"Daniel Barlow" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
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Among the other fruits in the supermarket near my office are apples from the USA and pears from New Zealand. Perhaps the additional transport costs could be reduced by sourcing these items somewhere /closer/?
We could go back to the days I still remember where you could only get apples and pears in season. International shipping means we can now enjoy them and lots of other foods year round.
But we don't enjoy them; for two reasons.
Firstly the imported stuff is pallid and tasteless. I assume this is because it is grown and shipped for a diverse market and varieties are selected for the lowest common denominator taste.
Secondly, the endless choice means there is no variety. If you can have strawberries in December, they are no longer an unfamiliar but remembered flavour in June.
David Martin <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
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On 18/5/04 7:33 am, in article [email hidden], "MartinM"
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Simon Brooke <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<80pnn1-
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...and they taste of nothing. If you're going to have flavourless food, there's no need to import it from the other end of the earth.
Remember though that before WW2 and U boat attacks on cargo ships, we imported much more of our produce from abroad (OK we had an empire then).
Very few things. You forget the kitchen garden and village economy. Most of the food produced was invisible in the economic market as people did grow a lot more of their own.
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Dig for Victory turned us into a nation of farmers, and look where we are now! Home grown is not necessarily most efficient or even best quality.
It may not be as efficient but you get the benefit of reduced cost (labour costs virtually nothing), improved flavour, better choice of varieties (no one grows my favourite apple commercially), and a great deal of satisfaction.
I have no problem at all with allotments/back garden produce, they are a very good thing, I wish I had the time/space to run one.
There's some in Crawley too. "Reduce Pollution" it says, and a cartoon car belching fumes. I keep meaning to complete the slogan with a well placed "get on yer bike"
I remember seeing a car once with a switch that you pressed to turn off the engine when stopped, such that you could restart it by lightly pressing the accelerator. It was intended to be used at junctions.
How long do you have to be idling for to use the amount of fuel required to start the engine? I suppose it depends a lot on the engine itself, and it helps perhaps that its still warm to some extent. For the system above to be effective, you'd have to expect the engine to start quickly first time.
- Richard
-- _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard dot Corfield at ntlworld dot com _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street, _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ Except in the Twilight Zone.
Firstly the imported stuff is pallid and tasteless. I assume this is because it is grown and shipped for a diverse market and varieties are selected for the lowest common denominator taste.
I think its because they select them primarily for the ability to survive the journey over here without spoiling/looking bad, and then select for taste. Kind of makes sense - mouldy strawberries don't taste good however delicious they were when they were first picked, and crappy foreign ones taste just the same as gorgeous English ones when you chuck 'em in a trifle.
I'd be interested to know whether we send strawberries to foreign parts, and if they have nice domestic varieties that are superior to our exported ones.
Firstly the imported stuff is pallid and tasteless. I assume this is because it is grown and shipped for a diverse market and varieties are selected for the lowest common denominator taste.
I think it's more that they're selected to look consistent and to have a long shelf life.
I'd be interested to know whether we send strawberries to foreign parts, and if they have nice domestic varieties that are superior to our exported ones.
Not found an English strawberry to match Wépion ones from Belgium, but have seen neither English ones in Belgium nor Belgian ones here.
I'd be interested to know whether we send strawberries to foreign parts, and if they have nice domestic varieties that are superior to our exported ones.
Not found an English strawberry to match Wépion ones from Belgium, but have seen neither English ones in Belgium nor Belgian ones here.
Having picked strawberries for a job last summer, I can reveal that you need a good eye and a little experience to select the most gorgeous tasting strawberry. Most are so-so, but when you find a good one it's *delicious*.
David Hansen [email hidden] opined the following...
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I believe that the fuel should be cheaper for trucks and more expensive for cars. The majority of Europe agrees with this and discounts diesel relative to petrol.
They also have a range of other taxes on lorries, which those making spurious comparisons tend to neglect to mention.
I believe that they also make better use of those funny metal rods that connect places... er... rail. That's it.
I believe that the fuel should be cheaper for trucks and more expensive for cars. The majority of Europe agrees with this and discounts diesel relative to petrol.
The majority of Europe agrees with this to the extent that in many countries, diesel motorcars outsell petrol ones by about two to one...
