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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

> 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 ;)

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