The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by jacquesm on Sunday September 03, 2017 @02:45PM (#15163077)

You can learn how to tell them apart if you want. Stepdad was a greengrocer so to me this is second nature but when looking for tomatoes take the smaller ones and the darker ones. They're most likely to be the ones that taste better, even when you pick them from a batch. People instinctively seem to go for the brighter and larger fruits but those are almost always the bland ones.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by guelo on Sunday September 03, 2017 @02:59PM (#15163160)

In my experience smell is the best indicator. You want your fruit to smell like fruit. If it has no smell it doesn't have any flavor either.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by jacquesm on Sunday September 03, 2017 @03:02PM (#15163180)

Smell and taste are so intricately related that loss of the sense of smell usually translates into a significant loss of the sense of taste so you are absolutely right. But smelling the produce before buying is considered pretty bad form where I live.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by holografix on Sunday September 03, 2017 @06:54PM (#15164443)

I find this really interesting, where in the world would it be considered bad form to sniff a tomatoe before purchasing?

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by jacquesm on Sunday September 03, 2017 @07:18PM (#15164535)

Well, here in NL it certainly would if you went through a crate of tomatoes at the local supermarket and smelled all of them one-by-one.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by DonHopkins on Monday September 04, 2017 @01:57AM (#15166020)

You've got two nostrils, so sniff them two at time and take half as long.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by jacquesm on Monday September 04, 2017 @06:08AM (#15167053)

That got me laughing but being the serious kind I am now wondering if we're wired up in such a way that if one tomato is bland and the other is rich in smell that we can tell the two apart reliably enough to know which is which?

I always think of us as having two eyes, two ears for stereo vision and sound but never think of us as having 'two noses' to determine the direction of a small or two different smells at the same time.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by raarts on Monday September 04, 2017 @11:26AM (#15168861)

I live in Amsterdam but I always try how strawberries smell before buying. And in my experience they smell the same if they come from true same batch so I only need to try once.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by danmaz74 on Monday September 04, 2017 @03:52AM (#15166482)

> But smelling the produce before buying is considered pretty bad form where I live.

Doing that in supermarkets here is also looked upon as a bit weird. But I don't care, I prefer to look weird and eat the best tomatoes ;)

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by jules on Sunday September 03, 2017 @05:08PM (#15163928)

The tomatoes themselves don't have a strong smell, though the vines do.

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by charlesdm on Sunday September 03, 2017 @02:50PM (#15163109)

Thanks -- going to put this to the test next time I go shopping!

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Re:The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by jacquesm on Sunday September 03, 2017 @02:58PM (#15163156)

It's a bit more work and other people might get annoyed with you for rejecting 80% of the produce but it is worth it. Good luck!

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