Today, after lunch, I was perusing the Thiriet catalogue, since I needed to write down and fax my order in the afternoon. Thiriet is a French store that sells and also delivers directly at home frozen goods, from fish and meat to prepare meals such as Cantonese rice, all of this including of course ice-creams, cakes, vegetables, a few fruits, and more. Very convenient, since at least their delivery cars are properly made to carry frozen food, and you don’t run the risk of seeing your ice-cream melt on your backseat after having been stuck in traffic for twenty minutes on a sunny August afternoon.
So, Thiriet. I found it funny, and somewhat depressing, too, to see how the catalogue is made. The first pages are all about the month’s special offers (this months’s was chocolate cakes if you bought fish. Don’t ask, really), and more than often, well, said offers involve lots of sugary stuff. Follow several pages about frozen breads. And then, cherry on top, come ten pages crammed with cakes, ice-cream, more ice-cream, and then more creamy cakes again. I blinked and counted them. Ten pages. Compared to this, fishes held three pages, veggies and fruits two, and meat three as well.
Somehow, I want to believe that it’s because meat is meat, that there aren’t a gazillion animals whose flesh we eat in France, and that there are simply more possible combinations when it comes to desserts. However, part in me is convinced that more sugary goods are sold simply because it’s what people want. Yup. They want ice-cream and cakes. And who could blame them? This stuff is overloaded with sugar and fats, but hey, it tastes damn good!
I restricted myself to raspberries, though. I know I can’t control myself if there’s ice-cream in the house, even if I spend hours telling myself “I’ll be sensible and eat them slowly and in moderation”. So I just don’t buy them. This catalogue was so damn tempting, though.
As a sidenote, why is it that 1 kg of whole raspberries costs 3 more euros than 1 kg of mixed entire and cut raspberries? I mean, it’s still 1 kg in the end. What makes cutting them so un-special that they can be cheaper?
—Kery, puzzled
Tags: food
September 29th, 2005 at 23:54
Yup, supply and demand. If ice cream and cake is what the people want, then ice cream and cake is what the people get. We are a culture that seeks and demands instant gratification, I know, I’ve been to the grocery store for a midnight hot fudge sundae binge more times than I care to count, and I was not alone! The point is, they’re going to devote more advertising to the sweet stuff because that’s what people buy the most of. Gotta make a buck, right? But damn, the catalogues sure are fun to look at, aren’t they?! YUM!
Beverly
September 30th, 2005 at 15:19
Ah, going to the stor at midnight to grab food. Blessed be living in a small village lost in the rear end of Lorraine, for no store is ever open in the area past 6:30 pm, and any temptation of a midnight binge needs to remain a phantasm—or be satisfied with whateve lies in the fridge, which can often be summarized as “0% yoghurt, raw meat and raw vegetables”. This probably has saved my hide more than once!
And yes, the catalogues are fun to look at. Dangerous due to the temptations, but fun nonetheless