A big thank you to those who voted for Brexit

Going back to the original subject - Polly Toynbee is writing about the Brexit effects so more examples:

Fisherman in Hastings getting 2p a kilo for huss

Likelihood of Irish horses not coming over to England for the big racing festivals.
English show jumpers not going to the continent.

The above two are because of "colossal" taxes

Delays in getting car parts affecting the car manufacturers.

There are many more. And before anybody slags off the Guardian or PT, she is quoting from the Torygraph, the Sundays Times, Farmers' Weekly and others

Back in the early seventies I worked part time for the owner of a fruit and veg shop near Hyde Park. His family imported exotic fruit and veg. Back then the exotics were only imported for upmarket restaurants, Justin de Blank and Harrods. Occasionally Stephen would get hold of box of mange tout, or those tiny French beans, kumquats and wet walnuts whenever they were in season. It's difficult to imagine those foods being exotic but they were back then and expensive too. I was lucky and got a staff discount.

Now that our tastes and food experiences have expanded and we want a wider variety of produce much of it is produced in poly tunnels because it's more practical. Anybody flying to southern Spain will have seen the acres of these things.

It is a dilemma as to buying imported fruit and veg. I see in our local shops imported French beans which have come from Africa. If you decide not to buy them then the farm workers in Africa will lose their jobs. I try to buy seasonally because I think the crops do taste much better. When we lived in Suffolk I used to pass a farm shop on my way home from work. The asparagus season saw me in there most evenings as it's my favourite veg and I could buy it very cheaply. There were also boxes selling it loose for making soup - different sizes but good pickings.

I found this article online, which is an interesting summary of the history of supermarkets in the UK.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-britains-shoppers-dealt-first-11838089
Like your family Callistemon, our meat was still from the butcher, and our bread was bought daily from the baker. In those days though, a trip to the supermarket was an adventure - how times have changed!

Well we must have passed in the aisles MaizieD. Bottom of t'Moor. ?

Yes Dinahmo we had cooking and sewing lessons at school too, but they didn't teach me to do either. My grandmother cooked at home, but I learnt mostly from books.

Casdon

There were loads of supermarkets in the UK by 1970 MaizieD, unless you lived right out in the sticks. I think even hypermarkets in out of town locations were opening in the late 1960s weren’t they, I’m sure I remember going to one when I was about 12? I’ll have a look online in case I dreamt it.

I lived next door but one to the first supermarket in Colchester, Casdon. That was in the mid 60's and it was very small by today's standards. There weren't many others by the early 70s.

I remember Sainsburys coming to Sheffield. As a Southerner I, too, was delighted. But that was the mid/late 70s.

No, I didn't live in the Sticks, but there just weren't that many around in 1970.

NotSpaghetti There are farmers (perhaps now it's were) producing exotic salads and other vegetables year round but many of the workers were foreign and they have gone home.

Maddyone The variety of English apples may be huge but they're not available in many British supermarkets. And I can't agree that English tomatoes are wonderful, unless they're home grown, which is different.

I remember hearing Jane Grigson talking about a visit to an Israeli tomato grower. He had many poly tunnels full of evenly shaped and sized tomatoes which he was growing for the English market. He was also growing a few tomato plants outdoors and she had some of these for lunch. She said they tasted delicious and why didn't he grow them for the English market. The answer was that the supermarkets didn't want uneven shapes.

Mamie My GM and DM taught me how to cook but we also had lessons when I was a grammar school. One thing we were taught was how to make pastry (all kinds) and bread, including milk rolls. We also had sewing lessons.

You didn't dream it, Casdon

We used to go to a farm for meat, though.
It's still going now but much larger and posher than it was in the late 1960s/1970.

There were loads of supermarkets in the UK by 1970 MaizieD, unless you lived right out in the sticks. I think even hypermarkets in out of town locations were opening in the late 1960s weren’t they, I’m sure I remember going to one when I was about 12? I’ll have a look online in case I dreamt it.

When I moved to London I couldn't find goat's milk!!
I had to buy frozen.

