On 18/5/05 10:12 am, in article , "RichardS"
wrote:


wrote in message
oups.com...
AFAIK thay are tomatoes allowed to ripen naturally, most tomatoes in
the shops are picked green, then artificially ripened when they arrive
in the UK. They certainly do ahve a much nicer taste that the
equivalent loose ones.



I also wonder sometimes whether the better flavour is also due to slightly
more esoteric varieties being available for vine-ripened as opposed to the
standard boxes of anaemic dutch/belgian/canary toms that are so beloved of
the supermarkets.

The price hike is horrendous though, and I really detest the overpackaging
and overgrading typical of vine-toms.

Incidentally, why are they described as being "on the vine" rather than "on
the truss"? Are both correct, or is it marketing-speak?

I think both are correct, probably. Certainly, in Guernsey, greenhouses
that grew grapes commercially continued to be known as vineries when tomato
growing took over.
My husband's family grew tomatoes commercially at one time and he remembers
the houses being called vineries and the plants as a whole, vines, while
trusses bore the tomatoes!
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds for email)