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Thread ID: 89994	2008-05-19 03:44:00	LOL - Food Prices Article	pctek (84)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
670671	2008-05-19 03:44:00	If food prices continue to rise, supermarket managers really must give their staff extra training in how to break news of the cost of groceries to appalled customers. No longer should shoppers expect to have the amount revealed to them by a bored 16-year-old with absolutely no bedside manner: in future, I think we have a right to be led off to a separate room and given the news sitting down, with a box of tissues and a sympathetic support person on hand. On my last trip to the supermarket, the bill was so enormous that I assumed another shopper had inadvertently put something in my shopping trolley – a 10kg Italian white truffle, for example, or an organically grown, free- range unicorn. There have always been people in this country who have struggled to put food on the table, but only recently have relatively humdrum groceries become luxury items for middle New Zealand. I've noticed far more shoppers bearing lists – a strategy I find essential if I don't want to come out of the supermarket with a trolley laden exclusively with corn chips and Mallowpuffs – and trying to restrict their supermarket trips to once a fortnight. When I was growing up in the 1970s, the main trick housewives employed to make food go further was to cook everything in such an appalling fashion that family members soon lost their appetite. It was the era of boiled meat, and novelty sausage dishes, and curries made of tinned pineapple and gravy beef. Apart from this useful tip – make food so horrible that no one will want firsts, let alone seconds – many of us are so accustomed to the era of relatively cheap food that we have no idea how to economise. We're not used to bulking mince out with lentils to cut costs, or finding crafty ways with offal. I have an Italian cookbook that contains a recipe for a ham bone soup dating back to the days when a ham bone was such a rare and precious commodity that it would be passed around every home in the village till the last dregs of flavour had been boiled out of it. So far, my main step toward cutting my grocery bill has been to join a vegetable co-op. Last week, the vegetable box contained a choko. "That vegetable looks like a bottom," remarked one of the children, which pretty much guaranteed no one was going to eat the thing. Cauliflower, a staple of the vegetable box, has a similar fate in our house: there are many things one can do with a cauliflower, but my preferred option is to throw it out immediately. Irritatingly, despite soaring food prices, Alison Holst remains one of the few cookbook writers in New Zealand who seems remotely aware that the average meal in this country is based not on duck legs or lamb shanks, but on mince. So, in search of money- saving tips, I consulted my thriftiest cookbook: A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, written in 1891 by Charles Elme Francatelli, former chief cook to Queen Victoria. I can't say I was overly tempted by Giblet Pie (a recipe that rather off- puttingly begins with an instruction to "remove the rough skin from the feet"), Boiled Tripe, Pumpkin Porridge, Eggs Stewed with Cheese, Sheep's Head Soup, Stewed Eels, Cow-Heel Broth, Baked Cod's Head or, most disturbing of all, Rice Gruel: A Recipe for Relaxed Bowels. Then there's A Pudding Made of Small Birds, about which Francatelli has this to say: "Industrious and intelligent boys who live in the country are mostly well up in the cunning art of catching small birds at odd times during the winter months. "So, my young friends, when you have been so fortunate as to succeed in making a good catch of a couple of dozen of birds, you must first pluck them free from feathers, cut off their heads and claws, and pick out their gizzards from their sides with the point of a small knife, and then hand the birds over to your mother." My son, though industrious and intelligent, can barely unwrap his own Kit Kat, let alone catch small birds at odd times. But desperate times call for desperate measures: I plan to buy him a pocket knife, and send him out hunting. God help the neighbour's budgie. www.stuff.co.nz	pctek (84)
670672	2008-05-19 04:26:00	If food prices continue to rise, supermarket managers really must give their staff extra training in how to break news of the cost of groceries to appalled customers. No longer should shoppers expect to have the amount revealed to them by a bored 16-year-old with absolutely no bedside manner: in future, I think we have a right to be led off to a separate room and given the news sitting down, with a box of tissues and a sympathetic support person on hand. On my last trip to the supermarket, the bill was so enormous that I assumed another shopper had inadvertently put something in my shopping trolley – a 10kg Italian white truffle, for example, or an organically grown, free- range unicorn. I can only assume, from your tone, that your post, was written with your tongue firmly confined to your cheek, so I shall respond in kind. When you speak of the bored 16-year-old I am reminded of most of the retail workers. I am often tempted to ask if a smile will cost me extra, but with these days of high inflation I resist rather than be told the cost. (Even the cost of a smile is most probably on the rise with everything else!) There is the occasional person who enjoys working with the public - and will supply a smile, even when, upon sighting the bill, you use an unmentionable expletive - but these days they appear to be a rare breed. Many of the assistants (a not very apt title) are possibly dreaming of somewhere else - anywhere else - and how dare you interrupt! "This job is so bloody boring. Here comes another nuisance. Oh well, passes the time until I go home, I suppose - two hours to go." And, can someone please explain why GE free, organically grown, free-range unicorns are twice the price of the normally grown unicorn? It's ludicrous. Have a look and a taste - both unicorns look the same, weigh the same, taste the same - am I missing something?	Roscoe (6288)
