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I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce direct from growers, at various markets and from our garden. I would get strawberries once a year when they were plentiful enough to be affordable in a pallete from a local bulk market. Baked goods were what you got from home, otherwise you could have generic branded spongelike bread loaf. American supermarkets blow my mind. I can get strawberries, blackberries and blueberries year round. There is a butcher in the store selling fresh high quality meats. There is a bakery producing French roundloaves, donuts and cookies, most produced in the last 24-48 hours. It's incredible. And yet, when I unload my cart of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and baked goods it doesn't look like the carts around mine. They are full of canned foods, frozen foods, boxed foods, etc. I'm not judging. You can't beat a frozen pizza for satisfaction/effort, especially when you weren't expecting to feed anyone. But I can never get over the variety in my local produce section. When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins. (Fuck raisins.) You can make a great meal fast with few ingredients. If you take the time to have brown sauce or demi glace on hand. Even with the aid of the supermarket and all it can provide, good food takes time. And that requires sacrifice. One parent has to come home after 8 hours working and cook. The kids can't do extracurriculars every week of the night. If you want to enjoy food culture, both cars have to be in the driveway a couple nights a week. And IMO that's why class and America's work culture have a lot more to do with our poor food culture than our grocery stores.

Hellion 4y ago
Why fuck raisins? Earnest question, I always just assumed taking a lot of the moisture out of a grape was bad enough for flavor
- tormeh 4y ago
  Probably sugar
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Why fuck raisins? They’re garbage grapes. And they often add sugar, directly or indirectly. Dried wine grapes are delicious.
  - Rayhem 4y ago
    Fool's chocolate.
  - 0des 4y ago
    I will now be aliasing 'raisins' with 'garbage-grapes'
- wonderbore 4y ago
  I think people generally dislike them because they're often the odd thing in whatever dish (and because they're easily confused as chocolate chips), due to consistency and density. If you add raisins to a salad for example they'll just collect at the bottom; Hope you like finishing your salad with a spoonful of dried fruit covered in ranch dressing.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Also, flavor. There’s apparently a variation of fried rice that uses raisins as an ingredient. It doesn’t really taste like anything else that would normally go in one.
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    Raisins in a salad with ranch dressing? That sounds bad. I would expect them more with sweet dressing, or maybe something more vinegary.
- agildehaus 4y ago
  They're toxic to dogs and cats, to the point where some animals can die from eating just a few of them. Same with grapes, but from what I understand raisins are worse for a reason that is not currently understood.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    I think it's a volume thing. It's the seeds that are toxic to dogs, for the same unit volume yiuncan get more raises and the seeds within in for the same volume of grape.
- alex_smart 4y ago
  Hating on raisins seems like a uniquely American tradition to me. They sure are loved in India and the middle east. They are a common ingredient (along with dried plums) in rice dishes for some delicious sweetness. Not to forget, they pair perfectly with cashews and walnuts.
realcertify 4y ago
Yes, but the taste of the veggies, fruits, berries and meat is far worse in supermarkets vs buying directly from growers / butchers.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The pork I get front eh supermarket today is better than what we used to get buying half a pig from our local market. Apples also are better because supermarkets have the ability to harvest from a large geography whereas small markets only provided provincially available varieties like red delicious. Most metropolitan supermarkets can provide air chilled chicken which has never been frozen. But in contrast, no steak will surpass what you can get in Montana from a rancher raising grass fed beef.
- maccard 4y ago
  Disagree here. Seasonal fruit veg and meat is excellent from my local supermarkets.
  - Moto7451 4y ago
    As someone who has moved around a bit I think it’s very regional. I have had great supermarkets with great produce. CA is pretty easy in this regard. Some states have universally miserable tomatoes and I don’t understand how Trader Joe’s seems to always have the absolute worst peppers. I think it comes down to what will last through hard lines and what grows in the state.
lampshades 4y ago
Very well said. It doesn't sound like I grew up as rural as you, but I can remember going to small grocery stores growing up that functioned in the same way you mentioned. People around me often had to travel to different cities to find the food they needed (and it's actually going back in that direction due to poverty). I would not be surprised if a large number of people got a good portion of their food from hunting today. I live near several supermarkets now and they have literally everything, all the time. But it's like you said, it takes time to cook good food. In addition, when you grow up having so much access to quick meals (including restaurant options), you grow up never learning how to actually cook and I think it takes you a lot longer than it would have otherwise. It seems to me nobody knows how to cook anymore because it's barely necessary.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  You say it’s barely necessary, and yet there’s also an obesity crisis. I feel like unless you’re rich enough to be able to afford restaurant food 7 days a week (so not most people), then the quality of food available without cooking means that it is more necessary than people think.
quartesixte 4y ago
As a child of immigrants (who were farmers/rural prior to coming to America) sit-down dinner with family was tantamount if you were eating at home that day. I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense. I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore.
- philwelch 4y ago
