Testing Britain's New Nonleaky, Nonsoggy Tomato
The British supermarket chain Tesco started selling a special breed of non-soggy tomato on Tuesday—the result of a breeding program that began in 1986. The new tomato is supposedly just as juicy as a regular supermarket tomato but has an internal structure that holds onto the juices rather than letting them spill out on slicing.
Susan Smillie of the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog grabs one and does a taste test with her colleagues:
Overall, the Tesco tomato sandwich scored higher than the original canteen sandwich. While Tony, the chef, prepped up our sandwich, I noticed that Abdul, one of the guys who works alongside him, was reminiscing about eating tomatoes on a mountain in North Africa, cut in half, drizzled with olive oil and a few grains of salt. Almost guiltily, I pressed one upon him to try, and he liked it—"Not too juicy, just right for eating on its own." So some surprises, but really last taster—Jim, an ever-sensible sub on the money desk summed up my feelings on the matter neatly: "There's not a huge difference betwixt the toms. One is slightly less runny, but it hardly changes my life."
Smillie's suggestion is to simply use a good, ripe tomato on sturdy bread, making sure you use a barrier of lettuce and/or cheese to guard against sogginess.
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8 Comments:
Putting an oil based dressing or spread on the bread, such as butter, mayo, or just plain olive oil, will repel water based liquids and effectively seal the bread from moisture and keep it from becoming soggy. This works really well with burgers too btw. No need for engineering weird juiceless tomatoes.
simon at 2:38PM on 04/30/09
And both probably have as much flavor as packing peanuts compared to a non-GMO heirloom tomato...
Truff at 3:29PM on 04/30/09
"The result of a breeding program that began in 1986"
23 years to create this, what next??
Defrostable tasteless tomatoes.
Lex50 at 5:11PM on 04/30/09
I think I'd rather have a naturally occurring tomato than a genetically modified one. That's like plastic surgery for fruit!
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 5:33PM on 04/30/09
@hilary - my thoughts exactly~!
hungrychristel at 6:06PM on 04/30/09
I'd rather just scoop out the soggy bit. What's next? skinless bananas?
sweethunibabi at 6:34PM on 04/30/09
tomatoes don't belong on sandwiches, like ketchup doesn't belong on hotdogs.
gastronomeg at 7:23PM on 04/30/09
grastronomeg has it half right. Ketchup is all that should be on a hotdog. Yes, I said that.
bobbob at 12:00PM on 05/01/09