Mike Lyle wrote:
It's not so much that the French don't know how to grow good apples:
their best f&v beats most of ours; but the mass-produced ones they
send for mass sales are garbage because of the methods of production.
Young small trees with small root systems, heavily irrigated, fruit
picked too soon, kept in cold storage: you just can't get quality
that way. (Who knows? -- there may even be Dutch tomatoes and peppers
you can eat, but if they exist, nobody's exporting them.)

Sadly it's like this with everything. We seem to demand perfect fruits,
perfect vegs, no bumps or scabs or blemishes. You can't blame them for
trying to survive, let alone make a decent living. However, I keep well
away from 'mass produced' stuff. It's so easy to find locally grown
grub, which taste marvelous but with blemishes perhaps. I'm not perfect
either )