Food FYI: Tomato's downfall, still more burgers, haute Israeli?

BETTER RED?

There a fascinating story from Gina Kolata at the New York Times about how the push for redness in tomatoes led to the downfall of flavor. A similar thing happened years ago with the Red Delicious apple, which was originally pink with pale green stripes and good flavor. As plant breeders focused on making the apples more red, the flavor deteriorated; it was found (too late) that the red pigment being produced actually had a bitter flavor.

MORE BURGERS!

Our great Battle of the Burgers wasn't enough? National Geographic has a book out on the 10 best of everything (yeah, I know, huh?), and it includes hamburgers. Local winners are In-N-Out (well, duh), and Apple Pan (have to confess, never understood the love). They also like the burgers at Gott's Roadside in St. Helena (used to be Taylor's Refreshers) and one of my personal favorites -- Blake's Lotaburger in New Mexico (the green chile cheeseburger is amazing).

IS ISRAELI THE NEXT THAI?

OK, maybe it's a stretch, but one of my favorite cookbook authors, Yotam Ottolenghi, has a book coming this fall on the cuisine of Jerusalem (look for an interview with him in the next couple of weeks from our own S. Irene Virbila). And one of my favorite food bloggers, Paris-based David Lebovitz, is positively paroxysmic over his meal at Haj Kahil in Tel Aviv. Do not look at his photos before lunch!

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-- Russ Parsons

Photo credit: All-American Selections

Battle of the Burgers reaches voting round

The cooks have spoken, so now it's time for the readers to vote. We had more than 70 entries in our annual Battle of the Burgers, but your votes will cut that number down to the top 20. Visit our Facebook page to find out more.

After we've tallied the reader votes, we'll take the best recipes into the Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen to come up with our favorite burgers. The winners will be invited to visit the Test Kitchen, and their recipes will be published in the Saturday section in time for the Fourth of July.

Winners also will be invited to appear at our big food event, The Taste, over Labor Day weekend. Voting runs through June 11, and you can vote as often as you'd like.

Photo credit: Terry Way Photography

The ultimate burger: Do you have what it takes?

It’s time to fire up your grills and griddles.

Just as Christmas brought the first Los Angeles Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off, this Fourth of July will bring a full-scale Battle of the Burgers.

So it’s time to start perfecting yours. You’ll need a recipe and an essay about what makes this particular burger so special.

A photograph will probably help too. Watch http://www.latimes.com/features/food/ for more information in the coming weeks.

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Photo: Terry Way Photography