Adam Roberts is the amateur gourmet. Not to be confused with me, an amateur gourmet. It’s all in the article. Never mind that for now, Adam has recently posted an interesting piece about the Key Food near his place. Key Food is a grocery store, as will become apparent when you head on over to read his commentary. While you’re at it, have a look around. Adam is a top notch food blogger and you should add him to your Reader.
The subject of the post in question is the idea that someone who is an advocate for farm fresh food would need to enter the megapolis that is the grocery store. One of the problems people have with eating fresh local produce is the trouble getting access to it. You youngins may not believe this but people used to travel to different locations to complete their grocery shopping. Butchers provided the meat, farmer’s markets had all the fruits and veggies you could hope for, the baker made the bread that started a meal and so on. Nowadays we just don’t have the time to both hunt down our food and cook everything from scratch.
This makes the grocery store so very appealing. You can wander around and get whatever you need for just about any dish. Unfortunately most of what you’ll find is processed and not all that great to eat. Adam dreams in his post about bringing the farmers to the mega grocery store, and I’m here to let him (and you, dear reader) know that is already happening. At least up here in Central New York where we have the greatest grocery store in the world. Yes, better than Whole Foods. Questionable and overpriced food is not a guarantee of high quality.
Walk into a Wegmans and you’ll see what any sensible grocer would display, the produce section. Grocery stores do this to make customers think that they’ll be getting fresh product. The difference at Wegmans is you’ll see signs near a good portion of the produce declaring which local farm it came from. Everything that’s regional and in season in Central New York is fresh and local at Wegmans. As traditional as the rest of the store can be, there are sections where Wegmans outshines any other grocer you’ll find. Produce is at the top of my list. Because our local farmer’s market is only open for a little while I can’t always find the time to make it over, but I’m guaranteed the same produce at my grocery store. It’s like a foodie dream come true.
I can walk in and get fresh apples, my choice of popular ethnic ingredients, a gallon of milk, and a gallon of Spumoni ice cream for late night snacking. I’m fairly certain Wegmans hasn’t made the jump to offering grass fed beef, but I’ll be picking up a thick ribeye later for dinner and I’ll chat with the butcher about their beef source. I will say that the meat available is of the highest quality, with trained butchers and not kids who cut up the meat willy nilly.
There’s a Coinstar machine and decent music. Easy listening songs that’ll stick in your head all day long is the standard aural fare, which is why I usually shop with my iPod on. But I think I’ll trade The Beach Boys for locally grown beets any day. As for cooking equipment, I do most of my gadget shopping at Wegmans. My coffee grinder, mini-Cuisinart, fondue set, probe thermometer, and other assorted kitchen paraphernalia all came from Wegmans.
Adam’s right: if we bring the farmers to the people they will eat. And hey, if I want to pick up some mangoes here in New York along with my local asparagus it’d be nice if everything was in the same location.
