Singing the Blues

Just finished reading the sale flyer for my local grocery store/fruit market and I’m feeling rather like an anachronism. There is barely anything on offer I’m interested in buying. I’m a cook-from-scratch kind of guy. I’ve been baking my own bread for forty years; I make my own salad dressings, mayonnaise, and mustard; and bake cakes, muffins, and pancakes from scratch. I can honestly say I’ve never owned a TV Dinner or cake mix. So what does my favourite store have on offer? Pages of ready-to-eat meals, frozen prepared foods, and snacks for something called the Superbowl—is there a recipe for that I’ve missed? Is it a soup or a salad?

Then there’s the organic food section. There may be something to the whole food movement but I’m more in favour of buying locally—have you ever tried to buy local strawberries in season? Some of the most polluted real estate around is in our own high-arctic and despite their low rate of precipitation the pollutants rain out of the sky. Although I’m all in favour of minimizing the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, the humane treatment of animals, and healthy feed practices I question whether transporting fruit and vegetables out of season half way round the world is ecologically sound. Somehow it just seems to be a scam to overcharge the consumer to me.

I realize that more and more people seem to eat out or buy in these days from fast-food restaurants and retailers feel forced to offer easy alternatives to keep the consumer coming back but in the process they force traditionalists such as myself to wade past aisles of ready-made food, frozen prepared meals, and empty snack foods. It is getting more and more difficult to find the basic building blocks of a well-cooked meal free from processed foods loaded with additives. The day I found frozen Kraft Dinner in a neighbourhood store I knew I wouldn’t be going back—it’s faster to cook that one from scratch.