Location and Availability of Ingredients

[lizzief79]

I often feel that I am hampered by where I live in terms of the options for ingredients. I live in a small coastal village with two general stores, a greengrocer's, a butcher's a baker's and a fishmonger's. This means I can get some fresh local produce, which is good. My problem is that I like to experiment with different cuisines. Although the shops do sell dried spices, they are not the same as fresh ones and the range is limited. The same applies to herbs. Options generally include basil, oregano, curry powder, chilli powder and dried garlic powder. I shop at the supermarket too, but the options there are not much better.

When I have visited inner city areas, the shops cater for wider cultural diversity. I see all sorts of shops that sell ingredients for Chinese, African, Polish and Eastern European cooking, to name just a few. I think that this gives people in thes3e areas better options for creating internal foods, but on the downside, they might not have access to fresh local produce in the same way as someone living in a rural area like myself.

How do you think where you live affects the food you cook?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I live rurally as well. I don't find it hampers me anymore. I do alot of online shopping for dried pulses and the likes and have recently used a company called DesiMe (http://www.desime.co.uk/). They have loads of what I use on the way of dried foods, some new to me, others I am very familiar with. Once you have worked out their website and sussed where somethings are, it is a brilliant company and their customer service is excellent.

As for herbs and spices, I use a couple of places to obtain mine. The first is a health food shop close to my parents home which I raid when I am over that way. They can be expensive for some items though, but their spices and herbs are really good quality and pretty cheap. So I also use a company based in Herefordshire called The Spice Works (http://www.thespiceworks.co.uk/collections/all) who have loads of what I want in various sizes but have a minimum order of £25. They are also very reliable.

I have also found that I can get quite a bit of what I need off Amazon as well! But locally, forget it, all I have are 2 local spar type shops, a butchers (of no use to me), 5 hair dressers (!), a dry cleaners and luckily a post office (it closed down and moved so we were without for about 6 months which was really inconvenient).

 

[DancingLady]

It does, my primary grocery store is part of the buy local movement so they make an effort to purchase produce from this valley first and then move their radius out as needed so that we are getting the most local product possible at that time of year. I really appreciate that because it helps support local family farms instead of just big business producers. Because of that, I am able to get some of the best produce possible, providing I can afford it.

If I didn't have access to that store, I would be much more limited in the fresh organic foods I could buy, which would dramatically change how I eat.

 

[tangela]

I'm pretty lucky in terms of my location where I can have a choice between the regular stores (such as Safeway or Costco) and the more "high end" stores (Whole Foods, New Leaf -- specialty organic stores). I usually shop at Safeway and at Costco though for most of my groceries due to the fact that it's WAY cheaper than going elsewhere. Again, luckily I never have trouble finding something I need for a recipe or something.

But in the case that I REALLY can't find it anywhere else, I would just look on Amazon or something like that. I know Amazon has really good grocery shopping program now and I'm sure you can find anything you need (and if you know you'll cook the recipe over and over again it's a good way to stock up on the ingredients that you normally can't get).

 

[Ella]

I'm fairly good at adapting recipes and finding what I need. I have never found where I am limiting me in what I want to cook, these days you can find pretty much everything and if not then something similar. Lots of supermarkets do cater for ethnic products, perhaps not as much choice and a bit more expensive, but there is availability.

I think finding local produce is always a challenge because it does cost more and supplies are irregular. I like to support them, but cost sometimes has to come first.