I almost lost my faith in food last week.
On a sweltering Saturday morning I meandered up to my local corner store to buy some bread that would make a perfect breakfast of fried eggs. Living in a town so regional that by some definitions it is remote, I’m used to hefty food prices, so I duly paid over $6 for my preferred loaf, and tottered back home.
The bread had been defrosted, not unsual in a remote area where the average food item spends three days on the bitumen before hitting the shelves and the noble art of freeze packing remains one of the most effective ways of ensuring freshness.
No, the cause of my concern was a tiny label displaying the baked on date of November 2011, almost three months previous. It seemed that this sucker had spent the summer sitting in the back of cyrogenics facility for baked goods, paitently awaiting the return of customers with an inclination for soy and linseed.
I felt disparaged and disgusted; I try to do my bit and shop local, especially as the regions business reports read more like an obituary. Lately though, the nose dive in quality has sent me running back into the arms of the tweedledee & tweedledum duopoly that dominates 80 percent of the grocery market. It’s a confusing place to be; aisles of super-specials so potent I usually end up leaving with nothing that I need, and double packs of everything that I don’t.
That said, I’m lucky that I have a choice in where I shop. Many of the more isolated communities in Central Australia are held hostage to local stores that charge outrageously for geriatric vegtables. On a quiet day you can hear the weeping of nutritionists sweep across the towns as mothers empty their basics cards in exchange for tinned meat and white bread.
The scarcity of decent food outlets in this small desert town is dire. Most of the solutions seem to lie in a handful of small specialist businesses, a few emerging social enterprises and a trailer load of cowshit…..but thats a whole other story to be told next time.
Till then,
kl
TuckaFukka 