On Tasteless Tomatoes

There is finally a book that explains why our tomatoes are tasteless: Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook, who discussed his book in a very good interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.  It has been my long-running (and not very funny) joke that tasteless tomatoes were a government plot (because of Dept. of Ag funding for transportable varieties), but now I learn that it is actually Florida's fault.  Good news is that more tomatoes are being grown in northern greenhouses, and coming from Mexico, so may be a bit tastier, but consumers need to choose based on taste, which they have not do so far (maybe because there was not much choice!). So, why are Hong Kong tomatoes (and many fruits) tasteless?