"Cat faces" on tomatoes (1934)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

I've been looking at some food blogs today. There are about a million of
them.
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"Cat faces" is not in the OED in this sense and is useful to any  tomato-type
person. Sorry if this post gets messed up by html. Just my home  computer
does this, not the NYU one.
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_http://fogcity.blogs.com/_ (http://fogcity.blogs.com/)
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_Forget about taste, Florida says, these tomates are just too ugly  to ship.
_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21tomato.html) Unlike the
smooth, round baseball-size tomatoes  usually shipped from Florida from mid-October
through mid-April, the lush,  vine-ripened UglyRipes have what the industry
calls a "cat face," full of uneven  crevices and ridges. The Florida Tomato
Committee, a trade group that controls  sales and shipments of round tomatoes, has
determined that the brand does not  meet its standards for shape, lack of
blemishes and other defects. "The  marketing order has nothing to do with taste,"
said Skip Jonas, the committee's  compliance officer. "Taste is subjective."
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(OED)
 cat-face  (U.S.), a mark in lumber-wood (see quot.);
1879  Lumberman's Gaz. 3 Dec., Logs  that have *cat faces or burnt
places..the cat face or knots.
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(GOOGLE)
_Gawker : Archive for Media : New York Times_
(http://www.gawker.com/news/media/new-york-times/index.php)
... And that's what we're calling our movie pitch: "Cat  Face: The Little
Tomato That
Could." Forget About Taste,  Florida Says, These Tomatoes Are Just Too Ugly
to ...
www.gawker.com/news/media/new-york-times/index.php - 37k - Dec 29,  2004 -
_Cached_
(http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Ap3tCTTDsdYJ:www.gawker.com/news/media/new-york-times/index.php+"cat+face"+tomato&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)  - _Similar
pages_
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.gawker.com/news/media/new-york-times/index.php)
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(GOOGLE GROUPS)
_weird tomatoes_ (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.ga
rdens/browse_frm/thread/82a04c60fd671ceb/809a34a77893d282?q="cat+face"+tomato&_done=/groups?q="c
at+face"+tomato&start=10&scoring=d&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&&_doneTitle=Bac
k+to+Search&&d#809a34a77893d282)
... Now, since they  didn't make the tomato bad, we didn't worry about it at
all.  ...
Found the name of the disfiguration is called "Cat  face". ...
_rec.gardens_ (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.gardens)  - Sep 21
1993, 10:44 pm by Gayle Chidester - 3 messages - 3 authors
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(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
24 August 1934. Chicago Daily Tribune, pg.  17:
Wholesale vegetable men are commenting upon the excess  waste in some of the
tomatoes they are handling at low prices. Many show cracks  from alternate
drouth and rain and the fruit blotches referred to by the trade  as "cat faces."
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20 September 1935, Chicago Daily Tribune, pg.  A17:
Tomatoes in cases are only  fair in quality; often  they are found with "cat
faces" and green patches.
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20 October 1936. Chicago Daily Tribune, pg.  18:
They are comparatively free from "cat faces," cracks,  and other scars common
on tomatoes this season.