RosieH

Ach, you're right David. You tell 'em. Burn the supermarkets (oh and the chocolate factories, and the pasta sauce makers, and the breweries, and the crisp manufacturers). Giddy up kids, turnips for tea!

SeanMacGabhann Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But go on then - which ready meal would you > recommend as tasty and moreish? Well I did have a delicious pompous arse pappardelle the other day... Going to avoid this thread for a while, because adore you as I do MacGabhann, I fear we may come to blows. And that just won't do at all.

Don't be so bloody precious. Ready meals aren't de facto shit, just because they're processed. I've heard nutritionists (on R4, not at my place of work!) talk about how the nutrition content of ready meals is no worse than anything else. What you're meant to see the other side of is all of the above - lacking time, money or inclination. Doesn't matter - they're entitled to buy whatever the hell they want without a lecture.

Don't think they are - chimps eat all sorts, including animals (and occasionally other chimps). I read the increase in brain size has to do with cooking food. Which is mere pedantry, because I agree with you. We eat the meat. Animals eat the meat. What's the difference. Though I'm yet to see a chimp don a tiger-skin for the approbation of his chimp buddies.

Oh, and the court bouillon was cheeky hyperbole, as well you know ;-)

I know Sean, I do. But for some people, food is just fuel. These days, most supermarkets will have reduced the salt and removed hydrogenated fats and the like, so it's actually often no worse for you than something you've cooked yourself. Whether it's no worse for your soul is an altogether different question. And apologies for suggesting you lack empathy. That's not fair. It's just on this issue, you and David only seem to be prepared to see one side, and it surprises me.

Yes, we've rather moved from the particular to the general. In regard to the particular, I'd like to state categorically that I have no desire for another supermarket. We have plenty already and I barely use Sainsbury's DKH or the Co-op LL as it is. There are some people who can't or don't like to cook. There are others who lack the time. And others who lack the inclination. It would be great if we could turn back the clock to the days before ready meals, so that a tin of soup was enough when you come back from work and you don't have any food in, but those days are long since behind us. People have become used to being able to get a bag of salad to go with their fresh (and often rubbish) pasta, myself included, no matter my passion for food. I haven't suggested the masses are downtrodden, so I'm not sure if that was aimed at me. I just believe that there should be choice for those who don't want to make their own court bouillon at 8pm on a rainy Tuesday.

Cheap jibe David? Well here's another. I'd rather someone with your working background didn't hold supermarkets up as the root of all evil. My views on supermarkets actually have nothing to do with my having worked for one. The point is that some people prefer shopping at supermarkets because it's convenient. They can park their cars, they can shop for bargains (and as was pointed out, lots of people do go to more than one to get those bargains), they can buy massive fuck-off packs of washing powder that they wouldn't be able to carry down the street while pushing a pram and carrying their chicken carcasses from William Rose. When it comes to food, I agree with both David and Sean. But you two don't have the monopoly on attitudes to food. Not everyone enjoys shopping for food, or cooking things slowly. And even all the people that do, don't always have the luxury of time to do things with cheap cuts of meat (inevitably slow cooking). I think it's a crying shame that we've lost the skill to make a stew, but try doing that on a Saturday morning in between taking the kids swimming, to football, to a party, cleaning the house and trying to find half an hour to put your feet up after working all week. I think there's a real lack of empathy in the assumption that everyone should learn to cook and make a nice chicken stock and then we wouldn't need supermarkets.

Lots of people do you know David. Lots of people have budgets that they have no choice but to stick to, and that's what makes your almost pathologically anti-supermarket stance come over as a bit let them eat cake. Some people actually prefer shopping in supermarkets, no matter how much you tell them they're idiots. Of course supermarkets try to sell you more than you need, in the same way that sommeliers will try to upsell on the wine, or clothes shop assistants will try to sell you a belt to go with your new slacks. It's the nature of selling. It's about profit. Shopping carefully in a supermarket should save you money. Myself, I prefer shopping locally - mostly, but not always, the quality is better. But careful is still the order of the day - a fiver for a bunch of tomatoes still made me do a double take at one of our lovely local shops. And East Dulwich is blessed with fantastic small shops. What would you suggest people do for food, when they don't have that same luxury?

Hell yes. It will show the area is turning into Clapham, and I for one bleed from the eyeballs at the sight of a turned up collar on a rugby shirt. And Sean, yes of course you're right about food. The problem is we've lost a lot of those skills, and there are other people who would never have had them anyway. So where once the non-cookers of the world would be content with a tin of soup if there were nowt else open than the corner shop, now, eyes bright and stomachs growling from a glut of gastro porn, Heinz 57 Varieties aren't good enough, and it's Thai curry or jambalaya they're a'cravin'. Bring back cheese on toast I say.

I was once taking part in an end of term quiz at school. Fastest chalker first on the blackboard. I stood with chalk in hand and knew the answer to the question before the question had even started to be asked. I knew the answer was going to be Scrooge. For about 10 minutes I was convinced I had supernatural powers, and then, as a precocious and cynical 13 year old, I realised that it was the end of the autumn term (i.e. 5 days or so before Christmas) and clearly the questions had been leading in a Dickens-direction. So while I may not be supernatural, I am Derren fricking Brown, and that'll do for me. However, my cunt of an ex-boss (big believer in astrology incidentally, and who also has regular premonitions) had a vision while on a hill overlooking Jerusalem, that told him how his organisation should be run. He came home and made me redundant. He's a cunt. And so are his "visions".

Sean, deliberately contrary much? YOU might be a natural wizard in the kitchen, but not everyone is. However, I think the need for Gu puddings is already answered by Tesco Metro and Sainsbury's Local, no?

zeban the two questions are linked. If someone's prepared to eat an animal, why shouldn't they wear it? If someone's prepared to eat a certain animal, why shouldn't they eat another? And if someone's prepared to wear a certain animal, why shouldn't they wear another. There are layers upon layers of hypocrisy in the vegetarian question. In your response to the cheese question, you say you buy organic, but you make no mention of the male calves that are slaughtered as a bi-product of the dairy industry. Presumably you're ok with that, provided the cheese itself doesn't contain stomach?

Check Southwark's website too. Pretty sure you can recycle thin supermarket bags in your blue box, although don't think you can with thicker, standard plastic bags.

Applause.

Damn Mick, those are some cruel-ass shears you're using on your sheep.

Yes they do - male dairy calves that are slaughtered because they're not going to produce milk. Edited for reasons of late night transgenderism.

And I very much enjoy eating rabbit now. Fur / cheese - don't see the difference myself (we don't need to wear fur, some would argue, and it's only ugly vanity. But neither do we need to eat cheese.) Edited to add, I think that's the point Huguenot was making in post 2. So I'm just copying him basically.

I wouldn't be surprised if homeopathy didn't team up with astrology to create cures for ailments based on the memory of the star sign you used to be.

When the bringers of facile levity decry it in others.

I was born under a bad sign.

One trillion doubloons. ETA - For the lovely OP, this is not the price of Bare Groove. I just enjoy saying 'doubloons'.

See there was me thinking you were saying shit into a mirror 5 times. Which is bad. This is good though. More good please.

karter Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > RosieH Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > One million doubloons. > > What, for your dodgy downloads?:)) Just for that, the price has gone up, young man. Double the doubloons.

One million doubloons.