番茄需要放进冰箱吗？

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.

番茄是美国食用量排第二的蔬菜，仅在土豆之后。（土豆算蔬菜吗？番茄算吗？有点跑题了。）全球每年吃掉价值600亿美元的番茄，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”).

但厨房的番茄该怎么储存呢？厨师和意大利人一直把番茄放在室温下，但注重安全和营养的人把番茄放冰箱里。现在《Frontiers in Plant Science》期刊上的一项新研究确定了一劳永逸的番茄最佳储存方法。

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.

哥廷根大学特别注重细节的研究人员种植了一种番茄，然后模仿三天从采摘到餐桌的商业储存方法。番茄一“进家门”，就放进冰箱（44.6华氏度）或者室温（68华氏度）保存，然后找十几位经验丰富的食品评估师进行评估。

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.

评估人员接受过识别事物的培训，如青草味、番茄气味、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.

也对番茄做了大量分析，包括利用一种被称为e-tongue的“电子舌”来品尝。

Their findings: It doesn’t matter. No significant differences in flavor were found between refrigerator-stored and counter-stored tomatoes.

研究结果：并无区别。冰箱保存和橱柜保存的番茄在味道上没有明显区别 。

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.

重点是番茄在家里的存放时间、番茄种类和冰箱的温度。品种比储存方法对味道的影响更大，你应该在四天内吃掉。身为研究第一作者的农业科学博士生Larissa Kanski说：“存放时间越短，味道和其他方面越好。”你一定要注意温度，此前的研究也表明，在39华氏度下储存番茄是有害的。

In short: For tasty tomatoes, buy tomatoes that taste good, store ’em however you want, and eat them within four days. Enjoy.

简单点说：想要番茄味道好，要买尝起来好吃的，怎样存放都可以，四天内吃完。好好享用吧！