Molehills in the time of COVID-19

We continue to adjust to life in lockdown.  It’s not the staying indoors that bothers me at all – I am, by nature, a hibernator and quite happy to spend my days pottering around the house.  As long as I have my cat, my books, Netflix et al, I can be quite content.  But this has made me realise how incredibly, desperately spoiled I was with regards to food and shopping.

In my entire adult life, there has pretty much never been a time that I have not been able to get something I want to eat.  All those meal plans where we said: “I fancy aubergine this week!  Dover sole!  Chicken thighs!  Taramsalata!  Scrambled eggs!”  And then, boom.  COVID-19 happens, and food shopping becomes a thing to be feared rather than a quick ten minute sojourn before you get on with the business of whipping up a meal.

I don’t like the modern phrase of “Check your privilege” but it is so applicable here.  I am definitely checking mine.  I took so much for granted and with it, all those people toiling away in the supply chain, probably for minimum wage, to ensure that my every whim was met.

And the privilege continues to a certain extent, because it is a privilege at the moment to be even fretting about something like this but I do think that my anxiety has hooked on the issue of food availability and supply rather than dealing with the bigger, more frightening things happening outside these four walls.

It was eggs that I fixated on at first.  Eggs were in short supply.  We are genuinely trying to go out as little as possible, and certainly avoiding large supermarkets. But the little Sainsbury’s Local that I ventured out to, in that first week, was stripped.  Suddenly, all I could think about was – what if we can’t get any eggs?  What will we do?  I never realised that I was so very fond of eggs or that they formed such a staple part of my diet. We’ve now signed up for a weekly delivery of milk, eggs and butter (from The Modern Milkman if anyone is interested and in the supply area – only two deliveries in but have been extremely impressed with the whole process and the quality of the produce.)

Less pressing, but stll, niggling at me like an itchy cardigan, I began to worry about our supply of beloved Maldon Sea Salt, and the sriracha chilli sauce that we tend to strew with abandon over half our meals.  Ebay, and an online Asian supermarket, have solved these problems for now, although the fact that I have three boxes of salt in my pantry probably means that I am turning into one of those stockpilers that I so despised at the outset of all of this.

Flour and yeast were then the next obsession and I became frankly Gollum-esque protecting my precious jars.  I’ve just been able to order a few bags of plain and bread flour and some fresh yeast (which I can freeze) at Shipton Mill who are, very sensibly, releasing a limited number of delivery slots on a daily basis as and when they become available so that has solved that immediate problem.  I await, resigned, to see what will strike next.

I am genuinely curious to see if this has a long term impact on shopping and eating habits when things revert to normal.  Will we revert away from the current culture of little-and-often-as-whim-dictates more towards a weekly “Big Shop”?  Will we continue to use these small suppliers who have been there for us when we needed them or will we abandon them in favour of supermarket convenience and competetive pricing?

If nothing else, I just hope that I remember to be a little bit more aware of how lucky I am.  And never, not never, take eggs (or salt, condiments and flour) for granted.