On Sat, 21 May 2011 17:55:11 +0100, Jake Nospam@invalid wrote:

On Sat, 21 May 2011 17:42:10 +0100, "Ian B"
wrote:

Bob Hobden wrote:
"Mike Lyle" wrote ..

"Bob Hobden"wrote:

"David in Normandy" wrote ...

Someone said that tomatoes can be made sweeter by sprinkling a
little sugar around the plants. Would this really work? Would the
plants absorb
the sugar and store it in the tomatoes? I'm somewhat dubious.



The question "why do you want them sweet?" springs to mind. If you
do why not do what an acquaintance does and sprinkle sugar over his
salad.

Good man! Vegetables do need a degree of natural sweetness, of
course; but I want tomatoes to taste most strongly of tomato, not
sugar. Supermarket ones, needless to say, taste of neither.


It's like bought frozen peas, all they taste of is sweet, no pea
taste at all. We leave our peas on the plant until they have proper
taste (and lose some sweetness) and then freeze them ourselves, so
much nicer.

It's funny, but I'm sure when I was a youngster the packet of Birds Eye
actually used to say to put some sugar in the cooking water. Am I imagining
things?


Ian

No! My mother always put sugar in rather than a tweak of salt. That
said, I opened a pack of Birds Eye peas the other day (shame but must
admit to it) and was struck by the smell of "fresh podded peas" that I
remember from last year. I put a couple of peas on a plate and left
them to thaw for about 5 minutes before eating "raw" and, must admit
again, they tasted pretty sweet and fresh.

The issue isn't freshness: good frozen peas are certainly fresher than
unfrozen ones from a shop. What they lack is the developed flavour.

--
Mike.