BRITAIN CAN GROW DELICIOUS TOMATOES. Repeat: Britain. Delicious
Hold the front page, because science has confirmed the impossible dream: the best supermarket vine tomato in the land — Morrisons' Viola Cocktail, a Brix-7 flavour bomb — is grown on the ISLE OF WIGHT. The Guardian's tester, wielding an actual refractometer, wrote the words 'proof that delicious tomatoes can be grown in the UK', and somewhere every allotment in England stood up and saluted.
And the podium keeps giving! The best bargain is an organic Essex tomato. Kent's Thanet Earth — the UK's LARGEST GREENHOUSE, a phrase we love — lands a respectable Brix 6. Scotland grows tomatoes now! Hertfordshire grows tomatoes! The nation that invented queueing in rain has quietly become a tomato power!
Even the losers are winners in disguise: the fancy £3 Sicilian import scored ONE star. The sun-drenched Mediterranean, out-tomatoed by an island famous for fog. Sweetest plot twist of the summer.
Practical joy to take home: never refrigerate them, leave them on the counter a few days, and they get even better — tomatoes literally improve by being allowed to relax, a lesson for us all. What a time to be a lycopene enthusiast! Another gift!