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Tomato thoughts

• Mark Mardell
• 28 Aug 07, 10:16 PM

Thanks for all your replies to the posting on tasty Turkish tomatoes and all that flows from them. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I read most of them while lounging by a pool. Although I really did intend to reply promptly, jumping on the inflatable plastic crocodile just seemed more appealing.

Now I am back. The beard came off this morning, and I will have to think about socks and ties again. I am off on my travels this evening and blogging will resume. But first some thoughts about your thoughts.

There seems to be a consensus view. Of course, the greatest number do not always get it right but most of you seem to think the way to eat more flavoursome veg is to grow your own, and if you can’t avoid supermarkets, shop around, eat seasonally and go organic.

I’m not convinced, although happy to be persuaded by science, that simply not using pesticides makes anything tastier. I suspect "organic" has become a symbol for a smaller scale, more traditional way of farming. Some of the points about minerals sound convincing.

I was surprised there was not more reaction in favour of supermarkets: some do stock high quality goods.

But I can't agree with those like Tim Port who say "pay more, and you’ll find what you want". It is true, to an extent, that you can pay for higher quality. I must admit it used to irritate me hugely that the supermarket I used most often in Britain used to have some of its more expensive tomatoes and other fruit labelled "grown for flavour". As opposed to what? Grown for throwing? Grown as a still life model? It’s rather like labelling a book "produced for reading". But that's not my main point: I don’t think any amount of money would find me such a lemony lemon in Britain as the one I had in Turkey.

In France, at the beginning of my holiday, I stopped at a roadside stall overflowing with peaches and melons and vegetables of every shape and size. I asked which were the tastiest tomatoes. The chap in charge enthusiastically suggested a selection: green, orange, yellow, zebra-striped, cherry tomatoes smaller than cherries... They made part of a great hors d’oeuvre on our first night. I would love to say they burst with that real flavour. They were good, but not a patch on those Turkish toms and I suspect nothing like Pete Porchos' Iraqi tomato.

I'll ignore Kevin's charge of going native, and leave aside for the moment whether it's anything to do with EU regulations, but I suspect he may have a point about seed varieties.

Thanks Tania, I will order more puntarelle next time I am in Rome.

And that spice in the Turkish coffee: is it Melengic or Mahlep/Mahlab or Marmiar or Malabathrum? I will have to try them all. But the best suggestion must come from Rayner that it was . Spice indeed would be the variety of life. Much more on this if the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ever appoints me editor. It’s a big job but I could do it.

Thanks you once again for those who liked the article: it really does matter to me. And during the holiday I really wanted to share with you my thoughts on more food topics, particularly the unnecessary decline of the hors d’oeuvre. But I have to finish packing my Wellingtons for a trip to a Polish peat bog, and then prepare for a big meeting in Portugal on the European . So I will put writing about food to one side of my plate, until there’s another holiday, but I will return to this most delicious of subjects.

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