i am doing a little survey ...

[nappyaddict]

i have discovered meat from the butchers is much nicer than that of the supermarket and want to know if any of you think the following food items taste better if bought somewhere other than the supermarket and if so where.

fruit/veg
meat
fish
eggs
cheese
milk
butter
yoghurt
bread

Meat from butcher is always nicer. Same goes for proper fresh fish from the fishmonger. When we are in Devon we buy veg from the local organic farm and it is much more tasty than our supermarket veg in London (although not as uniformly pretty).

i have a local shop that sells local milk and it is so much better than supermarkets.

i have also stopped buying bread from supermarkets as it is never as fresh as from my local shop. i knew some one who worked for warburtons and they said that this was due to the supermarkets buying massive amnounts into a warehouse and then it being shipped to stores to sit in a store room before going onto the shelves so youa re looseing days on the sell by date

MEAT FROM THE BUTCHER
MILK FROM THE MILKMAN + EGGS
BREAD FROM THE BAKER
FISH FROM THE FISHMONGER.

I like it when the bread is so hot when you buy it from the baker that you can barely break a piece off the end to eat on the way home

Fruit from fruit farms (in season), especially if you PYO.

Sometimes get meat (beef, lamb) online from specialist suppliers. Tastes wonderful, but you usually have to buy a lot at a time so need plenty of freezer space. Also local farmers market does very nice beef.

Fish would only get from a good fishmonger or Waitrose (and never on a Sunday or Monday).

Agree with nailpolish re carrots. We recently started to get a local organic veg box delivered and I was stunned by the carrots. It was like they'd turned the volume up tenfold. Will never ever ever bother with insipid, tasteless, clean, perfect looking horrid little supermarket carrots again. Also, local, muddy stuff keeps for much longer.

Eggs are a really important one too. DP had to get emergency eggs last night (had started cooking without realising we'd run out) and he bought the best he could - S'bury organic free range. Am apalled by the complete lack of eggyness. They're pale and fragile and rubbish compared to the usual poncy eggs we get. Expensive but worth it.

I think you can get reasonable cheese in the supermarket, but you can also get horrid thawed out yuk with crunchy bits and a fishy taste. [bleurgh]

Home made bread is best.

Have just started making my own yogurt too and it's really good.

muffin, when i was younger we were surrounded by berry fields. miles and miles of berries. we picked berries for pocket money all summer long. for breakfast lunch and tea we had berries. you couldnt get in our shed for jam. berries are my faavourite food EVER. i still go back to mums house and sneak to the raspberry bushes with a slice of bread and have a berry sandwhich

same at october holidasy - we called them tattie holidays - we picked tatties for pocket money. you got £10 a day but it was hard work! you couldnt get in the shed for tatties til xmas

(sorry for self indulgent nostalgia there)

anna do you think the cheese from the cheese shop tastes better than the cheese from the supermarket?

meat, fish and bread definitely better

nappyaddict - I'm in Paris and some of the cheese at the supermarket is really very good. The real difference IMO is between industrially-produced (ie factory-made) cheese, and cheese that is artisanally produced. A really good cheese shop will know how to let an artisanal cheese develop its flavour in optimal conditions and will always do better than a supermarket. But some artisanal cheeses are quite good at the supermarket nonetheless.

fruit/veg - greengrocer or better still greenfingered parents

meat - butcher or farm without fail, no comparison with supermarket crap

fish - we have an OK fish van but reckon freshness depends if you are geographically fortunate

eggs - real eggs 'fresh from the hen's arse' as my dad would say are unimaginably better than shop ones of any description

cheese - supermarket ok but for posh stuff a decent cheesemonger best

milk, butter, yoghurt - [shrug]

bread - make your own, it's worth it! IME most bakers are pretty crap.

A good local deli can cover a lot of these if you're lucky.

oh i suppose if you are in france then asking you about cheese isn't really going to be relevant to here!!

nappyaddict - I think that the difference between industrially-produced cheese and artisanally-produced cheese is pretty universal.

If you go to a really good cheesemonger in the UK, they should be able to tell you about the provenance of the cheese and how to store it / how soon to eat it etc.

sorry but what does artisanally mean

nuthin better than milk straight from the cow
and still warm
yum

at warm milk (don't care whether its from the cow or not).

fruit, veg and eggs -we buy from a local frut and veg shop that sells a lot of local produce. Also go to farm shops once in a while, usually during PYO seasons

Meat -DP goes to a butcher

bread -bakers, much better than most of the shite you buy in supermarkets (saying that there are good and bad bakers too)

"I think that the difference between industrially-produced cheese and artisanally-produced cheese is pretty universal."

I want to nominate the above for poncetastic quote of the week. It is wonderful - it doesn't even make sense.

fruit/veg - best tasting from Mum and Dads garden fruit and veg from them
meat - butchers in nearby village - more expensive but we eat less meat each week so we can buy it.
fish - fresh from the fish van that drives to our village from the coast each thursday
eggs - from Mum and Dad's chickens
cheese - Deli counter stuff at Supermarket seems to have better choice - not sure if it tastes better though
milk - we get the Rachels organic stuff from the supermarket no local alternative.
butter - same as milk
yoghurt - same as milk
bread - dough from bread machine but baked in the oven like old fashioned bread making. Delicious.

[titter]

oh,how could I forget to include cheese in my post - one of our friends produces cheese artisanally so we get a lot from him .

I used to buy vegetables, meat, eggs and bread from the farmers market in the uk

Producing cheese artisanally sounds unhygienic.

eeeww!

Nothing remotely strange about distinguishing between industrially and artisanally produced food.

Think you need to step away from suburbia, Swedes .

nappyaddict - industrially-made cheese is cheese made by machines in a factory, generally using pasteurised milk, that produces cheese that has a long life span and is usually packaged for easy handling and distribution. A major producer of industrial cheese in France is Bongrain (makes Caprice des Dieux among many others).

Artisanally-produced cheese is cheese made on or near the farm producing the milk, by people using traditional hand methods (though some machinery may be involved) and usually using raw milk. The cheese usually matures for a long time, and needs very careful handling during transport and distribution.

This is what I do:

Fruit/veg - grown strawberries but most of them get eaten still in the garden, PYO and freeze raspberries, black currants and red currants, PYO strawberries and make jam. PYO is less than 2 miles away. Otherwise try and get most of fruit from River Swale organic delivery. We have found their apples, pears and clementines very tasty this winter. Otherwise it is green grocer in next village, farm shop or Asda (but all have fruit with air miles).

Veg is mainly from River Swale although I did grown my own tomatoes (OK I know they are fruit) last summer and intend to do so again.

Meat - mostly from farm shop. Odd bits from Asda. Definitely can tell difference - apart from Asda free range chickens OK.

Fish - Asda but don't buy much
Eggs - Asda ree range
Milk - milkman
Butter - Asda
Yoghurt - Asda but mainly for cooking or children
Bread - don't use much, buy from Asda, but local baker definitely better.