Germany is currently discussing which new habits will be allowed to survive the pandemic.
What remains - it is mandatory to wear a mask on the bus?
Fist greeting?
In any case, I plan to keep the new ecstasy with which one goes to the supermarket.
When contact bans and home office prevail, the gastronomy is in a coma, then shopping becomes the highlight of the day, even if you only bring home washing-up liquid and potatoes.
Sometimes you buy things that you don't need just to tickle something special out of everyday life.
Johanna Kuroczik
Editor in the "Science" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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Some of these spontaneous purchases are disappointing (spice mix for scrambled eggs), others grow beyond all expectations: the tomato plant for 1.99 euros was initially no bigger than an espresso cup with two small leaves.
Sweet, in the flower box on the windowsill.
Now she claims her own bucket.
In barely seven weeks it grew almost a meter high, blocked half the window with its leaves, and although it only bears a few flowers, it already bears fruit.
It's only a few days old and still bright green, but as big as a vine tomato and strangely creased.
No variety was listed in the supermarket, and I get a little queasy: What is growing there, the monstrous mutant of an oxheart tomato?
What color is the perfect taste?
Determining the variety based on the leaves turns out to be difficult. The app for plant identification shows my specimen unhelpful as a tomato,
Solanum lycopersicum
. So much for the miracle of technology. The tomato comes in more than 7000 varieties, they have never been counted exactly. Some of them are ancient and are being saved from extinction by hobby gardeners. Irina Zacharias keeps around 1500 varieties on her farm in Maxhütte-Haidhof in Bavaria, some of which her parents already planted in Russia; many bear yellow or purple fruits, some resemble paprika, also a nightshade plant.
"Xitomatl" comes from Central America, as the Aztecs called the originally about the size of a cherry, yellow fruit. In Germany it was used as an ornamental plant, tomatoes have only landed on the plate since the 20th century. And since then there has been a dispute about how best to store them for the ultimate taste experience, at room temperature or in the refrigerator? At the University of Göttingen, PhD student Larissa Kanski had trained examiners try different fruits and reported in May 2020 in “Frontiers in Plant Science”: Storage makes no difference, the variety counts. And the color, as Japanese researchers recently discovered. They developed a technique by which they analyzed the tomato's color pigments, such as carotenoids and chlorophyll. These are tasteless, but they pave the way for volatile chemical compounds,that take care of the aroma. The researchers do not reveal how this knowledge can be applied in the supermarket. Most tomatoes, whether red or yellow, don't taste good anyway.
As a new home breeder, I don't need to worry about that. By the way, my monster tomato is not due to the variety, says Irina Zacharias, but rather the product of the so-called royal flower: the first, particularly large flower of a young plant. This can look like a small sunflower. Zacharias advises removing them. Because the king's flower and its mostly overgrown, misshapen giant fruit prevent further flowers from sprouting. Like a cuckoo bird that doesn't tolerate rivals in the nest. With a heavy heart I sacrifice my selfish precocity. Hopefully a few more flowers will sprout, otherwise there will only be watery supermarket tomatoes again this summer. At least I can look forward to shopping.