[Sca-cooks] Wal-Mart (was: seal-a-meal clones)

[Ysabeau]

I would think that the attraction for the latest and greatest is something
that has always been present. The girls in New York at the turn of the
century and before were always clamoring for the latest fashions from Paris.
The girls on the plains were clamoring for the latest fashions from New
York. I think it is just human nature to want something
different/better/shinier/newer. I would think it would be the same for
food...however, there is only so much you can do with chicken or pigs...I
think I'll cut it this way instead of that way. I would think that someone
bringing in a new product such as tomatoes would first be eyed cautiously
but eventually it would be embraced.

That being said, when I lived in Germany they still shopped the old
fashioned way for the most part. They would shop for a day or two at a time
so they would have the freshest products. The town we lived in had a grocery
store and some people shopped there but you would also see people making the
rounds down on main street. They would go to the vegetable store, the meat
store and the bakery. On the weekends, they would sometimes go to the bigger
markets in the next town over.

However, it has a whole culture to support that kind of thing. Women receive
kindergeld when they have children to stay at home for the first few years.
That gives them the time to spend shopping that a working mom in the States
wouldn't have. Also, the dwellings are smaller and the appliances are
smaller. They can't store a week's worth of groceries in their refrigerator
like we do in the States. That is part of the reason we were told that it
was impolite to just "show up" at someone's house. You needed to give them
the opportunity to entertain you and that means going to the store to get
food to offer you. Many of the businesses have long lunch hours (2 or more
hours) when they shut down to allow people to go do their shopping.

I've noticed that there really are people in the world who don't like
change. I remember reading about it in history books about how people were
suspicious of change and saw it as bad. As an adult, I've met people who are
resistant to change and always have a doom and gloom response to it. It has
always surprised me when I run into that attitude but it had to have existed
as well. However, there had to have been more people who embraced change or
else we never would have made it out of the dark ages.

Just my random thoughts on a stormy yucky day while trying to avoid doing
real work,
Ysabeau


On 3/30/07, Anne-Marie Rousseau <dailleurs at liripipe.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri Mar 30 10:15 , "Martha Oser"  sent:
>
>
> bring things back to topic, how do you think this mindset applies to our
> medieval game? did joe-
> medieval-dude trust his local butcher more than the big shiney guy from
> out of town? or was the
> appeal of the new and shiney as appealing to him as it is to most of the
> folks nowadays?
>
>
> --Anne-Marie, who is eco-groovy and socially hip in her own slightly geeky
> way :)
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