We always wondered why, with the selective breeding of tomatoes, experts favored appearance over flavor. We have an answer in “A Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes” by Kenneth Chang:

Over the decades, taste has drained out of supermarket tomatoes.

Harry J. Klee, a professor of horticultural sciences at the University of Florida, thinks he can put it back in within a couple of years.

 In this week’s issue of the journal Science, Dr. Klee and his colleagues describe flavor chemicals that are deficient in most modern varieties of tomatoes. In addition, they have located genes that produce these chemicals, and identified heirloom and wild varieties of tomatoes that possess better versions of these genes.

Work has begun to breed a hybrid that restores much of the flavor yet retains the traits — large size, sturdy enough for shipping — that growers need to succeed.

“Now we know exactly what needs to be done to make it right,” Dr. Klee said. “We just have to turn the crank.”

The researchers are using traditional breeding to create the better tasting tomato, even though genetic engineering would be much quicker. “I don’t want people to not eat a great-tasting tomato because they’re scared of it,” Dr. Klee said.

The work has taken years. The researchers meticulously measured the levels of different chemicals in different varieties. They sequenced the full genome of nearly 400 varieties — modern, heirloom, wild. Taste panels weighed in on which varieties were delicious and which were blah.

The chemistry of tomato flavor has three primary components: sugars, acids and what are known as volatile chemicals — the flavor compounds that waft into the air carrying the fruit’s aroma…

Read the whole article here.