It’s partly because they are definitely less thronged, at the time I go in, usually around 6 or 7 in the evening – no crowds with laden trolleys to negotiate. And is it my imagination, or are people now much less likely to be out shopping with their children at that time?
I have never really got over my dismay at seeing small children out & about at that time.
Perhaps it is part of the move back to old fashioned values: pester power inhibits the exercise of virtues such as thrift, making shopping lists & menu planning. Or maybe the old fashioned values include the reimposition of proper bedtimes, which require a definite signal that now is the time to start winding down – bathtime, story, milky drink - not the excitement of going out in the car & running around the safe space of the supermarket.
But the main cause of pleasure for me is the sudden availability of bargains on products & in quantities suitable for small households – not just BOGOFFS or supersized multibuys of things you wouldn’t even want & could never use if you did.
I learned my lesson on those long ago, before my first born was even born. Boots were offering 3 for 2 on large sizes of their own-brand baby products such as lotion & talc. I thought it worth making the investment on these essentials, even though it meant a squeeze on the cash flow that week.
Well the lotion was very useful, but I left 2 tins of the talc behind when we moved abroad two years later.
Not that such things do not have their place. Sainsbury’s were recently offering super gigantic boxes of washing powder for £10 – a real bargain if you are well disciplined & have lots of washing to do. I even saw one man, who looked like a family man, with three in his trolley. Perhaps he was buying for brothers & sisters, or neighbours, or perhaps he managed a boys football team. Or perhaps he had just spotted an opportunity for a spot of private enterprise in these straitened times.
The bargains that give me that little flash of pleasure & satisfaction include economy or value veg. I felt vaguely mutinous about my first such purchase – they had run out of loose tomatoes, when I really did need just one, but the then newly introduced value packs were priced such that it wouldn’t seem too bad if one or two never got used. What I did not expect was the really top flavour of quality tomatoes normally considered unsaleable because of variations in size.
Not that I was previously unsympathetic to the supermarkets oft repeated claim that customers overwhelmingly prefer symmetry in their fruit & veg. Years ago, when French Golden Delicious were said to be causing the death of the English apple industry, some supermarkets gave in to pressure & experimented with having ill-matched English apples on display; even I found it difficult to persuade myself that a misshapen Cox’s orange pippin tasted better. Somehow they were just not the same as those of my youth.
This summer runner beans have been a great delight – the mismatched sizes making them look just like they had come from the garden. And English too – they even smell like runner beans when you open the packet.
I know some people who, at least until recently, would have thought it beneath them ever to buy anything with a yellow ticket, though I firmly believe that only idiots pay more than they need to for anything. The problem was that the system more often than not offered things which, for the most part, you would not want, even for free, & so it wasn’t always worth making a point of looking out for them.
This week I had the special small pleasure of picking up a bag of 4 fat baby English courgettes for 22p & a truly ripe avocado for 20p. When I went to the delicatessen to find some ham to go with them, I found a very special offer on old-fashioned English baked ham. A salad of avocado, tomato & courgette with lime juice – no oil needed because the avocado was more than buttery enough – with roast potatoes in a nod to the autumnal weather provided a really good supper for less than £1 per head.
It is almost as good as the days when my main weekly food shop was done in Portobello Road in the days when fishmongers, butchers, & greengrocers catered for those eager for a taste of home – whether that be exotic flying fish or chicken feet & pigs tails - & one could go out & shop for what looked best for quality & value or for a little bit of adventure in your home cooking.
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