Secheresse and crise d'eau
Drop in for a natter about anything French related.-
Hotrodder
- Posts: 3419
- Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2021 8:31 pm
- Location: Brittany 22
Secheresse and crise d'eau
MAD87: The cost of fruit and veg is only part of the problem. We have noticed the quality has been getting seriously poor for a few years now. A lot of it looks good but is either tasteless or rotten inside. Apples, potatoes, bananas are the worst offenders. My theory is they are not left to fully ripen before being picked. This enables them to be shipped with less damage or stored longer and survive longer on the shelf in the shops. All to the detriment of flavour. We pretty much only buy spuds, onions, and carrots fresh. All the rest is tinned or frozen. There is something badly wrong with the "system". Supermarkets shouldn't be allowed to fill their shelves with produce shipped from all over the world and sell it cheaper than what is grown in France.
On my headstone it will say: Please switch off mobile phones. I'm trying to get some sleep.
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Blaze
- Posts: 5631
- Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:06 pm
- Location: Ille et Villaine (35)
Secheresse and crise d'eau
I agree in sentiment, Hotrodder, because we try to buy what's currently in season from local farms. If I want to make an exotic trifle, I use tinned mangoes, lychee etc.
I disagree that the quality of fruit and veg is poor these days - we get some excellent stuff from Grand Frais. Depending on what you buy there, their prices are very competitive. A lot of the stuff at our GF is grown locally and it's always fresh.
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exile
- Posts: 2776
- Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:57 pm
- Location: Auvergne Rhone Alpes
Secheresse and crise d'eau
Tinned fruit.
During my school and student days, I worked at about all stages of the process as holiday/vacation work:
Picking
Making tin cans
Canning
stacking supermarket shelves
Not in that order.
For those worried about under-ripe fruit, fear ye not.
The canning process was the most eye-opening.
Day 1. Leather apron and a plastic bucket in hand, I was led to a large vat of peeled new potatoes in water. My job was to scoop out the potatoes (holes let the water out) and put them onto a conveyor belt. 12 ladies were on the end of the belt and were pulling out every potato with eyes, bits of peel still on, slug holes, going rotten.
After lunch, the foreman came round. "That's the M&S order done". 9 ladies moved to other duties and all of the rejected potatoes back into the water in the vat. Only the really bad spuds were pulled out second time around.
Week 2. Victoria plums. Arrived in 1 ton stillages. Under-ripe. Hard as bullets - so that all of the handling could be done without destroying the fruit. The stillages were tipped into a hopper where they fed a line where the ladies (most of this low paid work was done by ladies) pulled out leaves and other detritus as they pushed the mini-cannon balls into tins. Syrup was added and the can sealed. Then pressure cooked. Then labelled.
Oh, and if you ever wondered about the difference between tinned yellow Victoria plums and red ones; a squirt of red dye does the job.
And if anyone bought tinned strawberries back in the 70s and was surprised to find potatoes, or vice versa. Well a dispute with HR about whether students were to be paid bank holiday rates or not, led some of my colleagues to do some surreptitious swapping of tins before labelling.
As for poor quality fresh fruit and veg this autumn, if my garden is anything to go by, yields will be down and so items that would normally be rejected, will now pass muster because it is that or nothing.
During my school and student days, I worked at about all stages of the process as holiday/vacation work:
Picking
Making tin cans
Canning
stacking supermarket shelves
Not in that order.
For those worried about under-ripe fruit, fear ye not.
The canning process was the most eye-opening.
Day 1. Leather apron and a plastic bucket in hand, I was led to a large vat of peeled new potatoes in water. My job was to scoop out the potatoes (holes let the water out) and put them onto a conveyor belt. 12 ladies were on the end of the belt and were pulling out every potato with eyes, bits of peel still on, slug holes, going rotten.
After lunch, the foreman came round. "That's the M&S order done". 9 ladies moved to other duties and all of the rejected potatoes back into the water in the vat. Only the really bad spuds were pulled out second time around.
Week 2. Victoria plums. Arrived in 1 ton stillages. Under-ripe. Hard as bullets - so that all of the handling could be done without destroying the fruit. The stillages were tipped into a hopper where they fed a line where the ladies (most of this low paid work was done by ladies) pulled out leaves and other detritus as they pushed the mini-cannon balls into tins. Syrup was added and the can sealed. Then pressure cooked. Then labelled.
Oh, and if you ever wondered about the difference between tinned yellow Victoria plums and red ones; a squirt of red dye does the job.
And if anyone bought tinned strawberries back in the 70s and was surprised to find potatoes, or vice versa. Well a dispute with HR about whether students were to be paid bank holiday rates or not, led some of my colleagues to do some surreptitious swapping of tins before labelling.
As for poor quality fresh fruit and veg this autumn, if my garden is anything to go by, yields will be down and so items that would normally be rejected, will now pass muster because it is that or nothing.