[jambutty]

The only problem with buying fruit and veg from a market stall is that you cannot really pick your own like you can in supermarkets and some greengrocers.

I recently bought some nice chipping spuds from a stall in the Darwen market and pointed to one and asked for 6 about that size. The young girl obliged but from a sack on the floor out of my sight. When I got home the 6 spuds were already showing growth and beginning to get soft. They made lousy chips too.

But that has always been the case since time immemorial. The greengrocer puts all the nice fruit etc. at the front and when you place your order you get it from the back. It is never like what you see. The person serving doesn’t take kindly to it if you try to pick your own from somewhere in the middle of the display. Well they wouldn’t because the whole display would crash to the floor.

So if a fruit and veg shop will not allow me to pick my own I am not interested.

Our Grimshaw Park Blackburn Asda goes through phases of good quality fruit and veg to what is obviously old stock. I never buy raw meat from them, mainly because they don’t seem to cater for single people. The bakery is the worst example. A few months ago you could buy a packet of 2 tea cakes. Then it was 4 tea cakes and now the smallest packet has 6 tea cakes. So I don’t buy their tea cakes any more. They used to sell microwave able puddings like Treacle puddings and Jam Rolly Polly in single units. Not any more. Now you have to buy a packet of two with a use by date barely three days forward.

One final twist of the Asda knife is that slowly but surely the branded goods are being replaced by Asda own brand and in my view they are not as good as the branded goods.