Fine-ish dining

"All it takes is a trip to ALDI plus a few items from the pantry"

In last week's Aldi catalogue they dedicated two whole spreads to suggestions and actual recipes for 5 meals that they said cost a mere $68.62 for them all. For a family of four this is.

I find this very interesting. That's two whole spreads of a pretty slim weekly catalogue so they are obviously hoping that it will have some impact and boost sales.

So should I be impressed or appalled, or something in between. Well I'm a pretty in between kind of person - in between is what makes the world go round. Well it would if humanity wasn't always looking for a way to be better than the next man.

But that's a whole other thing.

So what's to argue with? Well first of all there is also a list of 'pantry staples' that they expect you to have and these include onions, carrots, eggs and more expensive olive oil wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, sesame seeds, etc. Which is absolutely reasonable and everyone trying to push 'cheap' meals, even 'easy' meals with just a few ingredients does this. Still there's a bit more cost there than the $68.62.

I suppose the other thing to argue with from a purist point of view is that there is reliance on remade stuff - like their World Kitchen quiche Lorraine, potato gnocchi and a spinach dip. But then I'm probably being a bit snobbish here.

And are the portions large enough? Well probably from a nutritionist point of view, although I suspect a growing teenager might find the portions a bit small.

Apart from the interesting marketing from Aldi it is also interesting to not the signs of the times in the meals on offer here. No meat and two veg here - no there's an Asian stir-fry, a vaguely Mexican corn salsa, Italian gnocchi, French quiche and Middle-Eastern meatballs. Very cosmopolitan. And all those pre prepared items, spice mixes and vegetables - just not available in my youth. In lots of ways it's very impressive.

Coles and Woolworths, of course, do the same thing in their foodie magazines, but on a much larger scale. Each of them always has at least one little section on quick and easy meals of this type. Although they don't usually give you the breakdown in price. Maybe that's what makes Aldi 'good different'.

I wonder if this is going to be a regular feature or whether it's a one off because they had nothing else good going for them that week? And more importantly will many people actually follow the week's plan? And if they do and if Aldi don't do it again - what then?

'Fineish dining'. Is that a good definition? In some ways it is, but in other ways it betrays a mild recognition that this kind of food is Ok but not really good. At least that's how it sounds to me.

Or is it just part of the ongoing gambit of Aldi being cheap and good? Watch their space.