Shopping for Quality

Buying good food is the first step towards a delicious meal on the table, yet many people dread shopping, resignedly girding up their loins for the inevitable supermarket trek which is undertaken ritualistically at the same time and place each week. A list is produced and ticked off as the shopping cart is pushed and shoved round the aisles of the huge store. It becomes a bad-tempered chore, encouraging tunnel vision and menu repetition.

In an ideal world we would shop every day, visiting the specialists who strive for perfection in their chosen area of food marketing: the fishmonger, the butcher, baker, greengrocer, delicatessen, game dealer and cheese-monger. However, this is unrealistic: convenience is a fact of life, and I am not going to paint some idealized picture about food shopping, for reality dictates that we make compromises. Supermarkets are, after all, generally beneficial, but they are better at some things than others. They have excellent wine and the best possible range of dried and canned goods, as well as the essential tedium of household necessities. However, buying good fresh fish is difficult enough at a decent fishmonger, leave alone at the shopping park giant.