The second of two recent studies of tomato flavor involves
genetic engineering, and offers a scent of tomorrow's tomatoes.
A group of plant scientists in Israel and at Rutgers and the
University of Michigan reported their success in transferring a
gene from the basil plant into tomato plants. This particular
gene diverts molecules in the pathway toward becoming the red
pigment lycopene, and sends them instead onto the pathway that
generates aroma molecules. The engineered tomato plants produced
fruits that were paler than usual, but also had a stronger aroma
and smelled distinctly of perfume, rose, geranium, and
lemongrass. More than half of a panel of taste testers preferred
the engineered tomato to its unengineered parent. This
experiment may be a harbinger of things to come, a new era of
plant modification in which flavor combinations once created by
cooks will be re-created--or precreated--by breeders in the
plants themselves. Davidovich-Rikanati, R. et al., Enrichment of
tomato flavor by diversion of the