Originally Posted by
YVR Cockroach
I was looking in a upper-scale supermarket the other day and came across this brand, which was comparable in cost to the DOP stuff from WM. It also carried another DOP brand that was nerly 2x as much as this, or 4x as much as a can of generic tomatoes.
FWIW, ATK is the name of the show broadcast on PBS, and Cook's Illustrated is the name of one of the magazines ATK publishes (the more-simple home-style one is Cook's Country).
Cooks Illustrated also has a website. I have been watching the show for years...sometimes it gets a bit too anal about things for me but lots of good advice and I have learned a lot about food and cooking. I love the science behind things. Alton Brown is good for that too.
I think you answered your own question about major discernable differences when there are lots of other flavors involved. That being said, for some dishes I believe in buying the best possible ingredients that are affordable(at least to me---I buy a lot of generic stuff too) within reason especially when they are the major components of a dish. One good thing about buying whole peeled tomatoes as opposed to diced is that whole canned tomatoes are packed when they are ate their ripest while chopped often has a mix of ripe & not so ripe so you might not get the best flavor.