We had Co-op, Safeway, Asda, Gateway and a great market selling so much fresh produce including fish straight from the harbour.
And a plethora of small shops selling excellent fresh produce, baked goods etc.
Bejam for frozen food plus other foodstuffs.

Also Tesco on the Ecclesall Road MaizieD. I remember when Sainsbury's arrived and a friend said, "to listen to you southerners you would think it was the second coming". ? Then there was the fabulous whole food shop 'Down to Earth" and as you say, the wonderful indoor market, where we did a lot of our shopping. We loved food shopping when we lived in Sheffield in the seventies.

I haven't visited East Germany but I did spend time in the then Yugoslavia which may have been similar and there was absolutely no comparison between them and British supermarkets.

We also visited France a lot and British and French supermarkets were fairly comparable for choice.

biba70

I do remember British supermarkets when I first arrived in 1970- it was bleak and the lack of choice felt a bit like East Germany.

I have to say that supermarkets barely existed in Britain in 1970. The few there were were small compared to the big ones we're now used to.

As a young married woman in Sheffield in the early 70s all shopping was done at local specialist shops. If I recall rightly I think Sheffield had one small supermarket in the city centre. (and a fabulous indoor market which catered for the large West Indian population!).

I also remember them. And there is no comparison with how international they are now.

I do remember British supermarkets when I first arrived in 1970- it was bleak and the lack of choice felt a bit like East Germany.

Surely the genie is out of the bottle already, and good as British food can be, we can’t turn the clock back and pretend that the British public is going to embrace less choice and start cooking with and eating only British/non EU produce, I just can’t see that happening? (I am a women who is grumpy because she hasn’t been able to get celery locally since before Christmas, and last week no olives either). I just hope they solve the supply problems soon, and most importantly, that Northern Ireland’s deliveries from the UK are also sorted out.

And it's supermarkets that drive what is grown...

Yes, and the price they pay the farmers
No wonder they despair or give up.

Perhaps our Kent, Herefordshire and West Country apple orchards need to be replanted.

No demand for them, is there, Cal? Supermarkets are full of those uniform, specially developed, monsters that travel well and 'look' appealing, but aren't grown in the UK. And it's supermarkets that drive what is grown...

I'm dying to take up the point about learning cookery at your mother's knee (so to speak) but I think it should really be somewhere else

As for 'egg on ones face'. Isn't it supposed to be a good face mask? I seem to remember playing with it in my teenage years...

ripe
Not tripe! (Yuk)

Obviously the range of foods available from abroad is huge, things we never had as children such as avocado, kiwi, mango, and many more products. These things add to our diet, but let’s not bury our heads in the sand, they also cause a massive environmental problem.
It is true that in Britain we just cannot buy such gorgeous peaches, they are poor whenever you buy them. Maybe they just don’t travel well.

I think that's true, in fact I rarely buy avocados here in the UK. They go black before they are properly tripe, yet picked from the tree they keep well.

Lidl were stocking delicious Italian peaches a couple of years ago, the best I've tasted in the UK, but only for a short time unfortunately.
Perhaps our Kent, Herefordshire and West Country apple orchards need to be replanted.

I remember this September when we managed to escape to Kefalonia for a few days, after our evening walk, we passed a wonderful display of amazing fruits and vegetables, still open at night. I chose an enormous, ripe peach and took it back to our apartment where I sliced it and enjoyed it before bed. The flavour was intense and delicious. It is true that in Britain we just cannot buy such gorgeous peaches, they are poor whenever you buy them. Maybe they just don’t travel well.

There are plenty of varieties of potatoes, cabbage and apples for example that are UK grown and tasty (though we seem to have few "keeping" apples these days) but some of us feel the need for other food, say, tomatoes all year round now and more variety of types of veg. If we can get it sorted and grow tender spinach in winter alongside say, leaf beat that's great but we don't seem to be doing it.

Also, wish we had enough organic dairy to meet demand...

I agree Maizie whenever we’ve been in Europe I think the quality of the fruits and vegetables and salads is amazing. Mind you, English tomatoes are wonderful when newly in, as are the Jersey Royal new potatoes.
I think there is poor quality food available wherever you live, the cheapest stuff that people buy, often because they can’t afford the better quality food. That is a problem for many people.