I was at an experimental foods trade show recently and dropped by the genetically-modified tomato booth to see what was new. As you may have heard, awhile ago they developed a genetically-modified tomato that is shaped in a cube, to make for easier stacking at the grocery store, and they added a frost-resist gene so that tomatoes can grow all winter. It creeps some people out, understandably so, the anti-freeze gene actually came from a fish. But that is yesterday's news. At the trade show, they had a new type of genetically-modified tomato called a pizza-tomato. Since photography was not allowed, to protect trade secrets of course, I had to settle for making this watercolour painting later on from memory. The painting doesn't quite do justice to the real thing... it was flat and triangular like a slice of pizza, with a protruding crust-like shape near the stem. Since they had samples I got to eat one, in fact, they introduced genes from pepperoni, cheese, green peppers and mushrooms such that the tomato actually tasted like pizza. There was another variety...meat lovers, which included genes from sausage, beef, and chorizo ham. It may take awhile to hit the market, so you saw it here first in my curio folio.
Curio Folio: Pizza-Tomato, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, September 2025
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