Ok, so the past few months I have been working hard on staying away from the long supply chains of store bought food. Instead I have been buying my Finnish roots on the market square, the meat from the ecological farmer, the fish from the fisherman (with whom I btw have a scheduled meeting tomorrow morning) and the other vegetables from a local food circle. Left is only the milk to feed my kefir grains, the kid's oatmeal and some other insignificant stuff like 70% chocolate and the red wine from Alko. I smile big times when I rarely step into the "chained stores" these days and they ask for my affiliation card. As I pass it through the machine, I wonder what the marketing department might be thinking of me and my food consumption, and what kind of classification they've put on my head. Am I a lost case? Or will they soon start the offensive to attract me back to the big hyper market aisles? The monthly member magazines remains inside the plastic cover as it passes from the mailbox to the trash box (yes I know I should just tell them to stop sending me the stuff). I guess they might as well just give up right away. Lost case. For sure.
Today I bought a salad on the way to the train. As I was chewing my garlic soaked olives, I started thinking of what kind of histories those green things might be hiding. There are no eco-labels on olives in ready made salads. Nor are there any guarantees that the mozzarella cheese from Italy hasn't been produced in are area with mafia contaminated toxic waste. I lend a quick thought to the blog post on Uusi Musta that I read yesterday, of the girl that was living in the environmental collapse in industrial China. She said she is nowadays using a strategy of "hear no evil, see no evil" when she shops for food there. Meaning: as long as the stomach is not reacting, it must have been safe. And I thought, when eating at restaurants or ready made salads, you'd better practice the same philosophy, just so you do not destroy your food with bad thoughts of their origin.
Then as I scroll my way through the Finnish woods on the train I come across an interesting status update from Mats-Eric Nilsson, the guy behind the "secret chef" and "real food". He is now working on a book about the food going into restaurant food. Yeah! I am this guy's biggest fan. His books are changing the way we look at food here in the North. Very happy to hear about this. Maybe sometime in a not so faraway future I do not need to think evil thoughts about my innocent food.
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