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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] flavorless food

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  • From: "Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] flavorless food
  • Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:10:36 -0500

A guy from Poland said that the first year he was in the US, he could tell what he was eating only by color and shape. He said American food has no taste. When I suggested a garden, he said he tried that and it wasn't much better. So it might be varieties, or it might be depleted soil. Somewhere I read something by a guy who said he could taste the effect of the soil on fruit from different areas. He said the South gave things an earthy taste he didn't like in the fruit. I wonder if the crops in Poland have more flavor because the fields were not exposed to nitrogen fertilizers till recent years. When the N eats up the organic matter, I think it's harder for the soil to hang onto trace minerals. Ireland was a third world country till recent decades, my 50 yo husband remembers when chemical fertilizer was first applied to the fields there, and the potatoes had no flavor that year or the years afterward.
We met a couple from Quebec who also said American food has no flavor. I know that organic matter is broken down too quickly in the south, making me suspect again that the ratio of organic matter may have as much to do with flavor as anything else. Oh, that and the fact that our red and yellow clays in the south are worn out and used up. These are very old soils, what they had is long gone over the millions of years they have been here, and they aren't all that good at holding anything till you get the pH and organic matter up. When you do that, then things get screwy because closer to neutral, it's harder to pick up the very scarce trace minerals. Donna




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