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A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

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Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#121

Post by solotronics »

pinkorchid wrote: post #70
koyote wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting! I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. Or is it just a matter of convenience?

A very similar system is also common in small towns (population in the low hundreds or fewer) in Spain. Every few days a baker will come driving their van and selling bread, or a truck with fruit, etc. Even doctors and priests follow a similar pattern. It's likely that one could drive for 30 minutes and find an even better selection. That assumes car ownership and the ability to drive, which is not widespread in the…

My first reaction is that this is sad but that is incredibly biased based on my expectation of having anything on demand.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#122

Post by dtparr »

irrational wrote: post #111
lotsofpulp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? UK includes Scotland, and you can easily go 600+ miles from a point in northern Scotland to southern England. Even in England, Liverpool is 200+ miles from London, and there are farther places in England.

600 miles? I had no idea Great Britain was that small. What is the widest distance West to East?

Per Encyclopedia Britannica[0], 300 miles is the widest, and no part is more than 75 miles from the sea.

It's smaller in land mass than 10 US states, coming in just behind Oregon and just ahead of Idaho.

0 - https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#123

Post by Scoundreller »

NaOH wrote: post #89
enhdless wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

In the US (and Europe, too, I believe) food manufacturers are increasingly mandated to be able to trace their ingredients back to the original source. Each handler along the way is expected to do this, so theoretically there's a paper trail from the beginning to the end on a store shelf. If there are particular foods for which you'd like this information, I would check company websites and then reach out to producers…

> trade secrets

I got this excuse when I wanted to know if “natural ingredients” included cinnamon in the cinnamon spread I bought once.

After stating that I had a cinnamon allergy, they confirmed to me that it did.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#124

Post by klipt »

wolco wrote: post #117
klipt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still make crepes or roti on your stovetop, or porridge in your microwave. No need to let the flour go to waste.

Porridge is made from oats where I live. Is it made from wheat flower where you live?

Not commonly, but you can make porridge out of many things, including almost any grain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porridge#Varieties

Wheat flour's talents tend towards baking because of its high gluten content, so in a sense it's "wasted" on porridge. But if your oven isn't working it's less of a waste than literally throwing it away!

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#125

Post by klipt »

ars wrote: post #107
klipt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still make crepes or roti on your stovetop, or porridge in your microwave. No need to let the flour go to waste.

Porridge from fine flour?

It's certainly possible, see eg Velvet Porridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porridge#Wheat

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#126

Post by njarboe »

klipt wrote: post #99
EE84M3i wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What causes a town not large enough to support a grocery store to have a U-Haul rental?

U-Hauls don't have to be rented, you can buy them: https://trucksales.uhaul.com

After you buy them with the logos removed, it is just a box van/truck.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#127

Post by cgpcraig »

smnrchrds wrote: post #68
notyourday wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create an account on most of the restaurant supply services and place pre-paid orders. You would be shocked at the pricing ( there would be a minimum order value as well )

Why do they do it then? Why won't they simply buy retail?

Retail packaging is a pain to deal with, take for example salt. You usually buy it in small boxes, about 1-2lbs each, commercial bags are 40-50lbs. So you need to buy 20-30 boxes a week at your local store, open the boxes one by one and empty it all into your restaurant bin. It's really a convenience thing, it's much easier to handle, transport and store a single really big bag. You still buy retail for stuff that makes sense though, maybe you only need like 2lb of lemons a week to make a sauce, in that case you'd go retail.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#128

Post by throwaway1777 »

LEARAX wrote: post #112
Scoundreller wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rural Croatia too, except it’s a truck that comes to all of the villages 3x/week with staple items. Plays ridiculously stereotypical Croatian music through a loudspeaker to announce his arrival. And then a meat truck once a week and a fish truck more irregularly. Took requests as well. I think of it like villages having Amazon Prime starting in the late 90s.

Can I ask what "ridiculously stereotypical Croatian music" sounds like?

I’m guessing turbofolk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-folk

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#129

Post by fxtentacle »

solotronics wrote: post #121
pinkorchid wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very similar system is also common in small towns (population in the low hundreds or fewer) in Spain. Every few days a baker will come driving their van and selling bread, or a truck with fruit, etc. Even doctors and priests follow a similar pattern. It's likely that one could drive for 30 minutes and find an even better selection. That assumes car ownership and the ability to drive, which is not widespread in the…

My first reaction is that this is sad but that is incredibly biased based on my expectation of having anything on demand.

On the contrary. When I lived in such a village on vacation, it was incredibly liberating.

The bakery guy would have a promotion every week with something new for you to try, but apart from that you didn't have to make any decisions. I find choosing between 20 almost identical flavors of sandwich bread in your average supermarket to be much more mentally exhausting.

And since you knew which weekly special everyone else was trying out these days, you had a shared easy conversation topic with anyone.

Plus, to my big surprise the quality of frozen fish and vegetable packs was impeccable. Now, years later, I know that pretty much all "fresh" fish that you see in a supermarket is frozen for transport. So there's no difference.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#130

Post by distances »

solotronics wrote: post #121
pinkorchid wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very similar system is also common in small towns (population in the low hundreds or fewer) in Spain. Every few days a baker will come driving their van and selling bread, or a truck with fruit, etc. Even doctors and priests follow a similar pattern. It's likely that one could drive for 30 minutes and find an even better selection. That assumes car ownership and the ability to drive, which is not widespread in the…

My first reaction is that this is sad but that is incredibly biased based on my expectation of having anything on demand.

Heh, and my first reaction was that this is awesome. Different viewpoints I guess.
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