  > I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore. I think it has more to do with extended family whom you don’t ordinarily see; from the stories I’ve heard, there’s usually one obnoxious uncle who picks stupid arguments or someone like that.
- lettergram 4y ago
  My family growing up and my family now; we make it an absolute must to eat every dinner together. We also tend to invite people over. It’s honestly the most important thing you can do as a parent. Let’s you know about your kids lives, share in the ritual, and generally bond.
  - sealaska 4y ago
    Do you, or will you, allow your children to participate in extracurricular activities? Or is eating every dinner together less of an absolute priority as you claim? Your comment makes it sound like you may have some. I ask because most of the dinners I missed growing up were due to sports.
    - hawaiianbrah 4y ago
      I had dinner together with my family very, very regularly growing up. I also did a ton of extracurriculars, including sports. I think when I was younger, it was every night as a family. In high school, I’d miss dinner on competition nights or when that particular sport’s practice schedule was incompatible with dinner time for whatever reason. I plan on having dinner together as many nights as possible when I start a family, but not to the extent of disallowing extracurriculars. But I also think that I would discourage my kids from being so involved elsewhere that we can’t have dinner together as a family a couple times a week.
asiachick 4y ago
I'm sure supermarkets now are better than what you grew up with in Montana but I have the opposite experience. I'm in SF, we supposedly have good produce, farmer's markets, and big supermarkets with lots of selection. But they pale in comparison to what I'm used to from Japan and France. The bread here in SF is horrid and that includes that massively over rated Tartine, not to mention how bad the baked products are at most supermarkets. They're shovelware baked goods. The produce selection is 1/3rd what it is in France and much of it is tasteless compared to the good stuff you'd find in Japan or France. There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. !/10th the selection of pâté. But hey, we get fresh tortillas so you win some you lose some. Even the milk here is off. Our beer selection is 1/50th of Belgium and zero of the sweet ones. Our cider selection is 1/5th of the UK's. It's all relative. If you were at a 1 and entered a 5 then it seems like a huge step up. But if you then experienced a 10, that 5 no longer seems so great.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  Me too. I grew up in Colorado and have spent a lot of time shopping at farmers markets in Sacramento before moving to the bay area. The supermarkets here have great variety, but lousy fresh vegetables amd fruits. Real lousy.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  Pints of heavy whipping cream, even the fancy organic kind, at my local Whole Foods in Los Angeles don't exceed $6.50, which is already more than I'd like to pay. $15 seems insane. What's the brand?
- philwelch 4y ago
  Have you ever bought groceries anywhere in the US other than SF? I’ve noticed a lot of variation even within the US.
- jandrewrogers 4y ago
  I don't think this generalizes, it really depends on where you live in the US. I work in Europe and know many US expats there, so this is something we talk about. The consensus has been that the quality and diversity of fresh foods in the US these days is frequently superior in many categories at the median, though notably worse in others. The paucity of good produce is noticeable everywhere, for example, a fraction of what is available in (my case) Seattle. Meat quality in the US has always been relatively excellent, though depending on what part of the US you live not always diverse. European butter is superior on average, but cheese shops have a similar range in big cities. Seafood in Europe is excellent along the coast, better than the US outside of a handful of fishery adjacent cities, but often poorer than the US once you move inland. The bread is indistinguishable for the most part. Processed and cured meat products is still an area where available European products are unambiguously ahead of what is commonly available in the US. The US has improved a lot in this regard but it hasn't caught up yet. Some of these are arguable of course. The one consistent thing everyone notices is the limited diversity and availability of fresh vegetables in Europe, and beef quality, but that is a pretty natural consequence of geography. All of which should be separated from the cuisine produced with said fresh ingredients.
iancmceachern 4y ago
Well said. It's about priorities. My wife and I have found we are more culturally aligned with France and Italy. Focusing in enjoying the simple things in life, like a meal made from a few simple, delicious high quality ingredients.
- klodolph 4y ago
  That is also how California style cuisine is described.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Easy to say when nice advocados are a dime a dozen. The US has so much better fresh edibles than say Ireland.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      "California style cuisine" focuses on local ingredients, if you had a "California style" restaurant in Ireland it should focus on things like beef, grains, cabbage, carrots, etc. but it would be prepared differently.
- hef19898 4y ago
  As a rule of thumb, the further south you go in Europe the better the quality of food gets. Especially the basics, like vegetables and meat or fish. That being said, us Germans are bread fanatics. We do suck when it comes to overall food quality. We'd rather pay 100 bucks for a frying pan to cook to cheapest discoubter meat instead of payibg 10 bucks for the pan and investing the other 90 in high quality meat from the local butcher.
jandrewrogers 4y ago
American grocery stores have become absolutely amazing in my lifetime, from a pretty poor start (also growing up in the rural west). The diversity of fresh, high quality foods available most of the year is astonishing. And that is just your average suburban supermarket. Bigger cities have an incredible range of boutique food purveyors to meet the demands of every obscure desire or requirement. This is linked back into the agricultural supply chain where farmers will produce bespoke agricultural goods for rare and unusual needs on demand. The creation of a free trade zone for agriculture from the Arctic to the Antarctic along the American side of the Pacific Rim is a significant contributor. Everything is in season somewhere. I don't know if younger generations appreciate the magnitude of the change in American food markets.
