71–80 of 219 posts
Oh my. Everyone who cares about tomatoes grows their own, supermarkets are for the rest. They are not demanding and will grow anywhere there's sun, including in pot on balcony.
Why is capitalism failing us here? Why do we need to grow our own?
For those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato. I live in a small, agricultural country and the article resonated. Over the last 10 years supermarkets and imported vegetables have become a much more important part of our national diet. It's such an important staple food. Historically very cheap (because widely grown) wildly divers…
A quote I heard from some movie that released recently was..."the one thing to remember if you travel into the past is that everything is going to taste better."
The cost of modernization has been a net decrease in quality of foods across the board. "Real" foods (and many other products) are actually incredibly expensive. We don't count this along with inflation, but we should.
For those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato. I live in a small, agricultural country and the article resonated. Over the last 10 years supermarkets and imported vegetables have become a much more important part of our national diet. It's such an important staple food. Historically very cheap (because widely grown) wildly divers…
It's not really the tomatoes, it's that they are harvested green and then artificially ripened when they are ready to be sold. This allows much longer shelf life but the texture of the flesh and the flavors never fully develop. Of course different varieties have different flavors but even a standard supermarket "beefsteak" will taste so much better picked ripe off the vine than bought at the store where it has been i…
In Mexico I've seen hectares and hectares of tomatoes left to rot on the vine because the price fell so low it wasn't worth to pick them. I'm still mourning all that unmade pizza sauce.
For those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato. I live in a small, agricultural country and the article resonated. Over the last 10 years supermarkets and imported vegetables have become a much more important part of our national diet. It's such an important staple food. Historically very cheap (because widely grown) wildly divers…
I have ran into this with meats as well. I had never had shrimp until I got some fresh in Baltimore. I had never eaten beef until I had some freshly butchered in Garden City, KS. A quote I heard from some movie that released recently was..."the one thing to remember if you travel into the past is that everything is going to taste better." The cost of modernization has been a net decrease in quality of foods across th…
I am Croatian, and I know exactly what the article is referring to. So much that we decided to grow our own tomatoes this year. The imported junk we get from Netherlands is abysmal compared to anything grown locally, and the reality is that we want the good stuff for ourselves, not the tourists. We were very lucky to have a great harvest of cherry, monte carlo, and plum tomatoes this year, all of which serve a differ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> think that the reality is that people "in the know" like polish/chech families are being priced out Not really. They are not poor anymore, and can afford it. But quality is just not there compared to Italy, Greece, Egypt... Only benefit for Polish and Czech tourist, they understand local language.
I would be wary with "Slavic familiarity" while visiting. Slavs in Balkans furiously hate each other. It's safer to speak German or English.
Czechs 1) were not a part of Yugoslavia 2) have a long tradition of visiting the Adriatic sea.
They are not poor anymore, and can afford it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Croatia is having its "bully" tourism phase. They have been historically super cheap and undiscovered location up until 5-10 years ago and now that they are in EU and Schengen and it's actually nicer than some bigger mediterranean countries everyone started piling in. The locals which aren't really business savvy started doubling/tripling prices to see how far it can go without providing additional services or raisin…
Last time I visited Croatia the summer two years before adopting EUR and all hospitality services wanted EUR. When I requested prices in kuna they were dismissive with "just convert from EUR to kuna in Google". I could easily spend less money while in Italy, Spain, or Greece. They aspire to place themselves as Switzerland of Adriatic, mostly for Germanic speaking tourists. Who wouldn't want to charge Swiss prices, du…
For those in the audience that have only ever eaten supermarket tomatoes, I'm sorry to say you've probably never really eaten a tomato. I live in a small, agricultural country and the article resonated. Over the last 10 years supermarkets and imported vegetables have become a much more important part of our national diet. It's such an important staple food. Historically very cheap (because widely grown) wildly divers…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just had a week on various Croatian islands. It’s true that we were shocked by the cost of the food (€18 for a pizza in a restaurant) although put it down to the cost of importing the various ingredients. I wouldn’t say any of the food was “horrible” though. We had a tremendous “meat plate” of grilled marinated chicken, pork and steak with potatoes.
(Croat lounging on the Croatian coast right now) No, prices are high because they've been jacked up as high as the market will bear. As an example, an cup of coffee at a beach bar in a random coastal village (€2.5) is about the same as in the (touristy) center of London (£2). The effects will probably be seen the next year. As other commenters noted, Croatia has historically been mass budget tourism location, largely…
The effects will probably be seen the next year.