What goes into the flavor of a great-tasting tomato?
That question is more complicated than it sounds.
Exquisite tastes are seldom straightforward things. Summer-ripened strawberries, for instance, offer a symphony of about 600 distinguishable flavors. Rich chocolate turns out to be a rock concert of more than 900. And chocolate-covered strawberries? No wonder they’re irresistible.
What most people call a “delicious tomato taste” involves a delicate balance of sugars, acids, and “volatiles,” or natural aromas.
But something dreadful happened over the past six decades in the world of commercially grown tomatoes.
The great taste that most of us associate with a late-summer, homegrown tomato has almost completely disappeared from stores.
Tomatoes are big business in Florida, accounting for something like 30% of the state’s farm-grown fruits and vegetables. The Sunshine State provides a majority of the so-called “winter tomatoes” that are available year-round in cold-weather states.
But those fruits (yes, a tomato is technically a fruit) were selectively bred for shape, size, yield, shelf life, and the capacity to withstand being dropped 20 feet in a crate without being bruised. And their flavor? They taste a lot like wet cardboard.
Harry Klee, a professor who researches tastes at the University of Florida, points out that commercial growers literally bred the classic tomato flavor right out of their plants.
Klee is part of a group that has spent years trying to re-invent the tomato – to come up with a fruit that is red, round, resists bruising, can be enjoyed all year, and tastes fantastic.
That quest for flavor has led to a fascinating journey into the realm of biochemistry.
At least 50 different genes affect a tomato’s taste. A great-tasting tomato needs just the right combination of sugars, acids, and about 15-20 volatiles, some of which are present at no more than a few parts per billion. “But without them, a tomato will not taste like a tomato,” says Klee.
One of the volatiles smells exactly like Juicy Fruit gum. Another is the key aroma found in roses. Still another has the scent of freshly mown grass. “You need the whole package,” he says. If just one of those flavors is out of balance, you won’t be asking for cherry tomatoes on your salad any time soon.
The same thing is true when groups of people get together to tackle worthy projects.
Diverse ingredients all need to be present. And the balance needs to be just right.
A great team needs a risk-taking entrepreneur. But it also needs someone whose first instinct is to see what might go wrong. There has to be room for the guy who always wants to know why. And the person who is unusually sensitive to how the next decision is going to impact customers. A healthy team is made better by the presence of a skeptic. And an observer. And people who are committed to work for a win-win solution. And others who are ready to call the question.
The apostle Paul used the metaphor of body parts – as in the Body of Christ – more than 30 times in his New Testament letters. Here’s part of his most famous exposition, which is found in I Corinthians:
“A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own.
“Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower… If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?” (I Corinthians 12:14-24, “The Message”).
Unless all the right flavors are brought into the mix – the diverse aromas of human thinking and feeling and acting – the outcomes of a group’s deliberations are likely to be bland.
It’s a bit like a great-tasting tomato. We need the whole package.
No wonder God seems to take such delight in blessing different people with such different gifts to bless others.
Comments