- cbhl 4y ago
  "Appreciate" is, perhaps, not the right word. Maybe "worry"? Younger generations grew up on a message of climate change and it can be disconcerting to walk into a grocery store and find the entire produce department to be a geography lesson. This from Peru, that from Mexico, the other from Alaska, all flown and trucked in on a cold chain straight from some far-away monoculture farm. If anything I suspect the increased supply chain insecurity (2020 through today) will help a lot of younger folks (unfortunately) develop an appreciation for the marvel of megamarts' supply chains.
  - baisq 4y ago
    There are some who are specialised in finding any possible excuse to bring up global warming in every thread. Can't you see that the majority of people don't care? Leave us alone already.
    - jagger27 4y ago
      Yep we’re fucked.
    - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
      I want you to know you’re very much alone and only becoming more-so in this disposition.
bogota 4y ago
There is somewhat of a middle ground. My cart looks very close to yours but I really don’t want to spend the 60 to 90 minutes most good meals take more than once or twice a week. However you can make lots of good food ahead of time and freeze it. I spend a few hours every Sunday and it makes for quick 30 minute no effort meals for about two weeks.
JJMcJ 4y ago
> fast with few ingredients Slice an onion. Slice mushrooms. Fry up with ground beef. Add a little water or soup stock or bone broth. Let simmer for a minute. Quick meal. Just one of a million examples for quick recipes that take minimal skill. You can even run the veggies through a chopper or food processor.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I regularly grind up a pile of vegetables in the vitamix and drink the result. Prep time is 5 minutes. Cleanup is 1 minute. I'm not really buying the "no time to eat healthy" thing.
  - JJMcJ 4y ago
    That's another way. Fruit/veggie balance up to you. Add Spirulina powder or similar if you want. Do you find the Vitamix ones reliable. I've run though a number of blenders from other companies and had them fail after a while. Usually the motor just stops working.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      I know many people who use them. The only one that burned out did so after about 10 years of 3x per day use. Also, the optional stainless container is a lot easier to clean than the plastic one that comes with it. I've had various juicers and blenders in the past, the vitamix replaces all of them. No, I am not shilling for vitamix. I'm just a satisfied customer.
      - JJMcJ 4y ago
        TY for the recommendation thinking about doing this again, will look into it.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    The time involved in living healthy is not in the time it actually takes to make a meal (which is trivial, and can easily take less time than the round-trip to a fast food outlet.) The real time it takes is in the time you need to learn a bunch of skills that make that possible. In an ideal world you learnt those skills at your mother's knee, but we are now 3 generations into "fast food" so it's probable that was missed. It takes time, and effort, to regain those basics. From something as trivial as boiling water, to using a knife, to "knowing" how long things cook for. Then experience as to what ingredients go together (tomatoes love Basil, chocolate doesn't like garlic). A skilled person can make a lovely pasta dish in minutes, an unskilled person has literally no idea. My mother learnt to cook with minimal information (recipe books and magazines), my children can get a master-class in anything on YouTube. We live in an age where we have access to any knowledge we want, and yet seem to be incapable of doing anything for ourselves.
lettergram 4y ago
For what it’s worth I grew up with super markets and it still blows my mind. Has since I was a kid, how do I have strawberries in winter!? It’s also what has enabled us to diversify. Easy to obtain any food, any time, without much meal prep. I personally am still looking to grow, store and remain self-sufficiently. But it’s entirely a life style choice; built out of my fear for the further. Ask yourself, can the next generation build supermarkets? I don’t know if they could. It’s an amazing work logistics. Further, it requires California and growing food in desert. It also requires an abundance of energy for transport AND international trade. All of which is under tremendous pressure.
- s5300 4y ago
  So, basically - California needs nuke energy, & fast. Easiest thing that should happen but never will. Can’t wait to see how things turn out, that being said.
  - rejor121 4y ago
    And water, which is becoming more and more scarce
    - s5300 4y ago
      Carve out a giant semi-cone into the oceanside, acting as a static water inlet/basin. Line surface area of cone w/heavy mirror array. Desalinate thru concentrated sunbeams. Or something like that.
      - adam-a 4y ago
        They are building giant solar desalinators in Saudi Arabia so this is maybe not far from the truth. https://wired.me/science/environment/desalination-solar-dome-saudi-arabia-neom/ https://wired.me/science/environment/desalination-solar-dome...
        seanmcdirmid 4y ago
ramraj07 4y ago
I’d trust a good can of tomatoes before I touch the borderline unappealing off season strawberries they have in those markets. Happy that you’re trying not to judge but looks like you still have a ways to go before getting off a high horse. As oogway says, “one often meets their destiny on their path to avoid it.” When I remember the solid research showing people taking multivitamins die faster I keep thinking what might be in store for people who swear organic food will make them live longer. Like your railing on frozen food. You realize frozen food is far fresher and less likely to have “chemicals” or whatever is your choice enemy right?
- w-ll 4y ago
  I feel the same with with orange juice FROM concentrate vs the shelf stable stuff, everyone calls me crazy for it.
  - js2 4y ago
