'Dirty' Vegetables

[FP]

My grandfather was a greengrocer back in the days when vegetables were not washed before being put on sale.  They lasted for simply ages!  Veg nowadays are washed to look nice and deteriorate very quickly as a result.  I certainly would go out of my way to buy vegetables still containing the mud from the field where they were harvested.  Would anybody else?

[mully]

 I would as I think it would be more natural, than the vegetables that have been cleaned with lots of chemicals, which they do in big supermarkets to make them look nice, they also throw out lots of fruit and vegetables if they have been bruised etc as they think they are not up to standard, which is a lot of waste.

I also think  muddy vegetables look fresher as they've come straight from the ground I also think they taste better, as I remember when my dad had an allotment and the veg had more taste to the shop bought one's.

 

[Hgrove]

me too me too!  Not just dirty;  one thing that used to depress me is how veg in supermarkets are all identical!  Perfectly shaped, perfectly round red tomatoes etc.  So unnatural.  Once I was on hols in Greece and a greengrocer was selling veg that were all oddly shaped, dirty and bruised and I was delighted and was about to buy some but my husband said "I'm not eating that stuff, it might be poisonous!".  I bought them anyway.

[2nd row]

 Totally agree with all you ladies, ah, Fakeplastic, your Q. certainly brought back may memories to me,,,,, rough, hard estate area, we wereetc etc. pretty wild an' daring kids, just after the 2nd world war, .... trying to stuff a stolen cooking apple  ( which always was the size of pumkins in those days ! ) either up your jumper, or into your trouser pocket !!!,,,,,  climbing over walls/fences to ( can i say ' borrow ' ? ) apples or pears from someones garden,...carrots, from some one else's, gooseberries.... etc..... the real stuff as you all say...... wash 'em ? peel ? just a quick wipe with someones shirt front ! passed around, one bite only, each an' every one til gone !   and the local bakery delivery man , bad luck for him if his back doors were open..... real, fresh, still hottish bread, broken in half, and just shared out and eaten by us , perhaps, scruffy little rascal kids !! next thing would be MAM calling you to tell you that tea was ready.... not hungry MAM, can i stay out with the boys ?? great days, real food.

[daddyg]

Too right. Some of my pals are farmers and the difference in their produce has to be tasted to be believed. One of them supplies strawberries to Tescos and they are all bright red, same shape same size, etc but incredibly bland. Another does just a couple of fields of pick your own and they maybe don't look great but the taste is unbelievable and people come from all over for them including the boy who supplies Tescos which speaks volumes to me.

[incognito]

I have found the same; the washed vegetables don't keep.

I brought this matter up with a supermarket manager and he maintained that they had to conform to regulations (?government, ? EU), with certain vegetables such as carrots, which insisted these veg. could only be sold if they were cleaned.!! Does anyone know about this?

[natalie_1982]

My granddad grows hiss own veg and I love going there cos he gives me great bag fulls to bring back and it's all muddy!  I would buy 'dirty' veg above 'clean' veg given the choice.

[CiderMonkey]

when we were young my mum used to take us to a 'pick your own' farm every now and then. We used to see it as a great day out and had loads of fun galloping about picking fruit and veg. Clever Mum! We were allowed (by my mum, im sure the owners would have had something to say about it!) to pick apples, strawberries etc on the way round and eat them. As 2nd row says - all they needed was a quick wipe on your t-shirt and they were ready to eat! I don't really mind mis-shapen, dirty fruit or veg, as long as it looks healthy. the 'perfect' produce we see kind of worries me - how did they get it all so neat, same colour, same size?

[FP]

A few years back in Morrisons you could buy a big sack of their cheap potatoes, which were lovely and dirty and kept for ages.  That doesn't happen now.  In fact Morrisons vegetables do not keep at all and are quite disgusting generally.

 

I presume that, as incognito points out, it's got something to do with EU regulations.  However, this doesn't seem to apply in the Mediterranean countries where the veg sold, even in supermarkets is much fresher and there seems to be no regulations on shapes and sizes.

 

 

[RevShirls]

I would too, fakeplastic. My grandpa was a ploughman (in the old days with Clydesdale horses). He used to grow loads of potatoes and other veg too. I always had plenty. They were covered in earth and they were delicious. When my grandpa was no longer able to grow his own vegetables, I started to buy from the supermarket. I felt everything tasted so bland. One day I bought organic potatoes. They were still covered in earth and they tasted just like my Grandpa's.

The potatoes here in Sweden tend to be more muddy and they taste good. My husband says they are grown in the North of Sweden where he comes from. He said it's also to do with the soil they are grown in. Most people in the North have underground potato cellars. They stand isolated - away from the houses in the fields and look a bit like some old air-raid shelters.

[BUNNY]

I'd assume that the veg your grandfather was selling was much fresher on arrival in his shop that the stuff we get in supermarkets today which is stored for quite some time and travels for miles before we see it.This rather than the dirt probably accounts for its longer life span.I prefer the look of knobbly,dirty veg but was told that it was better to buy the cleaner stuff as you can visibly see any spade marks or bad bits.I usually go for the organic dirty stuff though.

[aurelia]

I'm the opposite to everyone else because I have bought so called dirty veg - ie potatoes and I can never get them clean enough to eat - any tips as I seem to scrub and scrub and I always eat the skin but when they're like that it puts me off

[Robinia]

Oh Fp please say he wore a brown overall & reckoned up on the corner of paper bags with a stubby pencil? Memories!

Apparently we as customers, say the supermarkets, want our fruit & veg clean,ready-washed & of uniform size. Er,  don't recall being asked. I'd much rather have tasty veg with a bit of 'muck' & the knobbly bits - when did you last spot a 'rude' veg? :-)  I really don't want my carrots precision measured & lined up thank you - I'm certainly not into designer dinners either - just pile it on & smother it with gravy - lovely!

[FP]

Noddy, yes he did these things.  The vegetables came on a big lorry and were tipped into big hoppers in the shop, complete with mud.  He boiled beetroots in a big copper outside (and I love hot beetroots and their smell to this day).  The copper was situated next to the mangle!  He let me serve and put the money in the till.  He also let me eat all the fruit I wanted - and I consumed tomatoes all day long!  At the end of the day, he sat at a high stool in the corner of the shop and did all his daily accounts in a little notebook at a small wooden counter.  Lovely memories. 

Like you Noddy, I hate designer dinners.  Loads of veg smothered in real gravy, mmmmm/

 

Actually, BUNNY,  washing veg does make them deteriorate faster.  Root vegetables harvested, put into sacks and stored complete with mud in a cool dark place used to last all winter.

[FP]

Thanks for all your lovely answers. 

[coggles]

Hope I'm not too late too answer.

 

I loved it when my Mum & Dad used to take us on a PYO outing. By the time we got home, we would be stuffed full of strawberries and raspberries!

 

When my dad used to grow his own veg, we used to put all the unusual shaped ones on he window sill in the kitchen with little notes underneath with pretend name for them!

 

One day, everything and everyone will be the same, and won't that be boring...

[coggles]

on THE window sill