Last night's dinner was a paltry offering. A tiny pork, apple and leek stirfry, three sweet potatoes that shrank to half their size in baking and three carrots. The accompanying asparagus and cauliflower was found to be already rotting after only a few days since purchase and there was nothing else in the fridge. We didn't suffer in any way, the four of us. Portions are way too large in general, but it looked meagre on the plate. Which brought me to thinking of plates. In the old days (when I was young), dinner plates were about 2 inches smaller in diameter, making a substantial difference to the amount of food you could put on it. As portions have grown beyond our needs over the decades, plates have evolved to accommodate supersized meals, and the result is the size of the general population.
Going back to the food itself, isn't it time there was a public protest about the bad handling of fresh produce in our stores? Packers slam bunches of bananas into huge heaps, pushing and patting them into place. Bags of apples are tipped into bins where each fairly delicate fruit jostles against its neighbour. See picture! The packaging ensures that you can't see the state of the goods you are buying. Let me not mention avocados, which are out of season and exorbitant prices, only to be predominantly black inside before properly ripened. We may as well burn R200 notes at the gas hob!
Again, packaging. Blemishes are deliberately hidden on the underside before wrapping, or price labels hide a bee sting in a butternut. The fatty part of the meat is never on the upper side. These ploys are rife from top retailer to budget stores. Pass it on to the consumer. Oh, for the corner grocery store - low rent, few overheads, minimal handling, reasonable prices, happy customers. You think it can't happen?
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