    I’m from Florida. You’re crazy. Both are equally bad. If you want fresh orange juice, buy Florida oranges and squeeze the juice yourself. They aren’t very good for eating though. For that you want California navels. (Florida’s true delicacies are the keylime and the stone crab. I’ve never gotten a keylime in a grocery store that comes close to what grows on the trees in the state. And stone crab you’ll never find in a grocery.)
    - iratewizard 4y ago
      I had no idea there was a difference between the oranges. What I know about is apples, growing up near a lot of apple farms. It's probably not worth trying to compare our niche insight, though.
    - ABeeSea 4y ago
      Stone Crab claws are one of the greatest seafoods in the US. But due to the way they are harvested (single claw snapped off and the rest of the crab thrown back), you have to eat them immediately so no shipping.
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-fat fad (they just increased sugar content to maintain mouthfeel). Ask any Gen Xer and they'll regale you with nightmares of the dominance of oat bran in 80s cuisine. On the one hand, you get a muffin. On the other hand, it tastes like cardboard flavored with sugar and cinnamon. Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. They also don't appreciate frozen vegetables, which are just as healthy as the fresh stuff, even if it might not taste quite as good some of the time. One of the things that the Food Network did a HUGE disservice to people is that a couple of entire generations (Xers and Millennials) were convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. There was maybe one show on that entire network with a host who would use kits and flavor packets and other items, and she was regularly panned by the audience for not being "authentic" enough.
- everforward 4y ago
  I think an unrecognized part of this is the crazy variety of foods we've become accustomed to via restaurants. I don't mind cooking from scratch. I find it rather fun and relaxing. Fresh ingredients are problematic, though. I can store a ton of frozen/canned food that's good for a long time and eat what I want, or I can buy fresh ingredients and then I'm pretty much locked into those choices whether I want it or have time to cook or not. Places like TGI Fridays, Chilis and services like Doordash give people a huge range of options that you just can't replicate without frozen/canned foods. If I tried to buy ingredients to make anything a Chilis can, the vast majority would spoil before I could cook them. The food would probably be better than Chilis while it was around, though. We got used to getting what we wanted, instead of what we had. The only way to replicate that is long-lasting food.
- jessaustin 4y ago
onion2k 4y ago
There is a bakery producing French roundloaves, donuts and cookies, most produced in the last 24-48 hours. Bread in most instore supermarket bakeries is a matter of cooking frozen dough that arrived on a truck rather than making anything from scratch. What you buy was produced a lot more than 48 hours ago.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  This is how convenience store croissants are made in Switzerland (frozen dough baked in an oven at the convenience store). I thought it weird at first, but the end result was still tasty. Beats the factory bake approach used by places like Starbucks (well, they follow the convenience store model in Switzerland also otherwise they wouldn’t be able to sell any). I assume much of Europe uses a similar model.
- christophilus 4y ago
  It’s usually terrible. Whole Foods (used to— haven’t been in a while) have decent fresh bread. But in general, US baked goods are awful vs any other country I’ve visited. I make no-knead Dutch oven bread and used to make my own sourdough. It’s hard to top that, and almost everything is downhill from there.
cf 4y ago
I grew up in Brooklyn and supermarkets didn't really become a thing here until the 2000s. Like there was Key Food, but that felt more like a general store. There was a Waldbaum in the area but it was pretty inconvenient to get to. Instead we had fruit stands selling produce, a bakery, a butcher, fishmonger selling seafood. And this isn't mentioning all the ethnic food stores. All of this was on two or three short blocks. The first time I saw a supermarket was when we went to New Jersey. It was a Wegmans and I think what was amazing to me was just how much stuff a single place could have. I think ultimately it does come down to convenience. I think it's easier than ever to have decent meal at home. You don't even have to peel your own carrots or tear your own lettuce anymore. Sure something with more complexity might take time, but that's better for a weekend.
_wldu 4y ago
IGA is a supermarket chain. Granted, it's like the older, smaller ones (it's not a Walmart Jumbo Center) but it's still a supermarket.
pmoriarty 4y ago
"When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins." This really depends on the cuisine. I've really been getting in to Indian food recently and the recipes in it are nothing like what you're describing. Relatedly, one of my main complaints against American supermarkets is that they all seem to be catering towards makings Italian food. Some have "ethnic" food sections, but those tend to be tiny and mostly filled with Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food... And even there have nowhere near the selection of a grocery store specializing in that cuisine. American supermarkets also tend to be full of meat dishes, with few selections (outside the fresh fruit/vegetable isles) for vegetarians... Though that's been getting a little better in recent years in an some parts of the country.
computerliker69 4y ago
I grew up in northern MI. We had an IGA too. Supermarkets were 1hr+ drive away. Cool that our experiences were so similar.
InefficientRed 4y ago
> when I unload my cart of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and baked goods it doesn't look like the carts around mine. They are full of canned foods, frozen foods, boxed foods, etc. Canned, frozen, and boxed foods offer a much higher "calorie/dollar" ratio. Berries, in particular, are wildly expensive on this metric even in-season. A family with 3 kids, 2 cars, and median earnings (one part-time, since working to pay for childcare often makes no financial sense) literally cannot afford to subsist primarily on "meat, cheese, and fresh produce".
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  Yup, class is a huge part of diet. No denying that.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
> One parent has to come home after 8 hours working and cook. Or 10! or 12!

