Terrible time pressure yesterday, and I caved in to the siren call of convenience and returned to the horrid Surrey Quays Tesco rather than driving for 15 minutes to the Sainsbury's (beacon for the middle classes) in gun-slinging New Cross. Then, all the time I'd saved was wasted looking at labels to see how far, in air miles, my prospective shopping had travelled.
Here's the crux: is it better to buy runner beans from Kenya in the hope, probably a romantic one, that the farmer who grew them will thus be spared destitution for a little while at least, or would it be more sensible to cast around for stuff that hasn't been flown thousands of miles even though this denies said farmer his/her income? I don't know. What I do know is that it is hard to avoid buying produce that has got here without the burning of tons and tons of kerosene, a point equally valid if one goes to some small green grocers or market stalls where multiplicities of multiplicity - almost all fruit and veg at almost all times - are on offer. It would be nice to think one could buy seasonal products grown within 20 miles, but who now has the time or money to source everything that way or will put up with only potatoes, roots, brassicas, stored apples and onions for six months? In the end, I didn't do too badly: English apples, cucumber, lettuce, peppers and mushrooms; leeks from Holland - though organic; melon and nice long red peppers from Spain - the closest available; Caribbean bananas - no way around that.
Next dilemma: which "fair trade" - whatever that means - coffee is best? Best for whom? Well, best for the grower. There are so many, and by the time you've read all the labels - "such and such a bean was dried between the thighs of a maiden on the rain-dappled slopes of a green hill outside Kigali and all profits will go to her poor crippled mother blah, blah, blah" - you feel as though you need a sit down. I opt in the end for two bags of something called Good African Coffee - slightly homespun and twee - on the basis that the bag promises that 50 per cent of the profits will be invested in growers and communities - whatever that means.
Now, the morass that is mayonnaise. Years ago, there was Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise, which came in stout glass jars of varying dimension, all with functional blue lids, there were own-labels imitations, never as good in my view, and a few other brands, notably Heinz. Now, the mayonnaise section of the sauce isle seems to be an unclimbable cliff face of white goo in glass jars and upside down squeezy containers. And would Sir like light mayonnaise, extra-light mayonnaise, sunflower oil mayonnaise, olive oil mayonnaise, garlic mayonnaise? Was there a red chili mayonnaise too? There may have been. I note that Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise is now bigging up the fact, i.e. in capitals, that it is a "GOOD NATURAL SOURCE OF OMEGA 3". I assume this comes from the egg rather than the squeezings of oily fish. The point is, they never used to say so, never felt the need to, and I don't know why it is necessary to say it now. The mayo is as yummy as it ever was. I buy the Real stuff is a squeezy container, being familiar with the consequences of breaking a jar and having the mess to clear up. This, at least, is an advance, although there is the torment of wondering whether, recycling-wise, one ought to buy in glass. Maybe they should squidge it into compostable brown paper sachets and try selling those.
Finally, a pretty problem. I want some crackers to accompany cheese and some plain biccies to have with the late-morning cuppa. The crackers are easy: Bath Olivers (would you like a baaaaarth, Oliver?), rough oatcakes, Hovis crackers, the round ones that are nice and thin and salty. But the biccies? Hmmmm. I reach first for McVitie's Digestives and put them in the trolley but am slightly troubled. I reverse the trolley until I see the Hovis Digestives, the sort that look like little loaves of bread, and buy those instead, putting the McVities back in their place. The Hovis are 9p more but I feel sure that I will be bringing on morbid obesity and heart failure with a better class of vegetable oil. What a loathsome snob. Perhaps the best thing of all is to get some extra-tough and crispy bread sticks, quite stale maybe, and drive them, stigmata-like, through one's own hands - although doing the second one could be a little bit tricky without a third party or a Black and Decker Workmate.
I hanker for the era when you went to the shop clutching a slip of paper and whizzed around picking the items off the shelves. Now, the corner of every aisle presents some difficulty or specious choice, a minefield of decision, the assaying of arguments and one's eyes, ears and nostrils assailed all the while with hype, sticky crap consumerism and braying buy-one-get-one-free entreaties (I always succomb) that are completely out of proportion and just gluttonous. Such clamour makes it no pleasure to obtain the necessities of life, even a privileged life as mine undoubtedly is. The whole thing, actually, could be done on Radio 4's The Moral Maze with dreadful, bullying David Starkey and that bint from the Daily Mail, Melanie Phillips is it?, arguing the toss about hook-and-line tuna as opposed to fish caught in seine nets which tangle up dolphins. Michael Beurk would be hovering close by, holding the purses. Or Dale Winton.
Such was the ordeal that my one additional purchase was a pasty for surreptitious munching the car. Naturally, it was organic. Duped by the marketers' blandishments once more.
