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Why products are so tasteless?

I don't think they bother to find something better for similar price, they opt out for the cheapest no questions asked. They should limit their profits, though in reality the amount of money they save is negligible. They just do it out of stinginess.

Another horrible practice at work's 'subsidised and monopoly' restaurant: they are kind enough to offer mustard for free, but the mustard is so chilly that you can barely eat more than 1 gram!

I am sure the manager will be thanked for saving the contracted catering company the cost of having to buy several bottles of normal mustard.
 

You have a choice - if you don't have a decent farmer's market and don't want supermarket quality food then go to the deli. I really don't see the issue here.
 
If you do not like the company / restaurant supplied condiments bring your own from home. You should be happy with that instead of complaining.
 
Oldvatr said:
Choices become simpler when all you have is your trusty steed, aka mobility scooter. or Shank's Pony. Impossible for me on my Zimmer Frame.
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Too true and since I have just acquired the two walking sticks I am getting a taste of that but I hate shopping. Even before I lost use of my legs I resented the time it took to trapse around the clone warehouses. I much prefer to get what we need at Aldi or Lidl as we pass them on the way home from socialising but I am disgustingly spoilt for choice. We have a massive Tesco at Ricoh, a large Sainsbury a mile away, my parents are even closer to a giant Asda. I do not have enough fingers to count the out of town shopping centres I have within 10 miles of me. Ditto for farm shops.
 
Chook said:
You have a choice - if you don't have a decent farmer's market and don't want supermarket quality food then go to the deli. I really don't see the issue here.
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I just wondered because I have often seen farmers markets mentioned on this site and several of the towns around here have them but I have never been impressed. Very often I see them selling preserves I can buy in the gift shops in tourist centres. On one occassion we did a local farmers market and walked back plus a few yards more to treat ourselves in Waitrose. However I have not been to a farmers market in Yorkshire, we have been to European wine and food festivals and we adored going to places like Ocean were local artisans sold their wares in stalls within the supermarket and we could get solid pates, cheeses, breads. I am lucky because we have local delis which are far superior to the farmers market. Polish shops and the high streets of Asian shops are well worth going to.
 
covknit said:
I just wondered because I have often seen farmers markets mentioned on this site and several of the towns around here have them but I have never been impressed.
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We have a really excellent farmers market about every four to six weeks, these are totally different to the normal Sunday markets where a lot of rubbish / rejects are sold.

Lots of fresh fruit and veggies on sale at them for a reasonable price.

There is a seafood market / festival coming up this weekend where you get to taste seafood plus buy the product as well.

Bundaberg has a lot of Asian, European & Pacific Island shops selling a lot of great tasting stuff.

We have three Aldi stores, two Woolworth's, and two Coles and two IGA stores selling tasty stuff.

All fresh and flavoursome food, it just needs a "bit of imagination" to cook a nutritious meal with the ingredients available.
 
Isn't it interesting how many different types of market there are. Plus all of the different cuisines. I am in a rural area in the centre of England, 2 miles from a city centre with a couple of universities, 25 miles south of one of the contenders for Englands second city and 20 miles from what we think of as a world famous tourist centre the birthplace of playwright William Shakespeare. So we have a specialist shop somewhere for every nation you can think of. Here mainly Korean. Turkish 5 miles away etc etc. Back to markets. There are a couple of agricultural markets where lifestock, produce and butchery are sold and the quality of produce there is very high. Most of the towns hereabout have markets which sell everything bric a brac to electronics and everything in between. Usually the stalls take over a couple of shopping streets 2 or 3 days a week and the traders will work a couple of markets. Birmingham and Coventry have markets open most of the week and the storeholders have them as a permanent sales outlet. The overheads for running these market stores are quite significant especially for the most popular ones like a weekend market near Stratford. The standard of produce is good to very good. Then we have artisan traders who make stuff like our Berkswell cheese https://www.finecheese.co.uk/berkswell.html?___SID=U, several small breweries and butchers. Excellent in a few products but not possible to do a weekly shop. Then there are the farms who have a farm shop (there are also the farm shops on land that might pass for a farm) which may or may not produce some of the products for sale. These sell much the same cheese and cooked meats as a high street deli and a lot more fresh produce than the average deli. They are good in some things like any low turnover shop

Then there are the farmers markets which around here sprang into being in protest at the low payments producers were receiving from the supermarket. I can only presume the farmers markets Chook has in Yorkshire are more like our agricultural markets. For the ones I have been to you may be lucky and find an excellent product but the odds are much better at one of the other sorts of market which are also the ones likely to undercut prices in the supermarkets. So in response to @carbolysis op I would never suggest a farmers market. For people working traditional hours agricultural markets are impossible to get to and even I with all the convenience on my doorstep cannot be bothered to trapse around all of the options but if someone is prepared to say they really want to find somewhere they can get really good Turkish Olives for instance I could provide details for this area and others could do likewise. Hey presto we have a wealth of gastronomy information at our finger tips
 
Chook said:
You lucky think - I've never been able to successfully grow celery.
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If you can get them to germinate they can be as hard work as you like. The best ones I ever grew were in a trench but most years I just dig a hole, fill it with good compost with chick pellets which I water in with blackjack (using horse activator) a couple of weeks prior to transplanting. During the summer I keep a bucket of water in the centre of the circle to keep the moisure level high. When autumn arrives I cover them with bracken. It seems to work.
 
I love celery especially in home made soup ,but it is hard to find celery with the leaves still on ,these are the tastiest part for soup and salad .Can I come to your allotment @covknit and beg or borrow ?
CAROL
 
carty said:
I love celery especially in home made soup ,but it is hard to find celery with the leaves still on ,these are the tastiest part for soup and salad .Can I come to your allotment @covknit and beg or borrow ?
CAROL
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Love to see you. If you have a garden would salad burnet be an option for you? Pm me your address and I will send you a burnet baby. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/salad-burnet/salad-burnet-herb.htm . I have even just seen a website called salad burnet . org it has a few recipes but there is not a lot on it.
 
By the way, do you know any nice fatty salty cheese ?
 
carbolysis said:
By the way, do you know any nice fatty salty cheese ?
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Gorgonzola, Danish Blue, Roquefort, Hallouni, Feta, might be decent starters, from the top of my head.
 
DCUKMod said:
Gorgonzola, Danish Blue, Roquefort, Hallouni, Feta, might be decent starters, from the top of my head.
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I know some people that make a nice Feta cheese from goat milk, excellent stuff.

Goats are tasty as well.
 
carbolysis said:
By the way, do you know any nice fatty salty cheese ?
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You need to experience the taste of different cheeses, as the old saying one persons food is another persons poison.

To find cheese to your "tastes" you will need to go to food fairs where they have cheese tasting sessions. We have been to a lot of theses at various cheese factories here in Queensland. Which is a great way of experiencing combinations of food as Remy from the Ratatouille movie found out.


 
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