Folklore tells the story of creatures, from spiders to cattle, that steal the sun. I don’t believe the tales. The true sun-stealer of our planet is the tomato.
It is the Robin Hood of salads, snatching solar energy and storing it deep in its umami-flavoured flesh for our benefit. But modern varieties, cultivated on an industrial scale, can be a bland disappointment. Supermarkets prioritising profits and a tomato’s longevity, resilience and resistance to disease over flavour not only diminishes the quality of the fruit but leaves a hulking environmental footprint, made up of emissions from heated greenhouses, clouds of agrichemicals and the contamination of resources.
As a result we’re losing our environment and we’re losing the exquisite. Antonio Granell, a professor in plant genomics, examined why supermarket toms are typically so underwhelming in a seminal study in 2017, in which he found that modern varieties sacrifice the functionality of the GLK2 gene, which gives flavour, in exchange for improved disease resistance, extended shelf life and the appearance of ripening..
