What do you think about the quality of your food?

Our solution, at least to the lardons problem: do it yourself.

Lardons: matchstick sized pieces of cut bacon commonly used in French cooking.  Bacon, as we Americans know it, is not found in the supermarkets.  In fact, anything I’ve seen marked “bacon” resembles more of a sliced piece of ham with a bologna like resemblance.  Potrine, which is actually thinly sliced bacon, is used to wrap around green beans or meat, but is never served for breakfast.  I’m no trying to write in circles, I’m just laying the foundation for my discussion.

I’m far from being the first to make note of this, but the quality of food sold in stores is declining.  There will always be higher end grocery stores or organic chains that offer high quality foods, so I’m referring to the stores where the majority of people do their weekly shopping, you know the everyday grocery store.  We shop there.  Christophe and I don’t buy transformed foods, frozen pizzas, or microwave lunches.  These products have already been under scrutiny, and their lack of quality is not under debate.  We try to buy products as close to their natural state as possible; vegetables, eggs, flour, meats, and cheeses.  Part of this is because both Christophe and I really enjoy cooking, and you can’t do that with a microwavable fettuccini alfredo, but another large part of this is we just can’t tolerate bad food.  Not bad food as in “I accidently overcooked the chicken”, but bad food that is being made as cheaply as possible regardless of the end product.  Some of the products we buy are not in their 100% natural form.  Lardons does not roam freely around a farm, but I can at least identify the product I’m consuming.  The meats has been cut, cured, and salted; a form of preservation, but as anyone bacon lover would attest to, it’s just darn good – until now.  What should be a simple process of adding salt and time, has now become an overindulgent salt lick that spoils a dish.  And “smoked” flavor is simply a chemical injection.  We’ve tried several brands, but have come up with the same conclusion: the quality is declining, and those who make it seem to really not care.

I read a book over 20 years ago called Human Scale by Kickpatrick Sale. Clearly, it left a mark on me. While the premise of the book is about the size of communities and creating those that respond to individuals’ needs, there was an interview with the current president of one of the largest beer companies in the United States.  He basically said, the company will continue to make a lesser quality beer, thus focusing on profits, just to the level to which society will accept it.  Got that?  The beer quality stops just before it becomes undrinkable.  That was 20 years ago, and now that philosophy has grown to touch about everything we eat, from over salting foods to using chemical injections.

What to do?  Not everyone can raise a garden to eat for a year.  Those who know us know we have an immense garden and we don’t come close to that.  Raise your own livestock?  Not likely.  Protest?  Sure, but that only goes so far and you eventually get hunger and buy something in haste.  Be aware?  That works, but what next?  What happens when we know this decline is happening and cannot do much about it?  What do you foresee as feasible options?