Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Tomatoes
Few pleasures are simpler than sitting on your back step savoring the taste of summer's first
vine-ripe tomato. Yet if you look at it closely, few things are more complicated. Sure, a
bite of a sweet, deeply flavored tomato is one of life's more elemental joys. It's a flavor we
yearn for all through the cold months, an experience we remember from our childhoods.
And yet in real life, that kind of juice-gushing taste explosion is something that happens all
too rarely. Tomato flavor, or the lack thereof, is one of the biggest complaints in the pro-
duce world. And there is no easy fix.
In part this is because the taste of a tomato is a devilishly difficult thing to pin down. In
the first place, as real tomato lovers know, all tomatoes don't taste the same. Instead, there
is a whole range of flavors, from almost citrusy to nearly meaty. But even if you're just try-
ing to describe that essential tomatoey flavor, the problem is incredibly complex.
Flavors and aromas are made up of chemicals, and although some fruits, such as the ba-
nana, can be identified by just one (3- methylbutyl acetate, if you're curious), scientists who
study flavor chemistry have identified more than four hundred compounds that go into the
taste of a ripe tomato. And more than thirty of those are regarded as essential - detectable in
amounts down to one part per billion. (Even this tiny bit may not be sufficient when you're
dealing with tomatoes. The human nose can detect some odors/flavors in parts per trillion.)
Furthermore, the science of flavor is much more complicated than simply putting a
bunch of elements together in a chemistry set. When scientists talk about the chemical com-
pounds that make up flavor, they don't speak the same language we do. They disdain ro-
mantic descriptions such as "beefy" or "minty" or "flowery" and instead zero in on specific
names: Z-3-hexenal, beta-damascenone, beta-ionone and 3-methylbutanal.
Those are hardly words to make a gourmet's heart flutter, but they are the four flavor
compounds found in the highest concentrations in a raw tomato. Z-3-hexenal is a fresh
green fragrance often found in the aroma of cut grass (it also dissipates quickly, disappear-
ing when heated). Beta-damascenone is generally described as fruity and sweet, while beta-
ionone is fruity and woody. The last compound, 3-methylbutanal, is hard to describe; one
source describes it as having "nutty-cocoa facets." It is also found in Parmesan cheese.
