I am poor. I'll be the first to admit it. I have no reliable job - I have managed to be a freelance bar tender/babysitter/notetaker/web writer for the last year. The only reason I can afford to maintain my lifestyle is HECS, my folks and Centrelink. I live on the good grace of others. I live, week to week, hoping to have enough cash to buy fuel and groceries (limited to cheese, milk, bread and vegemite) without using my credit card (which, but for the good grace of Kevin Rudd and my parents, would be $3000 in the negative by now). So on the happy day that I can perhaps afford eggs, I get assaulted with marketing and other peoples' attitude about how I should have a social conscience and buy the grain-fed, free-range, organically produced eggs in the recyclable/reusable/convertible/biodegradable packaging which costs almost twice as much as the eggs-in-a-box-from-chickens-in-a-box variety that I can barely afford. My sister, as much as I love her, is all about this sort of social-conscience grocery shopping. She buys her bread from a baker, her meat from a butcher (an independant butcher), she frequents her delicatessen and only buys FairTrade coffee. Her latest guff is to do with Woolworths and their apparent attempt to get in on the small business side of grocery shopping with their new Thomas Dux line of "maybe-if-we-wear-aprons-we'll-fool-them" grocers.
They'll never match the rustic integrity of the Stavros' deli down the road. You know the place that always gives you the wonderful crusty bit of the bread that you can dip in the balsamic and olive oil and pretend to be "oh so bo-ho". That wonderful shop, where Giannnis pinches a pimento stuffed kalamata olive from the display and pops it in your mouth before licking the brine of his fingers. "Is good, yes?" he asks, knowing full well the answer. "Is from my brother's farm in Kato Samiko..." he smiles as you attempt to roll the Grecian pronounciation around in your mouth. You walk out of the tiled, fragrant, epicurean utopia and stroll up the tree-lined roads back to your heritage-listed home. In your arms is a paper bag with a charmingly quaint logo on the front. A wedge of rich, soft, cheese - made to a traditional family recipe - $22 for 250grams; a breadstick made fresh that morning by a charming French/Vietnamese couple in their bakery that was handed down to them by their tough, battle-scarred immigrant parents - $8.40; a jar of those delightful stuffed olives from Stavros' - $9 for 300grams and a special selection of artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes - $12.70 for a small container; and your very favourite blend of organic fair-trade coffee beans ground fresh then and there by Lucy, the charming girl who knows exactly how course you need it for your Bodem coffee plunger. You smile to yourself, knowing that you have had a lovely afternoon socialising with some of the most delightful and courageous characters you may ever meet. You feel proud, knowing that you bought something from a small business, what a giver you must be - to seek out the service of those who could really use your business. God knows your business is all they think about.
The idea of tinned food stocked to the ceiling in the dingy warehouse type mega-super-ultra store around the corner is repelling. The people who shop there have no conscience at all - they are just feeding the machine while you, and all you consider important, are shopping at delis and butchers with marked up prices. "Oh but hand-made bread just tastes so much better," you say to your partner as you spread $2 worth of your guilt-appeasing cheese onto $1 worth of your baguette parisienne. 'It's absolutely wonderful," they reply, biting into an olive worth $1.25. Meanwhile, your water rates have gone unpaid and you are on your final notice. The electricity will be turned off tomorrow and the direct debit for your subscription to Wanker Monthly magazine will be deducted. You're not sure if you can make this week's rent. It doesn't occur to you to buy your oil in bulk. Or to, perhaps, pick up one of those 3 for $7 loaves of bread deals at the local Woolies. The idea of making food, storing it for later wouldn't occur to you and you simply don't trust meat that costs less that $14 a kilo. You have three credit cards, each one paying off the other but you wouldn't have it any other way. Because this way you can sniff at other people as they walk into Coles, tutt about how they have no consideration for their fellow man. But neither do you. You wear your social conscience like a fashion statement, you couldn't care less about where the money is going so's long as you can bump into someone in the deli and bitch about the scourge of globalisation. The same time the next day you are on the phone to the London office while some poor sod in the cafeteria cops and earful because the eggs aren't free range. Their shift is over and they hope they can get to Coles before it closes... there are four hungry kids at home and they've only got enough money for one roast chook and some pasta salad before next pay.
