There was snow on the mountaintops six weeks ago, which means it’s due in the valleys this week. I’ve seen a few flakes floating in the air, but nothing has accumulated on the ground. The harvest is in, which means no more fresh vegetables from the farm share. The Saturday public market has shut down for the season and I feel a kinship to the squirrels; we’re all having to work a bit harder to bring in our provisions.
Adrienne and I belong to the local co-op, where we can get organic produce throughout the year. Co-ops emerged after the second world war to sell not health food, but cheap food. It was the economy that first brought people to co-ops, but shoppers soon realized that since they owned the co-op they could easily get the items they wanted on the shelves, and the next thing you know, soy milk and organic ginger started showing up.
Still, going to the co-op is no walk in the park. I always feel a little self-conscious when I go there. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t escape the feeling that my fellow shoppers look into my basket and find me wanting, perhaps because I don’t eat low enough on the food chain. Maybe I’m feeling guilty, maybe I’m afraid my fellow co-oppers know my dirty little secret – that every month or so I hop in the car and drive out to one of the big chain grocery stores in the suburbs.
I have to admit, I’m fascinated every time I go out to the big chain grocery store, although my interest is tinged with revulsion. It’s my form of pornography. The modern megamarket resembles nothing so much as a theme park. I walk in the door, veer to my right and I’m in produce world. Fruit and vegetables are everywhere, in heaps and pyramids. Ten-foot-long foam carrots hang from the ceiling by wires, reminding me of the Godzilla movies. Little jets of mist turn on and off by themselves. Sometimes it seems like they’re trying to tell me something. I could stay in produce world all day, but I have to keep moving – through bakery world, deli world, meat world.
There are 13 aisles at the big chain supermarket in the suburbs. Here and there on the aisles are little boxes hanging from the shelves with blinking red lights on the top of them. Coupons stick out from the front of the little boxes. If you take a coupon from the little box, another one will pop out a second later. Then another and another. Like the automatic jets of mist, I think they may be trying to tell me something. I wish I knew what it was.
To compete with the co-ops, the megamarket now sells soy milk and high-fiber cereal. It’s on aisle three. The sign over aisle three says, “Dressings, Soups, Ketchup, Diet, Nutritional, Candy.” Think about that. Nutritional. Why would you shop on any other aisle?
When it comes to cheese, the megamarket does not compete with the co-op. The megamarket has a 12-yard-long display of cheese, but it’s all American cheese – yellow, white and orange, packaged 16 different ways. Go figure.
Every time I go to the big chain supermarket, I check out the spices. Because the unit price cards on the shelves give the per-pound price of everything, I know that peppercorns cost $232.37 per pound, chives cost $641.94 per pound, Spanish saffron costs $867.74 per pound and bay leaves cost $933.87 per pound. At prices like that, why in the name of God would anyone grow marijuana, or opium? Does the Cali cartel know about this? Does the CIA?
Eventually I stagger out of the store, a little numb, a little dazed. Maybe our supermarkets ARE theme parks – cornucopic fantasy lands that don’t sell us food, but an illusion – the illusion that half a billion children won’t go to bed hungry tonight.
Produce World, Meat World
There was snow on the mountaintops six weeks ago, which means it’s due in the valleys this week. I’ve seen a few flakes floating in the air, but nothing has accumulated on the ground. The harvest is in, which means no more fresh vegetables from the farm share. The Saturday public market has shut down for the season and I feel a kinship to the squirrels; we’re all having to work a bit harder to bring in our provisions.
Adrienne and I belong to the local co-op, where we can get organic produce throughout the year. Co-ops emerged after the second world war to sell not health food, but cheap food. It was the economy that first brought people to co-ops, but shoppers soon realized that since they owned the co-op they could easily get the items they wanted on the shelves, and the next thing you know, soy milk and organic ginger started showing up.
Still, going to the co-op is no walk in the park. I always feel a little self-conscious when I go there. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t escape the feeling that my fellow shoppers look into my basket and find me wanting, perhaps because I don’t eat low enough on the food chain. Maybe I’m feeling guilty, maybe I’m afraid my fellow co-oppers know my dirty little secret – that every month or so I hop in the car and drive out to one of the big chain grocery stores in the suburbs.
I have to admit, I’m fascinated every time I go out to the big chain grocery store, although my interest is tinged with revulsion. It’s my form of pornography. The modern megamarket resembles nothing so much as a theme park. I walk in the door, veer to my right and I’m in produce world. Fruit and vegetables are everywhere, in heaps and pyramids. Ten-foot-long foam carrots hang from the ceiling by wires, reminding me of the Godzilla movies. Little jets of mist turn on and off by themselves. Sometimes it seems like they’re trying to tell me something. I could stay in produce world all day, but I have to keep moving – through bakery world, deli world, meat world.
There are 13 aisles at the big chain supermarket in the suburbs. Here and there on the aisles are little boxes hanging from the shelves with blinking red lights on the top of them. Coupons stick out from the front of the little boxes. If you take a coupon from the little box, another one will pop out a second later. Then another and another. Like the automatic jets of mist, I think they may be trying to tell me something. I wish I knew what it was.
To compete with the co-ops, the megamarket now sells soy milk and high-fiber cereal. It’s on aisle three. The sign over aisle three says, “Dressings, Soups, Ketchup, Diet, Nutritional, Candy.” Think about that. Nutritional. Why would you shop on any other aisle?
When it comes to cheese, the megamarket does not compete with the co-op. The megamarket has a 12-yard-long display of cheese, but it’s all American cheese – yellow, white and orange, packaged 16 different ways. Go figure.
Every time I go to the big chain supermarket, I check out the spices. Because the unit price cards on the shelves give the per-pound price of everything, I know that peppercorns cost $232.37 per pound, chives cost $641.94 per pound, Spanish saffron costs $867.74 per pound and bay leaves cost $933.87 per pound. At prices like that, why in the name of God would anyone grow marijuana, or opium? Does the Cali cartel know about this? Does the CIA?
Eventually I stagger out of the store, a little numb, a little dazed. Maybe our supermarkets ARE theme parks – cornucopic fantasy lands that don’t sell us food, but an illusion – the illusion that half a billion children won’t go to bed hungry tonight.
But they will.