670673	2008-05-19 04:34:00	Don't you have to pay heaps for a license to call your stuff organic? And they pass the price on to the end consumer (marked up again of course) Maybe it's just the role I'm in here at work, but I have no problems (Before the sixth beer anyway) mentally totalling the costs in my head as I go around chucking stuff in my basket. Having said that, I'm only shopping for two of us (apart from the cat and the birds), so shopping for 5 or 6 might make me take a calculator along. You mention you have problems with the kids and vegetables. I have the same problems with my partner when she knows that anything "green" is in the meal. :rolleyes:	the_bogan (9949)
670674	2008-05-19 05:01:00	I can only assume, from your tone, that your post, was written with your tongue firmly confined to your cheek, so I shall respond in kind. ..................... You failed to see the referred link, let me repeat it.......... www.stuff.co.nz Of course you may have been replying to Linley Boniface directly :)	Terry Porritt (14)
670675	2008-05-19 05:06:00	When you speak of the bored 16-year-old I am reminded of most of the retail workers. I am often tempted to ask if a smile will cost me extra, but with these days of high inflation I resist rather than be told the cost. (Even the cost of a smile is most probably on the rise with everything else!) There is the occasional person who enjoys working with the public - and will supply a smile, even when, upon sighting the bill, you use an unmentionable expletive - but these days they appear to be a rare breed. You as customers have to look at yourselves, mind you. I work as a checkout manner at a supermarket and, of course, I usually have to force myself to smile and say hi/thanks/bye before and after every transaction, but I do those things happily if the customers are those who says hi/thanks and bye genuinely (trust me, I can tell between genuine greetings and half-hearted politeness). Some people are really friendly, which I like - I have a couple of elderly couples who have become my Saturday morning regulars, always looking for me to scan their shopping and a short chat. On the contrary, there are those who look at me as if to say 'just shut it and scan my stuff', but vaguely conceal such a thought with a weakly mustered smile and a void 'hi'. So the next time you're shopping, really say hi and mean it, maybe smile genuinely too, just like you're meeting a new friend. When you become a regular, you could benefit from your checkout counter.;) Many of the assistants (a not very apt title) are possibly dreaming of somewhere else - anywhere else - and how dare you interrupt! "This job is so bloody boring. Here comes another nuisance. Oh well, passes the time until I go home, I suppose - two hours to go." Can't argue with that, aside from the abrupt 'how dare you interrupt' part. And, can someone please explain why GE free, organically grown, free-range unicorns are twice the price of the normally grown unicorn? It's ludicrous. Have a look and a taste - both unicorns look the same, weigh the same, taste the same - am I missing something? Because I like things that are simply, natural. GE is one thing I totally find sickeningly repulsive, and will refuse to eat anything whose DNA had been meddled with by humans. And as for free-range? Haven't you heard happier cows produce tastier and fresher milk and meat? That may be a myth for some, but compare your battery eggs with an egg from your friend's free range chicken eggs from his/her farm and you'll taste the difference. Not only that, I'm some sort of animal rights activist (not like the typical moronic ones you see on TV, BTW) and I prefer to eat things derived from happy things (though with my family's budget, we can't afford to pay the higher premium).	qazwsxokmijn (102)
670676	2008-05-19 05:14:00	And, can someone please explain why GE free, organically grown, free-range unicorns are twice the price of the normally grown unicorn? It's ludicrous. Have a look and a taste - both unicorns look the same, weigh the same, taste the same - am I missing something? The Unicorns are both the same. Organic is just a shorter way of spelling expensive con job.	CliveM (6007)
670677	2008-05-19 05:26:00	The Unicorns are both the same. Organic is just a shorter way of spelling expensive con job. :lol: So true!!! Nice article, unfortunately, 16 year olds earning minimum wages aren't paid to smile.	beeswax34 (63)
670678	2008-05-19 05:35:00	16 year olds earning minimum wages aren't paid to smile. No, and I wouldn't be smiling in their situation either, although I'd be a whole lot more civil that a lot of young people you see working at supermarket checkouts.	wratterus (105)
670679	2008-05-19 21:09:00	The Unicorns are both the same. Organic is just a shorter way of spelling expensive con job. It also costs companies a lot of money to be allowed to show the health tick on food items. Those items not displaying it are not necessarily unhealthy...read the labels.	Marnie (4574)
670680	2008-05-19 21:14:00	..................... You failed to see the referred link, let me repeat it.......... www.stuff.co.nz Of course you may have been replying to Linley Boniface directly :) That is called the socialist desire for pearls where there are none.	Cicero (40)
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