Hellion 4y ago

Why fuck raisins? Earnest question, I always just assumed taking a lot of the moisture out of a grape was bad enough for flavor

tormeh 4y ago
Probably sugar
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Why fuck raisins? They’re garbage grapes. And they often add sugar, directly or indirectly. Dried wine grapes are delicious.
- Rayhem 4y ago
  Fool's chocolate.
- 0des 4y ago
  I will now be aliasing 'raisins' with 'garbage-grapes'
wonderbore 4y ago
I think people generally dislike them because they're often the odd thing in whatever dish (and because they're easily confused as chocolate chips), due to consistency and density. If you add raisins to a salad for example they'll just collect at the bottom; Hope you like finishing your salad with a spoonful of dried fruit covered in ranch dressing.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Also, flavor. There’s apparently a variation of fried rice that uses raisins as an ingredient. It doesn’t really taste like anything else that would normally go in one.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Raisins in a salad with ranch dressing? That sounds bad. I would expect them more with sweet dressing, or maybe something more vinegary.
agildehaus 4y ago
They're toxic to dogs and cats, to the point where some animals can die from eating just a few of them. Same with grapes, but from what I understand raisins are worse for a reason that is not currently understood.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  I think it's a volume thing. It's the seeds that are toxic to dogs, for the same unit volume yiuncan get more raises and the seeds within in for the same volume of grape.
alex_smart 4y ago
Hating on raisins seems like a uniquely American tradition to me. They sure are loved in India and the middle east. They are a common ingredient (along with dried plums) in rice dishes for some delicious sweetness. Not to forget, they pair perfectly with cashews and walnuts.

realcertify 4y ago

Yes, but the taste of the veggies, fruits, berries and meat is far worse in supermarkets vs buying directly from growers / butchers.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The pork I get front eh supermarket today is better than what we used to get buying half a pig from our local market. Apples also are better because supermarkets have the ability to harvest from a large geography whereas small markets only provided provincially available varieties like red delicious. Most metropolitan supermarkets can provide air chilled chicken which has never been frozen. But in contrast, no steak will surpass what you can get in Montana from a rancher raising grass fed beef.
maccard 4y ago
Disagree here. Seasonal fruit veg and meat is excellent from my local supermarkets.
- Moto7451 4y ago
  As someone who has moved around a bit I think it’s very regional. I have had great supermarkets with great produce. CA is pretty easy in this regard. Some states have universally miserable tomatoes and I don’t understand how Trader Joe’s seems to always have the absolute worst peppers. I think it comes down to what will last through hard lines and what grows in the state.

lampshades 4y ago

Very well said. It doesn't sound like I grew up as rural as you, but I can remember going to small grocery stores growing up that functioned in the same way you mentioned. People around me often had to travel to different cities to find the food they needed (and it's actually going back in that direction due to poverty). I would not be surprised if a large number of people got a good portion of their food from hunting today. I live near several supermarkets now and they have literally everything, all the time. But it's like you said, it takes time to cook good food. In addition, when you grow up having so much access to quick meals (including restaurant options), you grow up never learning how to actually cook and I think it takes you a lot longer than it would have otherwise. It seems to me nobody knows how to cook anymore because it's barely necessary.

nicoburns 4y ago
You say it’s barely necessary, and yet there’s also an obesity crisis. I feel like unless you’re rich enough to be able to afford restaurant food 7 days a week (so not most people), then the quality of food available without cooking means that it is more necessary than people think.

quartesixte 4y ago

As a child of immigrants (who were farmers/rural prior to coming to America) sit-down dinner with family was tantamount if you were eating at home that day. I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense. I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore.

philwelch 4y ago
> I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have become. People aren’t just used to being stuck together with family at home at one table like that anymore. I think it has more to do with extended family whom you don’t ordinarily see; from the stories I’ve heard, there’s usually one obnoxious uncle who picks stupid arguments or someone like that.
lettergram 4y ago
My family growing up and my family now; we make it an absolute must to eat every dinner together. We also tend to invite people over. It’s honestly the most important thing you can do as a parent. Let’s you know about your kids lives, share in the ritual, and generally bond.
- sealaska 4y ago
  Do you, or will you, allow your children to participate in extracurricular activities? Or is eating every dinner together less of an absolute priority as you claim? Your comment makes it sound like you may have some. I ask because most of the dinners I missed growing up were due to sports.
  - hawaiianbrah 4y ago
    I had dinner together with my family very, very regularly growing up. I also did a ton of extracurriculars, including sports. I think when I was younger, it was every night as a family. In high school, I’d miss dinner on competition nights or when that particular sport’s practice schedule was incompatible with dinner time for whatever reason. I plan on having dinner together as many nights as possible when I start a family, but not to the extent of disallowing extracurriculars. But I also think that I would discourage my kids from being so involved elsewhere that we can’t have dinner together as a family a couple times a week.

