Food alienation.

[Trailoftears]

Apart from the usual landscaping routine maintenance stuff,I also grow a fair bit of veg/soft fruit for various customers in their own veg patches/raised bed areas etc.One of my female customers decided to take our relative glut of salad crops down to her friends on her days in work.These are salad crops grown organically by myself  15 odd metres from her fr.door-curly kale/salad bowl lettuce/spinach/chard etc,etc.Not content with washing them-it was (apparently) necessary to wash them in hot water!Its like-why?What horrors lurk within?a lone small keel slug?I found it profoundly depressing that even educated people's default position is that veg is 'dirty' and potentially suspect because it doesn't arrive in polystyrene packages shrink-wrapped.A very depressing moment tbh.Does she feel the need to hot water wash the 'piccolo' tomatoes via m&S they eat all Winter which come from god knows where?I v.much doubt it.

What a World....

[Trailoftears]

Thinking back,growing up as a Country boy my/our chief pastimes were bird-nesting- v.politically incorrect I know!But I've ensured my place in Valhalla now by reparations I hope.Also snaring sewin/salmon which went to the chosen few on my Dad's milk round.But my favourite pastime was via a stable of ferrets/purse nets rabbiting!Again,they were sold on to the more discerning customers of my Dads biz.And 2 or 3 young lean rabbits are are damn good eating.I couldnt help smiling to myself at the thought of slapping 3 young rabbits in the fur,thoughtfully gutted by myself on the worktop of my modern 'right-on' customer referred to in my o.p.She would shriek wildly,slam the door in my face-then sack me due to the horror.....😄

[Conor Wright]

Yeah, I feel your pain. we grow a bit if our own veg and fruit too, nothing special.

Had a local beef farmer in visiting recently and he commented on how well our potatoes were doing. I had to point out that they were, in fact gooseberry bushes. You couldn't make it up. We gave a friend some fresh beetroot (stalks intact) a couple of years back and he had no idea what they were. 

These are country dwelling folk. How bad must it be in the towns and cities?

Growing your own food should be a school subject imo.

[AHPP]

****************em. Let em die.

 

[sime42]

54 minutes ago, Conor Wright said:

Yeah, I feel your pain. we grow a bit if our own veg and fruit too, nothing special.

Had a local beef farmer in visiting recently and he commented on how well our potatoes were doing. I had to point out that they were, in fact gooseberry bushes. You couldn't make it up. We gave a friend some fresh beetroot (stalks intact) a couple of years back and he had no idea what they were. 

These are country dwelling folk. How bad must it be in the towns and cities?

Growing your own food should be a school subject imo.

Growing and then preparing and cooking your own food ought to be on the curriculum imo. Including when and when not to wash things! There's plenty around who wouldn't know what to do with a lot of whole freshly harvested veggies.

 

 

[Peasgood]

My lunch today was a stir fry of broad beans, peas, mange tout, brocolli, pak choi, red onion, green onion, onion flower heads, carrot and chives.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Only the carrots weren't grown and picked by me 10 minutes before lunch out of the garden.

Son does the same at his place and sent his 2 sheep off for slaughter yesterday. No alienation here.

As for a beef farmer not knowing gooseberries from potatoes I am not really surprised, most farmers have no idea whatsoever about farming apart from the little bit they do. Have always found that quite odd.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Peasgood

[difflock]

10 hours ago, Trailoftears said:

Apart from the usual landscaping routine maintenance stuff,I also grow a fair bit of veg/soft fruit for various customers in their own veg patches/raised bed areas etc.One of my female customers decided to take our relative glut of salad crops down to her friends on her days in work.These are salad crops grown organically by myself  15 odd metres from her fr.door-curly kale/salad bowl lettuce/spinach/chard etc,etc.Not content with washing them-it was (apparently) necessary to wash them in hot water!Its like-why?What horrors lurk within?a lone small keel slug?I found it profoundly depressing that even educated people's default position is that veg is 'dirty' and potentially suspect because it doesn't arrive in polystyrene packages shrink-wrapped.A very depressing moment tbh.Does she feel the need to hot water wash the 'piccolo' tomatoes via m&S they eat all Winter which come from god knows where?I v.much doubt it.

What a World....

Good God!

You should have told her to add Fairy Liquid to the hot water, to get those salad greens properly clean.

[Bunzena]

10 hours ago, Conor Wright said:

Yeah, I feel your pain. we grow a bit if our own veg and fruit too, nothing special.

Had a local beef farmer in visiting recently and he commented on how well our potatoes were doing. I had to point out that they were, in fact gooseberry bushes. You couldn't make it up. We gave a friend some fresh beetroot (stalks intact) a couple of years back and he had no idea what they were. 

These are country dwelling folk. How bad must it be in the towns and cities?

Growing your own food should be a school subject imo.

 

Couldn't agree more. 

 

Was at a Timber Merchants a few years back - making an order with one of 'the old boys' in the yard.  He had a young trainee working with him.  He offered the lad something "he'd grown in his garden" from a paper bag he was carrying.

 

"What's this?" he said - wrinkling his nose suspiciously.  "Never seen one of those before".

 

"A plum" said the older guy.

 

We're too worried about teaching kids it's okay to identify as a cat than the things that really matter in life.

 

Now where's my soapbox? 🤐

[sime42]

A good mate of mine used to live in a house with a lovely productive apple tree in the garden. Him and his Mrs, intelligent people, both doctors, were amazed when I suggested that they could eat the apples! I was amazed by their reaction, and then dismayed when I went round another time to see that the tree had been cut down. It was a good sized tree, and productive, so they could have had months worth of apples, if stored properly. Food alienation indeed.

 

What a sad state of affairs, what a world. 

[Conor Wright]

31 minutes ago, sime42 said:

A good mate of mine used to live in a house with a lovely productive apple tree in the garden. Him and his Mrs, intelligent people, both doctors, were amazed when I suggested that they could eat the apples! I was amazed by their reaction, and then dismayed when I went round another time to see that the tree had been cut down. It was a good sized tree, and productive, so they could have had months worth of apples, if stored properly. Food alienation indeed.

 

What a sad state of affairs, what a world. 

Can't blame them really, an apple a day and all that...