Recipe For Flavorful Tomatoes: Heat Before Chilling

Tomatoes in Florida and elsewhere are often picked green and then transported and stored at low temperatures to extend their shelf life before they make it to store shelves.

Jinhe Bai, an Agricultural Research Service chemist at the U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Florida, wondered if chilling causes tomatoes to lose their flavor and whether it’s why “supermarket tomatoes” often taste so bland. The chilling slows ripening, but like many other tropical and subtropical crops, tomatoes are sensitive to low temperatures. In some fruits, chilling is known to cause internal “chilling injuries,” Bai says.

Bai and his colleagues harvested 120 standard “Florida 47” variety tomatoes at the “mature green” stage and subjected 30 tomatoes each to 1 of 4 treatments: applying heat only; chilling (to the industry standard of 41 F); heating prior to chilling; and keeping them at room temperature (controls). In the heat treatment, the tomatoes were kept heated at 125 F in hot water for 5 minutes. Like commercially produced tomatoes, tomatoes in the study were ripened at 68 F after being exposed to the temperature treatments.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: USDA AgResearch Magazine