essential for a flavorful tomato.
“When researchers ‘turned on’ the deactivated gene, the fruit had 20 percent more sugar and 20 to 30 percent more carotenoids when ripe – yet its non-uniform color and greenish pallor suggest that mainstream breeders will not be following suit. So we’re stuck with beautiful tomatoes that taste like a mere hint of their former selves.” (TreeHugger)
As more people express willingness to buy abnormally shaped fruits and vegetables, hopefully that will extend to smaller-than-usual produce with richer flavor as well, and supermarkets will respond.
