"In a backyard in the Bronx in the mid-1980s, a vine laden with sweet-smelling tomatoes came as a revelation to urban gardening guru Karen Washington.

'It was tomatoes that really got me hooked on growing food, because I hated tomatoes,' she said, laughing at the memory.

A world apart from their insipid namesakes sold at the supermarket, Washington's tomatoes won her round to a culinary staple she previously loathed.

But they also got her thinking about the huge difference between the quality of food available to her white friends elsewhere in New York City and what was on sale at stores in her mainly Black neighbourhood."

Thin Lei Win reports for the Thomson Reuters Foundation July 28, 2020. [2]