North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

Jim wrote:  An amazing number of market customers don't have a clue  that 
home grown tomatoes might taste different from the 'cardboard' tasting 
tomatoes at the grocery store.

That's sure not true in Tennessee, where perfectly ordinary citizens in this 
small town go on about how there's nothing tastes like homegrown tomatoes. 
I will admit I am one of the few who refuse to buy grocery tomatoes, ever. 
Most people don't know it, but the potatoes at the grocery aren't nearly as 
good as locally grown ones either.  Especially the GREEN potatoes that have 
sat under the lights are bitter and toxic.

Jim wrote:  Californians actively sought new and different vegetables

That's because Californians are descended from the most neophilic of all 
neophilic Americans.  Those immigrants who wound up in Minnesota who were 
not bored to tears by the flatness and sameness of the landscape remained 
and passed on their neophobic genes, while those who were restless moved on, 
taking their neophilia with them.     Donna