The Staple of Life

When visiting the USA some years ago my partner and I arrived in Washington DC at the Dulles International Airport, obtained our hire car and then headed off for Chesapeake Bay via the "beltway' or the ringroad that circles that town. As we were ambling along we both realised that the wonderful airline food had vanished, we were hungry. Being used to travelling we decided to call in to the first shopping opportunity and purchase some bread, a tomato or two perhaps some ham or other smallgoods which might be available and make a sandwich which we could have on the way.

Fortuitously, or so we thought at the time, we went past a convenience store and purchased the items we wanted. We then continued our drive to a lovely spot overlooking a wonderful water view and proceeded to make a sandwich. Imagine our surprise, or perhaps I should say horror, when in biting into what looked like a most inviting meal we bit into the equivalent of sweet, fair floss textured bread. Our immediate response was to stop and examine the pack containing the bread. I mean it looked for all the world like regular white sliced bread, nothing special mind, nothing to really get those juices flowing, nothing that would remind you of the smell of freshly baked bread straight from the baker's oven, but just ordinary bread of the sort you usually buy in a supermarket. The label did not suggest anything out of the ordinary, but the nutrition information on the back of the packet sure did. The contents contained 4 different starches, quite a few preservatives, sugars of two kinds and above all else, and this was the proud boast on the packet, "NO NUTRITIONAL FIBRE".

We just looked at each other and then back at the label and then back at each other again with disbelief growing with every instant. The staff of life had not only been tampered with but had had all of the goodness taken out of it to be replaced by chemicals, starches and sugars. Only in America, the bastion of capitalism and of democracy and of freedom of choice, could you find on sale the rubbish we had just purchased. It had never occurred to us that something as simple and basic as bread could be tampered with to such an extent.

In thinking about it, we began to ask questions and to compare and contrast our experiences in Europe, from which we had just come and of course with Australia, our home.In many European countries, as well as Australia of course, the phenomenon which began in the USA, namely supermarkets and malls is becoming endemic. As these large chains use their superior purchasing power they can dictate the nature of the products which they are prepared to take on their shelves, in much the same way as McDonald's purchasing power has dictated the planting of the long large potatoes that make such wonderful fried potato straws that are served when you in fact DO 'want fries with that.' The buying power of McDonald's is so large that potato farmers are forced to either not do business with this group, and so lose money, or grow the sort of potatoes that they want. In the end it is the consumer, who used to be able to have a choice of many varieties, before the advent of this chain, who suffers. Still this is what capitalism is all about - market forces.

It is the same with bread. The types of grain which are planted, in the USA in particular, are now coming more and more to be part of the genetically modified varieties which provide the farmer with a more bountiful harvest and/or greater resistance to pests and/or some other desirable (read economically beneficial) properties. Species which do not have the same level of output or resistance are abandoned. Biological diversity suffers as do the consumers who now generally are able to buy only bread from a lesser number of wheat or other grain species. Mind you I use the word 'suffer' lightly as many would suggest that they have never had it so good.

In a conversation with my father in law the other day, a man who is retired on a fixed income, it emerged that his view of one chain of supermarkets which has produce at considerably lower cost than any competitive supermarket chain is the only place where he now goes to shop. "Anyone who shops elsewhere has more money than sense.' is his view of things. Of course in his situation he is absolutely correct. If you can buy a loaf of bread for a dollar why on earth would you pay four times that price in a bakery for a different kind of bread? I mean it's just bread - right? Wrong!

In our travels around Europe we noticed a fightback against the ubiquitous pap that is being served up in the supermarkets. In France, in Germany, in Austria, in Belgium, in Italy there are small local bakeries who make their living producing items that bring back the smell and taste of the 'good old days'. Their bread does not disintegrate into dry breadcrumb material in the first few hours after baking. Nor is it anything like the cotton candy that was served in America. It is bread that can still be called the staff of life. It is crusty on the outside and the texture of the inside will be firm, moist, tasty and filling.

We have found that bread is not the only produce that regularly fails the taste test. A tomato grown ripe on the vine simply exudes a smell and a taste that is incomparable. It is sweet and tempting and not tasteless and odourless as are the products sold in most supermarkets. These are ripped from the vine when they are still semi green and 'ripened' on their journeys from wherever they were picked to the markets where they are sold. Anyone who has purchased tomatoes, apricots, peaches, plums indeed virtually any fruit directly at the place where they are grown and managed to get them when they are ripe will know instantly what I am talking about. These fruits and vegetables are simply so delicious that after them the supermarket offerings are almost offensive.

Yet more and more people are falling into an economic trap which forces them to buy their supplies in supermarkets. As the number of people who can still afford to buy the better quality products decreases so too does the opportunity to have really fabulous food unless you can pay astronomical prices for it.

Is this progress? Is this what being part of a developed country has led us to? Working 70-80 hour weeks just to be able to survive?

If our American experience with the staple of life is any indication, then sadly, we are heading into a future where having taste buds will be irrelevant and where the joys of cooking 'from scratch' will be relegated to museums. Instead we will see either "out of the box" cuisine or like some properties in the city these days, apartments without kitchens, proudly advertising the fact that the owners of those properties would not be seen dead having to undertake domestic duties when there was so much to eat out or to take away.