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(guó)食用量排第二的蔬菜，僅在土豆之后。（土豆算蔬菜嗎？番茄算嗎？有點(diǎn)跑題了。）全球每年吃掉價(jià)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”).
但廚房的番茄該怎么儲(chǔ)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(yíng)養(yǎng)的人把番茄放冰箱里?，F(xiàn)在《Frontiers in Plant Science》期刊上的一項(xiàng)新研究確定了一勞永逸的番茄最佳儲(chǔ)存方法。

Hyper-detail-oriented researchers at the University of G?ttingen 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(xué)特別注重細(xì)節(jié)的研究人員種植了一種番茄，然后模仿三天從采摘到餐桌的商業(yè)儲(chǔ)存方法。番茄一“進(jìn)家門”，就放進(jìn)冰箱（44.6華氏度）或者室溫（68華氏度）保存，然后找十幾位經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的食品評(píng)估師進(jìn)行評(píng)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(píng)估人員接受過識(shí)別事物的培訓(xùn)，如青草味、番茄氣味、番茄滋味、甜味、酸味、汁液、硬度、余味以及……你懂的。

The tomatoes also underwent a raft of analysis, including taste by an “electronic tongue” known as the e-tongue.
也對(duì)番茄做了大量分析，包括利用一種被稱為e-tongue的“電子舌”來(lái)品嘗。

Their findings: It doesn’t matter. No significant differences in flavor were found between refrigerator-stored and counter-stored tomatoes.
研究結(jié)果：并無(wú)區(qū)別。冰箱保存和櫥柜保存的番茄在味道上沒有明顯區(qū)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(diǎn)是番茄在家里的存放時(shí)間、番茄種類和冰箱的溫度。品種比儲(chǔ)存方法對(duì)味道的影響更大，你應(yīng)該在四天內(nèi)吃掉。身為研究第一作者的農(nóng)業(yè)科學(xué)博士生Larissa Kanski說：“存放時(shí)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(chǔ)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(jiǎn)單點(diǎn)說：想要番茄味道好，要買嘗起來(lái)好吃的，怎樣存放都可以，四天內(nèi)吃完。好好享用吧！

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翻譯：菲菲