also contributes to the flavors of ripe strawberries and pineapples) Most supermarket tomatoes are picked and shipped while still green and artificially stimulated to redden by treatment with ethylene gas (p 351), so they have little ripe-fruit flavor, and in fact have become a byword for flavorless produce However, parts of Europe and Latin America prefer to make salads with less fruity, more vegetable-like mature green tomatoes, and people in many regions cook (or pickle) and enjoy green tomatoes for their own kind of savoriness And in rural Peru, the prized varieties of both tomato and tomatillo are frankly bitter Cooked Tomatoes When fresh tomatoes are cooked down to make a thick sauce, they gain some flavors — notably rose-and violet-like fragments of the carotenoid pigments — but they lose the fresh “green” notes provided by unstable fragments of fatty acids and by a particular sulfur compound (a thiazole) Because tomato leaves have a pronounced fresh-tomato aroma thanks to their leaf enzymes (p 273) and prominent aromatic oil glands, some cooks add a few leaves to a tomato sauce toward the end of the cooking, to restore its fresh notes Tomato leaves have long been considered potentially toxic because they contain a defensive alkaloid, tomatine, but recent research has found that tomatine binds tightly to cholesterol molecules in our digestive system, so that the body absorbs neither the alkaloid nor its bound partner It thus reduces our net intake of cholesterol! (Green tomatoes also contain tomatine and have the same effect.) It’s fine, then, to freshen the flavor of tomato sauces with the leaves ... molecules in our digestive system, so that the body absorbs neither the alkaloid nor its bound partner It thus reduces our net intake of cholesterol! (Green tomatoes also contain tomatine and have the same effect.) It’s fine, then,... few leaves to a tomato sauce toward the end of the cooking, to restore its fresh notes Tomato leaves have long been considered potentially toxic because they contain a defensive alkaloid, tomatine,...particular sulfur compound (a thiazole) Because tomato leaves have a pronounced fresh-tomato aroma thanks to their leaf enzymes (p 273) and prominent aromatic oil glands, some cooks add a few