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 There are many differences one notices when one lives
an active life between two continents, two cultures. Some are obvious;
a different language, different food, a different style of architecture,
different racial and facial features in the people you pass on the street.
Others are more subtle; not only the language is different, but the whole
aural symphony that assails or serenades the ear when out on the street
– intonation and sound sets of human voices, grunts and sighs, animal and avian cries, machine noises,
the distinctive sounds of traffic, the timbre of sirens, squeals of breaks,
different cell phone tones.
Or intangible things like the pace of the daily grind, the attitudes
of the public servants one encounters, the kinds of people just hanging
out on park benches or in shopping malls. The differences can be overwhelming.
Of course, beneath and between the differences are a slew of underlying
similarities which speak volumes about the ultimate brotherhood of ALL
of the members of our star-crossed species, and the universality of certain
innate human and cultural traits. This is the fundamental fascination,
this sorting of the differences and similarities, which drew the Dowbrigade
into the study of Anthropology, the study of human culture, many long
years ago, right here in Cambridge, Mass.
But that was a different Dowbrigade, and those were different times,
and if we had known then what we know now, we would have probably done
pretty much the same thing. For we can no more deny or renounce our love
of, fascination with, and addiction to our home culture, than we can
deny its fatal flaws and the absolute need to experience firsthand other
realities, other cultures, in order to realize one’s full human potential
and have a ghost of a
prayer of a chance of saving this blasted planet.
Lately, one telling theme we have been hearing, over and over, from
different riders on the intercultural interface the Dowbrigade frequents,
from Gringos vacationing or living in Latin America, and from Latinos
visiting or studying or working in the US, concerns our fruits and vegetables.
It is almost universally agreed and commented on, that although the
fruits and vegetables in the States are visually stunning, physical ads
for themselves, brilliant in color, texture and form, when one gets them
home and actually tries to cook something with them, or even more directly
tries to eat them raw, one is inevitably disappointed by a bland, watery,
or in the case of hothouse tomatoes during the long dreary New England
winter, cardboard-like tastes which assault the palate.
The produce produced in Latin America, on the other hand, obtained
in open-air markets and outdoor stalls, may seem smaller, sometimes wrinkled,
not
perfect
in form, often with traces of the good earth it grew in still not completely
washed off. Yet when you DO wash it off and pop it in your mouth, you suddenly
remember what a mango is SUPPOSED to taste like, what a tangerine
USED to taste like. To a fan of good, fresh food it is an immediately
obvious, stunning difference.
As well as being emblematic of many differences between North and South.
The public transportation systems in the south may look chaotic and dangerous,
but they move millions of people to their jobs on time for a fraction
of what the T charges for mediocre service in Boston. The tennis club
we belong to in Manta, Ecuador doesn’t have the pressurized bubble of
the MIT courts we play on, or the space-age surface of the BU Case
Center courts, but the level of play is superior, the mayor and the rector
and our other local cronies are there EVERY DAY at 6:30 in the morning,
before it gets hot, before they go off to their air-conditioned offices,
and it costs $35 a month, including lessons, as much as a single set
of doubles on the Harvard courts.
If we take this analogy to a questionable extreme, we can even see the
difference in the people populating the two systems. In South American
one doesn’t see nearly the number of hard bodies, humongous breasts,
perfect hair, chiclet smiles or movie-star good looks easy to spot in
any big American city. Yet when you squeeze the Latinos you get a sweeter,
stronger juice.
Which is not to say that the shanty towns are great places to live,
or that endemic corruption makes for a promising political playing field,
or that it is copasetic that women do almost all of the work and get
almost none of the credit. Merely that the infinite variety within
the human experience behooves us to get up from in front of our monitors
once in a while and actually physically move our asses to get a different
point of view. Just do it.
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It was great to see this post and the lovely tomato today! I’ve been planning to go to Haymarket today because it’s been so long since I’ve bought any produce, tomatoes especially, which are usually a staple in my house. Now I feel a bit mixed about going, but I can usually purchase better produce there than in the grocery store.
Good morning Michael……….
A good tasting tomato has been the Holy Grail for me, for many years. I haven’t tasted a “real” tomato for 30 years. And it was in a small Italian hill town. I grew up in Idaho during the 30’s and 40’s and fondly remember the delicious tomatoes from my parents garden.
You asked the question as to what happened to the taste of American tomatoes. I think I can give you a partial answer.
In the late 70’s I was teaching at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. (I lived 3 doors away from Saly Feldman.) And, I would frequently attend faculty dinners at the Cornell Faculty Club.
One night I was seated at a table, along with several senior, full professors from the Agriculture school. I raised the question, “Why don’t American tomatoes taste like they did 40 years ago?”
“No problem, young man,” I was told. “No one ever paid us for hybradizing tomatoes for flavor. They paid us to grow tomatoes with a uniform red color, that had uniform size, and a thick skin. But, nobody ever paid us to grow them for taste. After all, you never taste a tomato before you buy it. You only taste it after you have paid for it and left the store. Then it is too late to complain about the lack of taste of the tomato.
He said, “Noboby ever complained about the lack of flavor in American tomatoes.
Now, all the tomato seed from the older, “tasty” tomatoes has disappeared, and we don’t have any seed-stock from “tasty” tomatoes. Hence, there is no place for “tasty” American commercial tomatoes to be grown from.
That’s my take on the subject.
Jerry Bragstad
Mill Valley, CA
Right, the first place I take visiting American friends is to the local produce market, where they’re usually astounded about size, taste and price. First time my wife came across an avocado in California she was amazed they’d try to sell such a puny wrinkled thing…