asiachick 4y ago

I'm sure supermarkets now are better than what you grew up with in Montana but I have the opposite experience. I'm in SF, we supposedly have good produce, farmer's markets, and big supermarkets with lots of selection. But they pale in comparison to what I'm used to from Japan and France. The bread here in SF is horrid and that includes that massively over rated Tartine, not to mention how bad the baked products are at most supermarkets. They're shovelware baked goods. The produce selection is 1/3rd what it is in France and much of it is tasteless compared to the good stuff you'd find in Japan or France. There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. !/10th the selection of pâté. But hey, we get fresh tortillas so you win some you lose some. Even the milk here is off. Our beer selection is 1/50th of Belgium and zero of the sweet ones. Our cider selection is 1/5th of the UK's. It's all relative. If you were at a 1 and entered a 5 then it seems like a huge step up. But if you then experienced a 10, that 5 no longer seems so great.

iancmceachern 4y ago
Me too. I grew up in Colorado and have spent a lot of time shopping at farmers markets in Sacramento before moving to the bay area. The supermarkets here have great variety, but lousy fresh vegetables amd fruits. Real lousy.
tomjakubowski 4y ago
Pints of heavy whipping cream, even the fancy organic kind, at my local Whole Foods in Los Angeles don't exceed $6.50, which is already more than I'd like to pay. $15 seems insane. What's the brand?
philwelch 4y ago
Have you ever bought groceries anywhere in the US other than SF? I’ve noticed a lot of variation even within the US.
jandrewrogers 4y ago
I don't think this generalizes, it really depends on where you live in the US. I work in Europe and know many US expats there, so this is something we talk about. The consensus has been that the quality and diversity of fresh foods in the US these days is frequently superior in many categories at the median, though notably worse in others. The paucity of good produce is noticeable everywhere, for example, a fraction of what is available in (my case) Seattle. Meat quality in the US has always been relatively excellent, though depending on what part of the US you live not always diverse. European butter is superior on average, but cheese shops have a similar range in big cities. Seafood in Europe is excellent along the coast, better than the US outside of a handful of fishery adjacent cities, but often poorer than the US once you move inland. The bread is indistinguishable for the most part. Processed and cured meat products is still an area where available European products are unambiguously ahead of what is commonly available in the US. The US has improved a lot in this regard but it hasn't caught up yet. Some of these are arguable of course. The one consistent thing everyone notices is the limited diversity and availability of fresh vegetables in Europe, and beef quality, but that is a pretty natural consequence of geography. All of which should be separated from the cuisine produced with said fresh ingredients.

iancmceachern 4y ago

Well said. It's about priorities. My wife and I have found we are more culturally aligned with France and Italy. Focusing in enjoying the simple things in life, like a meal made from a few simple, delicious high quality ingredients.

klodolph 4y ago
That is also how California style cuisine is described.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Easy to say when nice advocados are a dime a dozen. The US has so much better fresh edibles than say Ireland.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    "California style cuisine" focuses on local ingredients, if you had a "California style" restaurant in Ireland it should focus on things like beef, grains, cabbage, carrots, etc. but it would be prepared differently.
hef19898 4y ago
As a rule of thumb, the further south you go in Europe the better the quality of food gets. Especially the basics, like vegetables and meat or fish. That being said, us Germans are bread fanatics. We do suck when it comes to overall food quality. We'd rather pay 100 bucks for a frying pan to cook to cheapest discoubter meat instead of payibg 10 bucks for the pan and investing the other 90 in high quality meat from the local butcher.

jandrewrogers 4y ago

American grocery stores have become absolutely amazing in my lifetime, from a pretty poor start (also growing up in the rural west). The diversity of fresh, high quality foods available most of the year is astonishing. And that is just your average suburban supermarket. Bigger cities have an incredible range of boutique food purveyors to meet the demands of every obscure desire or requirement. This is linked back into the agricultural supply chain where farmers will produce bespoke agricultural goods for rare and unusual needs on demand. The creation of a free trade zone for agriculture from the Arctic to the Antarctic along the American side of the Pacific Rim is a significant contributor. Everything is in season somewhere. I don't know if younger generations appreciate the magnitude of the change in American food markets.

cbhl 4y ago
"Appreciate" is, perhaps, not the right word. Maybe "worry"? Younger generations grew up on a message of climate change and it can be disconcerting to walk into a grocery store and find the entire produce department to be a geography lesson. This from Peru, that from Mexico, the other from Alaska, all flown and trucked in on a cold chain straight from some far-away monoculture farm. If anything I suspect the increased supply chain insecurity (2020 through today) will help a lot of younger folks (unfortunately) develop an appreciation for the marvel of megamarts' supply chains.
- baisq 4y ago
  There are some who are specialised in finding any possible excuse to bring up global warming in every thread. Can't you see that the majority of people don't care? Leave us alone already.
  - jagger27 4y ago
    Yep we’re fucked.
  - fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
    I want you to know you’re very much alone and only becoming more-so in this disposition.

bogota 4y ago

There is somewhat of a middle ground. My cart looks very close to yours but I really don’t want to spend the 60 to 90 minutes most good meals take more than once or twice a week. However you can make lots of good food ahead of time and freeze it. I spend a few hours every Sunday and it makes for quick 30 minute no effort meals for about two weeks.

