When I was young roast beef and Yorkshire pudding or roast lamb and mint sauce were a regular Sunday lunch. Roast pork not so often as it was more expensive and roast chicken was a special occasion meal.
Fish was a cheaper mid week meal, we often had cod steaks which you dont see now. Salmon was very much a luxury. Of course there was very little factory farming and most of our food was produced in this country.
We would look forward to the first new potatoes, runner beans, peas,local tomatoes and strawberries.
Now chicken and beef is imported by the ton to satisfy our appetite for ready meals and take aways. Shelves are groaning with cheap imported pork and farmed salmon.
Now you can buy anything you want at any time of the year. Huge red tasteless strawberries and tomatoes, all kinds of exotic fruit and vegetables but is having the variety better?
When I was small I saw a kiwi fruit for the first time and asked my mother to buy one for me. I ate it there and then , when my mother asked what it was like I said like a big hairy grape with tough skin and a lot of seeds, I still don't like them .
So have we sacrificed quality and home produced for variety and quantity, I think we have.
