caretaker

Some products just come from away if they aren't grown locally but they aren't always worth buying. Local cukes and tomatoes and lettuce we get in season are far better and cheaper than US or Mexican imports in winter. Whereas I might buy a bag of discounted tomatoes to make marinara in summer, in winter I'll just use a large $1 can rather than pay $3 or more for woody Mexican tomatoes. Those lentils and beans and peas start out here and go all over the world, just like mustard, so any pulses you buy in Canada should be classed as local. I've shoveled up sacks of spilled lentils and peas and beans at nearby inland terminals for use as carp bait, and while the peas weren't graded for human consumption the lentils made pretty good soup. That's real field to table! We grow all kinds of mustard and send it to France and other countries then buy it back as jars of Dijon, Poupon, etc. I could probably get a locally made jar of it for $6 at the farmer's market, but a very nice Dijon at Dollarama is $1.25, locally grown but prepared and packaged in France. Re-opening should mean the return of our mustard festival.
Looks like there are 4 cobs of corn in this box, and a good banana daiquiri party or 2. The bananas on the right look pretty green, demonstrating my positive attitude. I'm almost done the oranges from the last box and might squeeze half of them for juice this morning as a treat.

spouse of scouse

I buy local for all meat, poultry, fish and vegetables, and for most dairy. I do buy New Zealand cheeses (and wine!) sometimes, and in the 'off' season I buy cherries and table grapes from the US, but they're more a treat than a regular purchase.

Dry and canned goods, I buy dry pasta and tinned tomatoes from Italy and spices from India, nearly everything else is grown and produced locally.

There are very few cage eggs available here now and I always buy free range. When my kids were little and I was struggling financially, it was always cage eggs. I used to look longingly at the free range ones but just couldn't afford them. Just on that - I'd been buying a particular brand of free range eggs here for a few years, lovely pic of the farmer and all his happy little chooks on the box. Then it came to light that while he indeed kept a couple of dozen chooks roaming around the place, he also had a huge shed with chooks crammed into tiny cages. Not happy (me or the chooks).

Although it makes me feel good to buy local it's not a financial sacrifice so it's easy. Due to Oz's isolation imported fresh food is usually quite expensive, while locally grown is plentiful and thus less expensive.

We all do what we can according to our food budget, can't always afford principles when you're trying to feed yourself and your family.

caretaker

I just ate one of the bananas and the Del Monte sticker said Central America. Adios, Banana. I always check before going to pick stuff up in case there's something else to make the drive more worthwhile, and decided it might be fun to get the smoker out later and make some smoked fish.

scrubbedexpat091

At the rate food prices are going, food in general will become a luxury.

For some types of food cheaper to go to Wendy's, can get a bacon jr cheeseburger for $1.89. Certainly can't make one at home for that price.

scrubbedexpat091

Canada is the opposite, due to proximity to US and Mexico, imported produce tends to be cheaper, I can go to Wal-Mart or Super Store and buy imported fruit from US or Mexico cheaper than going to a fruit stand across the street grown here.

BristolUK

I was just saying in the food thread I bought some Soft Cod Roe from Amazon.
Certified sustainable seafood - msc - on the tin but other than produced for John West Liverpool and Dublin, nothing.
When populations move away from where they may be drowned or burned and we're all living on top of each other spreading the latest covid variants around while other issues go untreated, it does make one wonder.

caretaker

The only real kippers you can get here come from Dundee. In one store in the whole city.

Siouxie

This company sell Scottish Kippers - and will deliver (even small quantities if you pay for the shipping)- or you can collect. I'm seriously impressed with the variety of fish produce they have! Products – Pacific Fresh Fish

caretaker

Like I said, there's only one place that sells them here. I'm actually friends with the owner (though you never see him there). He sold the big warehouse and wholesale business up in Henderson industrial area for a fortune years ago but kept the retail store. At Christmas they bring in smoked eels and carp for the Germans. The only thing I buy there is kippers.

caretaker

One thing that's local is the trout. The fish farm at Lake Diefenbaker cranks them out and they're good. Every once in awhile the lake will flood and the prisoners will escape the pens and fishermen reap a bonus.
Wild West Steelhead - About Us
Thanks to the genetic engineering that makes farmed trout grow so well (and a lot of skill), the Konrad brothers managed a couple of world record rainbows out of that lake.

scrubbedexpat091

Farming of fish is the way forward if people want to continue eating fish, although the farms need to be on land and not in natural waterways. Like these systems.

Siouxie

Sorry for mentioning it - only did so in case it was one that you hadn't previously found. Never mind then... glad you got some

caretaker

Oh years ago I looked high and low, in every store, in every freezer, in IGA, in Walmart, in Coop and Safeway, Superstore and all the rest... clerks didn't know what I wanted. I phoned every wholesaler, and Pacific was the only place. When that store first started you could walk in and buy a rollmop herring wrapped around a pickle for a dollar, and then later they experimented with selling bento boxes at lunchtime for awhile, and it was casual enough we'd sometimes bring in a good fish we'd caught to be weighed on their scale. The place is a goldmine. Upscale neighbourhood, next to a grocery store and a convenience store, and the owner hires good no-nonsense managers so he can just stay in Penticton and count money. For most of the years when I prepared food for our art openings, because he was a member of our club, he would sell me seafood at cost, then usually donate a like amount on top of that so I could make some really nice buffets. Selling the wholesale division put an end to that. When I was young you could buy fresh kippers, not frozen, at Safeway, and they were $1.35. I'm assuming they came from Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, can't remember if they were Highliner or not.

caretaker

I know I still have some gouda that won't have gone bad (but the brie will have to be tossed and maybe the liverwurst), so with these 2 and some sausage I should have some nice al fresco lunch this weekend.

caretaker

Picked up a couple of produce boxes this morning, so it's time to plan out a few meals.