Paradicsom paradox

I'm noticing something with produce here that's exemplified by the tomatoes. They aren't always pretty. They're often very tender, with smashed ones on the bottom of any pile. Squeeze them and they all feel ripe with VERY few exceptions. The object when shopping for them is to pick the ones that aren't already split open.

Contrast this with shopping for them in grocery stores in the US, where the object is to select the ones that aren't pale and hard. When you can squeeze them a little and pretend they're ripe, it's time to eat. There's that magical brief window in the summer when they truly are ripe and local and it's like a celebration where you buy all you can and gorge. The rest of the year it's better to stick with the canned ones.

So far in my six weeks in Hungary, that peak season shows no signs of letting up. Things I've read about the U.S. food industry imply the priority of growers is on the structure of the produce and its survivability after being trucked across the country as well as how it looks in the grocery store. This seems to be at the expense of flavor. 

Last year I read something about the Uglyripe, a tomato bred for flavor instead of appearance that was just becoming available in Kingston, NY grocery stores. The Florida Tomato Committee was stopping the growers of the Uglyripe from being able to export their tomatoes out of Florida, where most of the US's tomatoes are grown in the winter. There was no accounting for flavor in the grading standards they set and enforced, only appearance. It's no wonder I never found any joy in fresh tomatoes and I learned to count on canned tomatoes 11 months a year.

Thinking of this now as I eat more tomatoes than I have in my life makes me curious to know more about where the produce in Budapest comes from, and where the power lies on the food chain here and what the politics are behind it.