‘The Fresh Food People’ bring you tired, woody asparagus

We’re all familiar with limp artichokes, shrivelled ginger and pale, rock-hard tomatoes at our favourite supermarket chains. Thin spears of asparagus often sit in bunches, gradually drooping into sadness. Imagine my surprise when my local Safeway had boxes full of thick, thiiiiick green asparagus… obviously as woody as hell, and on closer inspection also sadly soft and shrivelling. Impressive effort for ‘The Fresh Food People’.

7 thoughts on “‘The Fresh Food People’ bring you tired, woody asparagus”

  1. It’s an all too familiar sight Duncan. I wonder how many people buy, to try something new and then don’t like it – because it’s woody and bitter.

    I often marvel at the piles of “vine-ripened” truss tomatoes which aren’t actually ripe. Surely it’s misleading advertising?

    The fresh food people . . . hmmmm.

  2. Oh dear,
    That asparagus look so terrible! That is why I don’t go to Safeway! I am sure you have a better market than Safeway, no?

  3. I was supposed to make an innuendo-y joke, but never mind! I don’t want to be banned!
    I can’t seem to recall if I’ve ever seen thick asparagus in these parts. Probably the ones fresh-packaged (!) by Dole– though I wasn’t able to tell if they were flaccid, ligneous twigs. I like to think they were perfect. The depressing part is we don’t really have too many choices in terms of buying fresh asparagus (i.e., supermarket, maybe the farmers’ market if you’re lucky and they drove it in from cooler parts)– but I’ll have to report back on that.

  4. Duncan, you should visit my local fresh food people if you want a real shock. In the produce section to a soundtrack of ‘we are, we are the fresh food people’ I go to grab a cucumber and my finger goes straight through it… urgh it is so rotten they had turned to mush!! The grapes are all American and the rockmelon have fruit flies circling them. And this is good day!!

    Fortunately a fruit market opened upstairs and I never have to eat that ‘fresh food’ again.

    Ali

  5. You guys wanna try buying “fresh” food at a supermarket in Paris. If you get home and your onions are not shrivelling and rotten on the inside, and your garlic contains more than grey dust, and your punnet of mushrooms isn’t host to new (or is that prehistoric?) forms of life, then you consider yourself rather lucky.

  6. Hrm… yes. I’m glad I have a great excuse to buy my fruit and veg from wholesalers so it’s nicer. Cheaper too! And the flavour from it all… mmm.

  7. that incessant “fresh food” jingle playing while I search through their rotting produce is comical! An employee of this particular franchise told me that avocado was best when it was rock hard! I could go on…… I just refuse to shop there anymore.

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