JJMcJ 4y ago

> fast with few ingredients Slice an onion. Slice mushrooms. Fry up with ground beef. Add a little water or soup stock or bone broth. Let simmer for a minute. Quick meal. Just one of a million examples for quick recipes that take minimal skill. You can even run the veggies through a chopper or food processor.

WalterBright 4y ago
I regularly grind up a pile of vegetables in the vitamix and drink the result. Prep time is 5 minutes. Cleanup is 1 minute. I'm not really buying the "no time to eat healthy" thing.
- JJMcJ 4y ago
  That's another way. Fruit/veggie balance up to you. Add Spirulina powder or similar if you want. Do you find the Vitamix ones reliable. I've run though a number of blenders from other companies and had them fail after a while. Usually the motor just stops working.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I know many people who use them. The only one that burned out did so after about 10 years of 3x per day use. Also, the optional stainless container is a lot easier to clean than the plastic one that comes with it. I've had various juicers and blenders in the past, the vitamix replaces all of them. No, I am not shilling for vitamix. I'm just a satisfied customer.
    - JJMcJ 4y ago
      TY for the recommendation thinking about doing this again, will look into it.
- bruce511 4y ago
  The time involved in living healthy is not in the time it actually takes to make a meal (which is trivial, and can easily take less time than the round-trip to a fast food outlet.) The real time it takes is in the time you need to learn a bunch of skills that make that possible. In an ideal world you learnt those skills at your mother's knee, but we are now 3 generations into "fast food" so it's probable that was missed. It takes time, and effort, to regain those basics. From something as trivial as boiling water, to using a knife, to "knowing" how long things cook for. Then experience as to what ingredients go together (tomatoes love Basil, chocolate doesn't like garlic). A skilled person can make a lovely pasta dish in minutes, an unskilled person has literally no idea. My mother learnt to cook with minimal information (recipe books and magazines), my children can get a master-class in anything on YouTube. We live in an age where we have access to any knowledge we want, and yet seem to be incapable of doing anything for ourselves.

lettergram 4y ago

For what it’s worth I grew up with super markets and it still blows my mind. Has since I was a kid, how do I have strawberries in winter!? It’s also what has enabled us to diversify. Easy to obtain any food, any time, without much meal prep. I personally am still looking to grow, store and remain self-sufficiently. But it’s entirely a life style choice; built out of my fear for the further. Ask yourself, can the next generation build supermarkets? I don’t know if they could. It’s an amazing work logistics. Further, it requires California and growing food in desert. It also requires an abundance of energy for transport AND international trade. All of which is under tremendous pressure.

s5300 4y ago
So, basically - California needs nuke energy, & fast. Easiest thing that should happen but never will. Can’t wait to see how things turn out, that being said.
- rejor121 4y ago
  And water, which is becoming more and more scarce
  - s5300 4y ago
    Carve out a giant semi-cone into the oceanside, acting as a static water inlet/basin. Line surface area of cone w/heavy mirror array. Desalinate thru concentrated sunbeams. Or something like that.
    - adam-a 4y ago
      They are building giant solar desalinators in Saudi Arabia so this is maybe not far from the truth. https://wired.me/science/environment/desalination-solar-dome-saudi-arabia-neom/ https://wired.me/science/environment/desalination-solar-dome...
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago

ramraj07 4y ago

I’d trust a good can of tomatoes before I touch the borderline unappealing off season strawberries they have in those markets. Happy that you’re trying not to judge but looks like you still have a ways to go before getting off a high horse. As oogway says, “one often meets their destiny on their path to avoid it.” When I remember the solid research showing people taking multivitamins die faster I keep thinking what might be in store for people who swear organic food will make them live longer. Like your railing on frozen food. You realize frozen food is far fresher and less likely to have “chemicals” or whatever is your choice enemy right?