So don't tutt at me the next time I buy caged eggs. So I will buy them from the evil conglomerate super-mega-mart. They give me fuel vouchers, and the gods know I can use them.
They'll never match the rustic integrity of the Stavros' deli down the road. You know the place that always gives you the wonderful crusty bit of the bread that you can dip in the balsamic and olive oil and pretend to be "oh so bo-ho". That wonderful shop, where Giannnis pinches a pimento stuffed kalamata olive from the display and pops it in your mouth before licking the brine of his fingers. "Is good, yes?" he asks, knowing full well the answer. "Is from my brother's farm in Kato Samiko..." he smiles as you attempt to roll the Grecian pronounciation around in your mouth. You walk out of the tiled, fragrant, epicurean utopia and stroll up the tree-lined roads back to your heritage-listed home. In your arms is a paper bag with a charmingly quaint logo on the front. A wedge of rich, soft, cheese - made to a traditional family recipe - $22 for 250grams; a breadstick made fresh that morning by a charming French/Vietnamese couple in their bakery that was handed down to them by their tough, battle-scarred immigrant parents - $8.40; a jar of those delightful stuffed olives from Stavros' - $9 for 300grams and a special selection of artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes - $12.70 for a small container; and your very favourite blend of organic fair-trade coffee beans ground fresh then and there by Lucy, the charming girl who knows exactly how course you need it for your Bodem coffee plunger. You smile to yourself, knowing that you have had a lovely afternoon socialising with some of the most delightful and courageous characters you may ever meet. You feel proud, knowing that you bought something from a small business, what a giver you must be - to seek out the service of those who could really use your business. God knows your business is all they think about.
The idea of tinned food stocked to the ceiling in the dingy warehouse type mega-super-ultra store around the corner is repelling. The people who shop there have no conscience at all - they are just feeding the machine while you, and all you consider important, are shopping at delis and butchers with marked up prices. "Oh but hand-made bread just tastes so much better," you say to your partner as you spread $2 worth of your guilt-appeasing cheese onto $1 worth of your baguette parisienne. 'It's absolutely wonderful," they reply, biting into an olive worth $1.25. Meanwhile, your water rates have gone unpaid and you are on your final notice. The electricity will be turned off tomorrow and the direct debit for your subscription to Wanker Monthly magazine will be deducted. You're not sure if you can make this week's rent. It doesn't occur to you to buy your oil in bulk. Or to, perhaps, pick up one of those 3 for $7 loaves of bread deals at the local Woolies. The idea of making food, storing it for later wouldn't occur to you and you simply don't trust meat that costs less that $14 a kilo. You have three credit cards, each one paying off the other but you wouldn't have it any other way. Because this way you can sniff at other people as they walk into Coles, tutt about how they have no consideration for their fellow man. But neither do you. You wear your social conscience like a fashion statement, you couldn't care less about where the money is going so's long as you can bump into someone in the deli and bitch about the scourge of globalisation. The same time the next day you are on the phone to the London office while some poor sod in the cafeteria cops and earful because the eggs aren't free range. Their shift is over and they hope they can get to Coles before it closes... there are four hungry kids at home and they've only got enough money for one roast chook and some pasta salad before next pay.
So don't tutt at me the next time I buy caged eggs. So I will buy them from the evil conglomerate super-mega-mart. They give me fuel vouchers, and the gods know I can use them.
HOORAY!! What a marvellous post, my dear... so very well said! I know what you mean allllll too well. x
ReplyDeleteHello, I stumbled onto your blog via Last.Fm
ReplyDeleteLoved this post! I get full guilts when I get to the check out with non-free range eggs and run back to switch them over - aarghh! It pains me because the other eggs are so much cheaper and therefore I would never lecture others for their so-called less socially responsible choice in eggs.
I'm all for the evil congomererate super-mega-mart... who the hell can afford to shop at fancy delis? Not me. Oh and I don't see these boutique businesses who are so there for the greater good of mankind employing thousands upon thousands of people and injecting serious income into our economy.
Amen sister!
ReplyDelete