Tomatoes or Pomatoes?

A truly experienced vegetable buyer is a clever person. He invariably follows certain elementary procedures while buying vegetables in a market.
First, he is dressed casually in a very ordinary manner so that the vegetable vendor believes he is an ordinary middle class Madhavan. He also carries a simple cloth bag with him.
He/she goes around the market first, for two important reasons: a) To find out the prices of vegetables in different shops to decide which place has the cheapest vegetables to effect the purchase. But wait, it is not enough if you find out the overall cost like Rs.30/kg or Rs.25/kg. There is a catch there. Vegetable Markets do not go by traditional arithmetic. Beans might cost Rs.20/kg at a shop but 1/2kg might be priced at Rs.15 and not Rs.10/-. The veteran marketer knows this and scouts around for a place where traditional arithmetic applies, that is, 1 kg costs Rs.20/- and half a kg costs Rs.10/-!!! Ok. Now, b) To ascertain the quality of the vegetables and find out which shop has good quality vegetables.
Now, while going around with these twin objectives, the veteran buyer also carries an air of indifference about him and ambles along like he is disinterested in the entire business but carefully observes and listens to the shopkeepers calling out the prices of vegetables which enable him to arrive at the right decision.
He does not purchase all his vegetables in one place like amateurs do. Right from Potatoes to Curry leaves, each vegetable is purchased at different shops depending upon the prices and quality.
The veteran cannot be fooled when it comes to quality, as he knows the nuances of choosing or selecting the vegetables. Potatoes should be hard, Big onions should be of medium size, Small onions must not be too costly, Brinjals should not be too hard nor too soft, he deftly breaks the tip of the Ladies finger to find out if they are tender enough and fresh, tomatoes and cabbage should be firm, bottle gourds, pumpkins must be heavy, all vegetables should usually be free of dents, cuts or spots, yes, they should not be suspiciously bright, nor look dull. He also knocks the coconut to check the sound emanating, it tells whether it is full or hollow inside, cluster beans are best when tender and not too flat and dry, bitter gourds better be small in size, cauliflower must look white and fresh and not covered with spots, Capsicum being too soft may be hollow inside and so should be hard enough, very green long shining green chillies are deceptively tasteless and small ones are hotter and spicier.
The experienced buyer knows how to strike a good bargain too. He starts a friendly chat with the shopkeeper during the purchase and passes comments on the misery the vegetable vendors are going through with unfavourable conditions all round and the exploitations they are subjected to by society…before carefully ensuring he gets the best bargain from the now friendly shopkeeper. He knows all these and goes about his purchase in an orderly manner, starting with potatoes, onions (as they are harder and as everyone knows) and ending with tomatoes at the end, or better, tomatoes in a separate bag, which is kept folded inside the bigger bag!!!
Now, this is where I would like to inform that the subject of this article is not the “Experienced/Veteran Vegetable Buyer”, but an amazing find I have come across.
Gone are the days when potatoes and Onions used to be purchased first and tomatoes last, so that they (tomatoes) do not get crushed. But from around 10 years back I think, the tomatoes are as hard as potatoes. So it no longer matters whether you buy them first or last!!!
Spraying of Insecticides & Pesticides, sowing hybrid varieties that bear fruit within weeks are maybe common reasons for this. But I doubt if these are the true reasons. The truth could be that they are actually neither tomato or potato but POMATOS. No am not joking.
Do you know? Now there is a crop which can grow tomato at its shoots and potato at its roots. Combining the two, this plant is known as Potato + Tomato i.e. Pomato. This is not a wonder of Genetic Engineering but accomplished through a simple method called Grafting. The Pomato plant grows tomatoes and potatoes on one plant which is created in the first place by grafting a tomato plant onto a potato plant. This method was originally developed in 1977 in Germany.
I don’t know if the tomatoes appearing in the market these days are actually Pomatoes!!! But, these inventions and revolutions in agricultural science are changing the way we even shop for vegetables, how we consume them and sometimes, the very vegetable itself.
So next time you buy tomatoes at your local market, check if they are actually tomatoes or pomatoes!!!
Happy Vegetable (?) Purchase!!!