w-ll 4y ago
I feel the same with with orange juice FROM concentrate vs the shelf stable stuff, everyone calls me crazy for it.
- js2 4y ago
  I’m from Florida. You’re crazy. Both are equally bad. If you want fresh orange juice, buy Florida oranges and squeeze the juice yourself. They aren’t very good for eating though. For that you want California navels. (Florida’s true delicacies are the keylime and the stone crab. I’ve never gotten a keylime in a grocery store that comes close to what grows on the trees in the state. And stone crab you’ll never find in a grocery.)
  - iratewizard 4y ago
    I had no idea there was a difference between the oranges. What I know about is apples, growing up near a lot of apple farms. It's probably not worth trying to compare our niche insight, though.
  - ABeeSea 4y ago
    Stone Crab claws are one of the greatest seafoods in the US. But due to the way they are harvested (single claw snapped off and the rest of the crab thrown back), you have to eat them immediately so no shipping.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-fat fad (they just increased sugar content to maintain mouthfeel). Ask any Gen Xer and they'll regale you with nightmares of the dominance of oat bran in 80s cuisine. On the one hand, you get a muffin. On the other hand, it tastes like cardboard flavored with sugar and cinnamon. Try making a traditional tomato sauce using canned tomatoes and follow the recipe exactly... then compare that to Prego or Ragu. The store brands taste like a freaking dessert topping comparatively. Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. They also don't appreciate frozen vegetables, which are just as healthy as the fresh stuff, even if it might not taste quite as good some of the time. One of the things that the Food Network did a HUGE disservice to people is that a couple of entire generations (Xers and Millennials) were convinced into believing that everything needs to be cooked from scratch and that any meal that involves a kit or a flavor packet is inferior. There was maybe one show on that entire network with a host who would use kits and flavor packets and other items, and she was regularly panned by the audience for not being "authentic" enough.

everforward 4y ago
I think an unrecognized part of this is the crazy variety of foods we've become accustomed to via restaurants. I don't mind cooking from scratch. I find it rather fun and relaxing. Fresh ingredients are problematic, though. I can store a ton of frozen/canned food that's good for a long time and eat what I want, or I can buy fresh ingredients and then I'm pretty much locked into those choices whether I want it or have time to cook or not. Places like TGI Fridays, Chilis and services like Doordash give people a huge range of options that you just can't replicate without frozen/canned foods. If I tried to buy ingredients to make anything a Chilis can, the vast majority would spoil before I could cook them. The food would probably be better than Chilis while it was around, though. We got used to getting what we wanted, instead of what we had. The only way to replicate that is long-lasting food.
jessaustin 4y ago

onion2k 4y ago

There is a bakery producing French roundloaves, donuts and cookies, most produced in the last 24-48 hours. Bread in most instore supermarket bakeries is a matter of cooking frozen dough that arrived on a truck rather than making anything from scratch. What you buy was produced a lot more than 48 hours ago.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
This is how convenience store croissants are made in Switzerland (frozen dough baked in an oven at the convenience store). I thought it weird at first, but the end result was still tasty. Beats the factory bake approach used by places like Starbucks (well, they follow the convenience store model in Switzerland also otherwise they wouldn’t be able to sell any). I assume much of Europe uses a similar model.
christophilus 4y ago
It’s usually terrible. Whole Foods (used to— haven’t been in a while) have decent fresh bread. But in general, US baked goods are awful vs any other country I’ve visited. I make no-knead Dutch oven bread and used to make my own sourdough. It’s hard to top that, and almost everything is downhill from there.

cf 4y ago

I grew up in Brooklyn and supermarkets didn't really become a thing here until the 2000s. Like there was Key Food, but that felt more like a general store. There was a Waldbaum in the area but it was pretty inconvenient to get to. Instead we had fruit stands selling produce, a bakery, a butcher, fishmonger selling seafood. And this isn't mentioning all the ethnic food stores. All of this was on two or three short blocks. The first time I saw a supermarket was when we went to New Jersey. It was a Wegmans and I think what was amazing to me was just how much stuff a single place could have. I think ultimately it does come down to convenience. I think it's easier than ever to have decent meal at home. You don't even have to peel your own carrots or tear your own lettuce anymore. Sure something with more complexity might take time, but that's better for a weekend.

_wldu 4y ago

IGA is a supermarket chain. Granted, it's like the older, smaller ones (it's not a Walmart Jumbo Center) but it's still a supermarket.

pmoriarty 4y ago

"When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins." This really depends on the cuisine. I've really been getting in to Indian food recently and the recipes in it are nothing like what you're describing. Relatedly, one of my main complaints against American supermarkets is that they all seem to be catering towards makings Italian food. Some have "ethnic" food sections, but those tend to be tiny and mostly filled with Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food... And even there have nowhere near the selection of a grocery store specializing in that cuisine. American supermarkets also tend to be full of meat dishes, with few selections (outside the fresh fruit/vegetable isles) for vegetarians... Though that's been getting a little better in recent years in an some parts of the country.

computerliker69 4y ago

I grew up in northern MI. We had an IGA too. Supermarkets were 1hr+ drive away. Cool that our experiences were so similar.

InefficientRed 4y ago

> when I unload my cart of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and baked goods it doesn't look like the carts around mine. They are full of canned foods, frozen foods, boxed foods, etc. Canned, frozen, and boxed foods offer a much higher "calorie/dollar" ratio. Berries, in particular, are wildly expensive on this metric even in-season. A family with 3 kids, 2 cars, and median earnings (one part-time, since working to pay for childcare often makes no financial sense) literally cannot afford to subsist primarily on "meat, cheese, and fresh produce".

DubiousPusher 4y ago
Yup, class is a huge part of diet. No denying that.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

> One parent has to come home after 8 hours working and cook. Or 10! or 12!