Long live the high street

When I still lived with my parents I never really gave much thought to where my food came from, writes blogger Dan Wainwright.

My mother would dutifully place meals in front of me and I would wolf them down, scarcely taking the time to thank her let alone wonder whether it was organic, free range or shipped over the Channel after being killed by a Frenchman breathing on it.

When my girlfriend Kate and I decided to move in together we were determined to fend for ourselves properly and now we eat anything that Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson tell us to.

Last month we watched in horror as Oliver gassed a load of chicks on screen and explained in a very graphic way what happens in the “life” of a battery hen (Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, Channel 4).

I huffily disregarded Oliver’s pontificating about why we should all buy free range and took the view that it’s well and good a millionaire telling you what to do but we’re on a budget and a two quid Tesco chicken is too good an offer to pass up.

Kate, a scientist, decided to put him to the test and for the next few weeks we gave up shopping at Asda and the other supermarkets and opted for the local butchers and greengrocers in Codsall, conveniently close to a Co-op where we could get our household and tinned goods.

To my surprise and eternal shame the shopping took less time, the food tasted significantly better and the price was roughly the same.

I have always leapt to the defence of supermarkets while others have championed the high street retailer. After all, we were the ones demanding everything cheaper and all in one place, the supermarkets were simply catering for us.

But now I realise just what we’re going to lose if the supermarkets continue to grow and we become more lazy about our food.

In the few weeks that I left Kate to do our shopping before I grudgingly agreed to join her she had built up a genuine rapport with our butcher and greengrocer. We were being recommended delicious pheasant as an alternative to the Sunday chicken and our greengrocer was suggesting all sorts of foods with names I cannot remember to add to our dishes.

Suddenly we are cooking and experimenting for ourselves rather than following the same recipe from the same olive oil-stained pages.

Being in the kitchen has become probably my favourite part of the day. I haven’t really developed a conscience about battery farming but I have definitely been cured of my supermarket addiction. Long live the high street.

Agree with Dan? Post your comments below.