Food for Thought

Two weeks ago, you could pretty much guarantee that if you did a food shop, you would find what you wanted in any supermarket, from tuna to tofu, apples to agave syrup. Now, shelves of bread, pasta and tinned goods are stripped bare before we even have a chance to look at our shopping list.

Many of us don’t remember food shortages of any sort. I can recall the occasional bank holiday weekend in the early eighties when the shops had run out of bread or milk and we had to drive around the countryside trying to find a garage that was open and by some miracle sold basic food. Until very recently though, not being able to buy what you want, when you want, has faded from our collective memory. Sunday trading, holiday opening and the just-in-time supply chain have helped lull us all into a false sense of security.

I spent around six months living in Russia during the fall of communism and the crumbling of the Soviet Union. We had all seen the television news footage of Muscovites queueing for hours outside bakeries in the desperate hope they might be among the lucky ones to buy bread that day. The reality was much more intense. My fellow students and I were housed with Russian families who, thankfully, were not obliged to feed us. At first, we ate at a local dining hall then, as the economic situation worsened, we had our meals at the local Communist Party Headquarters, apparently the only place in town with guaranteed supplies. They were basic, devoid of any vegetables, but at least they were filling; by then, we also understood just how privileged we were. The mothers in our host families would often spend their days going from queue to queue to find food. Irina, my Russian mum, did sometimes bring home bread, and even more rarely, milk. They didn’t drink it, instead they made kefir. At the time, I couldn’t understand it, but given what we now know about the health benefits of fermented foods, it may well have been the most nutritious thing they ate.

I remember, very early on in our stay, queueing for three hours for a birthday cake for the first of our group to turn 21 while we were there. The bakery ran out of everything three people ahead of us. We were disappointed, but it was a good lesson in how not to take things for granted. No-one needs cakes. We did not go hungry. That could not be said of our fellow shoppers.

It also provided an interesting insight into the human psyche. Even when temperatures fell to well below minus 20, there would be queues for ice cream. The point wasn’t that our Russian friends particularly wanted to eat ice cream in the depth of winter. It was simply that it was available, so they bought it in case it was months before they could do so again. We are seeing similar, though arguably more selfish, behaviour here.

Nobody needs a freezer full of peas and sweetcorn or 5 kg of pasta in their cupboard. But the thought that they might not be able to buy it again anytime soon is leading people to put it in their trolley just in case. It doesn’t matter how many times you are told that there is enough to go around if we all share: when people are frightened, they don’t necessarily behave in a rational way.

I have also been intrigued by what people aren’t buying. There seems to be no shortage of vitamins and products which claim to boost your immune system, though frozen pizzas and other unhealthy processed foods are nowhere to be seen.

Bananas and carrots are pretty hard to come by in my local supermarket, though there were plenty of cauliflowers left (proof, my children would say, that cauliflower is inedible, however hungry you are!)

Worrying about being able to buy food is exhausting. Even my parents’ generation won’t really remember that aspect of World War 2 rationing. My father, who’s almost 80, talks about the first time he saw a real banana and the excitement of the weekly sweet ration, but it was my grandmother who had to find ways of making meagre supplies stretch to feeding five children. We could probably all learn a lot from those women about making the most of what you have, about not wasting food and about appreciating things when you have them. In fact, if appreciation of just how lucky we are here in the west is something we all learn, then it might be one positive to take from this terrible situation.