For what seems to be the tenth time since the start of the new year, we’re in the midst of a major snow storm here where I live. The still-frozen black ice that was deposited on everything a few days ago during our last storm is now covered by a bucolic layer of dusty powder. This means that when I take the dog out for a walk later, my neighbors will be guffawing at me from the confines of their homes as I carefully navigate the street with all the grace of an elephant in a snowbank.
This is definitely proving to be the winter of my own personal discontent–the winter when I realize that I’m suddenly a bit more emotionally attached to the safety of my physical parts than maybe I was last year at this time. Which means no more downhill skiing, lacrosse playing, flambeing, or Fugu-eating (sorry Andrew Zimmern; I’ll be a cheap date). It also means that now when I romp through the snow, I officially look like my bubbie did when she romped through the snow. Right before she fell and broke her hip.
No better time, then, to pile into the Subaru and head out for some shopping, just in case we’re snowed in for the next twelve years. And judging from the lines at my local supermarket, everyone else had exactly the same idea. What is it exactly about human nature and the tendency to hoarde? I mean, So what. So, we’re expecting 7 to 10 inches between today and tomorrow. The crowds I navigated today looked like they were shopping to fill a fallout shelter during the Bay of Pigs. We live in New England where it snows, so it’s not exactly like a storm is, well, freakish.
Nevertheless, I was stunned by what I saw. Moms with shopping carts sagging under the weight of boxes and boxes of frozen entrees and sugar-packed cereals. The pork case was completely bare; the canned tomatoes on sale at 10 for $10? Gone. And the lines? Hours long.
We careened around the place, picking up just what we needed and made it to a customer service lady who took pity on us, and checked us out. While my partner paid, I strolled over to the enormous produce section. And it was completely empty. Not a single soul.
Crickets.
Now, this particular supermarket of which I speak has a very large international clientele; the neighboring towns are very high in Asian, Latino, Italian, and Indian populations and so you can always find spectacular vegetables (sour melon; daikon; the list goes on), grains, and beans here. But today, in the wild, unbridled frenzy that I witnessed, not ONE person was buying produce. Why?
For one thing, there is the “hearty” factor: most people (I include myself here, although I’m getting better) just don’t equate the light goodness of vegetables and grains with heart-warming fare, suitable for winter storms. (They clearly never had my grandmother’s kashe varnishkes. )
Second: most people, when they fill their refrigerators and freezers and pantries, completely by-pass the vegetable aisle because they believe, wrongly, that those perishables will perish a hell of a lot faster than, say, a pork butt will. Wrong again.
Third: In answer to my first question, way up top (why do people hoarde), the average American citizen, on the average American shopping trip, fills his or her shopping cart with more meat than a small, meat-eating Indonesian village could eat for six months. (That’s a purely hyperbolic number, so please don’t check me.) Why? Again, I have no research numbers to back this up, but it’s what my father called the power of genetic memory. Think about it: if our aunts and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers and mothers and fathers survived the Great Depression of the 1930s, followed by the Second World War, odds are they understood the concept of doing with less, or even without. In a country like ours, with a midsection dominated by cattle lots and an industrial beef and pork business that virtually rules what shows up in our markets and on our tables, hoarding becomes an issue of supply and demand: if we once didn’t have it and now we can have as much as we want of it, we’re going to buy it to the exclusion of everything else. But we’ll always be afraid that it’ll be taken away again. Who knows? It may just well be.
I’m an offender, to some degree. I went into that supermarket to buy a one pound bag of dried Great Northern beans, ham hocks, and some garlic sausage. Why? Because I’m making cassoulet tomorrow. The only difference is that I intend to make eight servings of it to last 2-3 weeks, with portions frozen for quick dinners and easy lunches to be had with a small salad.
The beans? $1.29
The ham hocks? $1.89
The garlic sausage? $3.00
Duck confit? (homemade, from a $12 duck)
Total: $18.18, divided by 8 servings
Cost per meal: $2.27
I’ll take that over a $4.00 frozen entree any day.
