How to pretend to cook with the aid of your local supermarket
I had to do a quick dash to the supermarket today - inefficient shopping as I could have bought my ricotta yesterday. As I stood at the deli counter waiting to be served I noticed the above leaflet/recipe card for a dish called Cheat's Gozleme with lamb shoulder. (And I will do gözleme tomorrow.)
Now both of the major supermarkets have had recipe cards on and off for years. But this one was a little bit different for it was mainly being used to promote various prepackaged foods, of varying stages of processing. You can see the list on the other side of the card - and every ingredient has a mini picture of the product. What it does not have, and I have seen this on recipe cards elsewhere, is where to find the items on the shelves. But then I guess they want you to wander the aisles anyway.
And the emphasis is definitely on the home brand and the packaged - for one of the ingredients was packaged feta - admittedly a home brand version - but they do have fresh feta in their deli. There was one fresh item - lemons and also one item from somebody else - the fresh roti, though you would have to wonder why they didn't just promote their home brand Lebanese bread instead. The point was, that this was supposedly almost all done for you - and it is really. All you have to do is heat things and assemble. It's not fast though - 5 minutes preparation and an hour to cook.
The main thing it is promoting though is their slow cooked lamb shoulder with garlic and rosemary. Sounds yummy doesn't it. Here is the list of ingredients - the lamb is just 83% of the whole thing - the rest is largely chemical.
Australian Lamb (83%), Water, Rub (Maltodextrin (from Maize), Garlic, Rosemary, Sugar, Thickeners (1414, 412, 415), Salt, Parsley, Pepper, Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid), Yeast Extract, Lemon Oil), Thickeners (1414, 407), Salt, Acidity Regulators (451, 500), Plant Fibre, Sugar, Maltodextrin, Hydrolyzed Maize Protein, Spice Extract.
This particular recipe is part of a long list of such recipes derived from various Woolworths products across the store. There is a web page with them all, and their latest Fresh magazine, also includes this very unhealthy looking chocolate thing.
I don't get the Woolworths Magazine very often, because it seems to disappear very quickly and I mostly miss it altogether. I am assuming that each edition will include one of their pack hacks. It's a very simple way to promote their own Home Brand products on the shelves.
They are not alone of course. Coles' latest magazine has a pullout insert called What's for dinner? which features five different meals all using, almost exclusively, Coles pre prepared ingredients, with the odd fresh vegetable thrown in here and there. Here is a picture of a similar dish to the Woolworths Gözleme - Lamb Souvlaki Wraps. There are just three ingredients - Coles white soft wraps, Coles Made Easy Lamb Strips in Souvlaki Seasoning, and Coles Mediterranean Style Salad Kit.
But on the back cover, Coles goes one step further and promotes their new range of an entire meal in a pack. They are chilled not frozen and apparently there will be 40 meals in the range. In England they have been doing this for a long time - and I think there you do indeed get a whole meal in a pack - including a dessert and sometimes a starter too. Alas when I was last there I didn't get a chance to visit many supermarkets but I do know that my sister buys these occasionally. Coles maintains that they are free of artificial colours and flavours.
Aldi too has various prepared meats - their latest catalogue features BBQ marinated meaty ribs and Chicken cocktail kebabs and they also have recipes featuring various Aldi products. Well they don't have the recipes - you have to go to their website for that, but they do show the finished dish and some of the products you would use.
It's the latest trend in Australian supermarkets - readymade meals for busy people. Partly in response to the growing market in all those food boxes and meals that get delivered to your home - not to mention takeaway food in general and Ubereats. In some ways you would have to wonder what has taken them so long to follow the British lead of readymade meals, but it's pretty disappointing isn't it?
I'm particularly disappointed by the increasing number of prepackaged vegetables and salad mixes that you find on the shelves. Today, for example, I bought some fresh beans in Woolworths for a mere $3.90 per kilo. They were small, and very fresh looking. No wilting or blemishes. Woolworths seem to have a special deal with someone on beans. But just above them were prepackaged beans and beanettes (they didn't look any smaller) that were twice the price. Why you wonder would anyone buy them over the fresh ones? But obviously they do. And those salad mixes. I occasionally buy rocket in packets - I really must grow my own - and I find that in spite of them being supposedly ready to use, you always have to sort through them and throw away long bits of stalk. I cannot imagine that any of those supposedly time-saving packets of slaw mix and leaf mix are any better. Time-saving they are not. Not to mention the extra packaging that will end up in landfill. So unnecessary.
It's all so very sad, when, as Jamie Oliver, and many other crusading chefs and cooks demonstrate, it is just as easy and quick to serve up a delicious meal using fresh everything. It doesn't take any longer to grab a handful or two of beans than it does to grab a packet. And I have to say that both the Woolworths and Coles Magazines do have very tempting recipes that are simple and nutritious which use fresh ingredients - there's a really tempting looking pasta recipe from Curtis Stone in the latest Coles magazine. He calls it Spring pasta. Vegetarian and fresh. It only takes 25 minutes and is very simple to do.
It has to be said that the quality of premade meals and suchlike is so much better than it used to be. But really it isn't necessary, because it really, really is easy (and enjoyable) to make a quick meal these days.
And yes, of course, those free magazines are there to entice you to go to their stores and buy the products on their shelves, preferably their own. And to get their suppliers to pay them to advertise their wares too. I just hope that everyone doesn't stop cooking. They really have to teach it in schools.
