番茄應該怎麼儲存?大綱
Tomatoes are the second-most eaten vegetable in the United States, following potatoes. (And are potatoes really vegetables? Are tomatoes? We digress.) People eat $60 billion worth worldwide every year, which is a lot.
番茄是美國食用量排第二的蔬菜，僅在土豆之後。（土豆算蔬菜嗎？番茄算嗎？有點跑題了。）全球每年吃掉價值600億美元的番茄，真是不少。But how should tomatoes be stored in your kitchen? Chefs and Italians have long left tomatoes at room temperature, while safety- and efficiency-minded types use the refrigerator. Now a new study in Frontiers in Plant Science determines once and for all what the best practices are for storage of Solanum lycopersicum L (that's science for "tomato").
但廚房的番茄該怎麼儲存呢？廚師和意大利人一直把番茄放在室溫下，但注重安全和營養的人把番茄放冰箱裏。現在《Frontiers in Plant Science》期刊上的一項新研究確定了一勞永逸的番茄最佳儲存方法。Hyper-detail-oriented researchers at the University of Göttingen grew a variety of tomatoes and then mimicked the commercial three-day harvest-to-consumer storage practices. Once they arrived at "home," the tomatoes were stored either in the refrigerator (44.6 degrees F) or at room temperature (68 degrees F) and then evaluated by a dozen experienced food assessors.
哥廷根大學特別注重細節的研究人員種植了一種番茄，然後模仿三天從採摘到餐桌的商業儲存方法。番茄一“進家門”，就放進冰箱（44.6華氏度）或者室溫（68華氏度）保存，然後找十幾位經驗豐富的食品評估師進行評估。
Those assessors were trained at identifying things such as green-grassy odor, tomato-typical odor, tomato-typical flavor, sweetness, sourness, juiciness, firmness, aftertaste, and ... you get the idea.
評估人員接受過識別事物的培訓，如青草味、番茄氣味、番茄滋味、甜味、酸味、汁液、硬度、餘味以及……你懂的。The tomatoes also underwent a raft of analysis, including taste by an "electronic tongue" known as the e-tongue.
也對番茄做了大量分析，包括利用一種被稱爲e-tongue的“電子舌”來品嚐。Their findings: It doesn't matter. No significant differences in flavor were found between refrigerator-stored and counter-stored tomatoes.
研究結果：並無區別。冰箱保存和櫥櫃保存的番茄在味道上沒有明顯區別 。What matters is how long the tomato is at your house, the variety of the tomato, and the temperature of your refrigerator. The cultivars (aka breeds) had a much higher impact on flavor than the storage. And you should eat them within four days. "The shorter the storage period, the better it is for the flavor and related attributes," says lead author Larissa Kanski, a doctoral candidate in agricultural sciences. Make sure to pay attention to temperature, as previous studies have shown deleterious effects of storing tomatoes at 39 degrees F.
重點是番茄在家裏的存放時間、番茄種類和冰箱的溫度。品種比儲存方法對味道的影響更大，你應該在四天內吃掉。身爲研究第一作者的農業科學博士生Larissa Kanski說：“存放時間越短，味道和其他方面越好。”你一定要注意溫度，此前的研究也表明，在39華氏度下儲存番茄是有害的。In short: For tasty tomatoes, buy tomatoes that taste good, store 'em however you want, and eat them within four days. Enjoy.
簡單點說：想要番茄味道好，要買嚐起來好吃的，怎樣存放都可以，四天內吃完。好好享用吧！
