Kitchen Joy - A Lament

[posseidon]

What's the issue with those tasty morsels they have been dishing up in the frozen section
of most supermarkets for the past year or so? They have served me well as my primary
microwaveable staple during lunch-hour, but all of a sudden they have disappeared from
every supermarket in Helsinki. The frozen section where they were so lovingly stacked in
all their oriental glory lies barren and pitiful, nothing more than a sorrowful void between
frozen peas and Rainbow fishfingers. What is a man supposed to do without his Red Curry
Chicken, his Panang, or God forbid his Tikka Masala? Why is it every time I find something
in Finnish supermarkets I can hold in my stomach without lunging for the sick-bag it
mercilessly disappears from the shelves as if to spite me? Pot noodles came and went
without so much as a goodbye, Findus chicken, mushroom and broccoli pasta flirted
shamelessly in the frozen cabinets for a month or two before leaving me cold and hopelessly
attached, Grandiosa pepperoni pizza titillated my gastric juices with a crispening tray which
was swiftly abandoned in favour of the traditional soggy, chewy pizza base. When will this
torment ever end??

[raamv]

Those things that you mention, WE stock em full into our refrigerator. They are well worth the € for lunch and a lazy meal!!
I guess when the secret gets out..then the population here bamboozles it! !

[Hank W.]

I was only lamenting my freezer was too small.

[Tiwaz]

I take advantage of wonderful creature which inhabits my house or take advantage of local feeding houses to satisfy my hunger.

[posseidon]

I take advantage of wonderful creature which inhabits my house or take advantage of local feeding houses to satisfy my hunger.

My dog won't fit in the microwave I'm afraid, and I don't expect my neighbours to invite me round for lunch anytime soon!

[posseidon]

Looks like I'll have to resort to desperate measures and order direct from the manufacturers, according to their website:

We are a Narakjung Company. We have a origin place in Thailand that certificate of origin. We are selling food and drink. Actually We mostly sale chicken and about food if you want. We can delivery within 15 day to your country. We can produce a lot of product that be a chicken

Should I have them label the chickens as 'gift' to avoid the VAT?

[Karhunkoski]

The last I heard, all exports from Thailand of uncooked chicken or uncooked processed chicken products were banned (Avian Influenza risk)

I remember one of the technical people going out to audit some of the chicken supply farms. In one place, chickens were kept in a shed on stilts located over a lagoon. The entrepreneur of a broiler farmer was also farming prawns, which happily ate their fill of the chicken poo that dropped from the shed into the lagoon.

And some people wonder why I grumble at folk buying imported foodstuffs, because for some reason the locally produced stuff is more expensive than the cheap rainbow-branded imports

[ChubbyPoacher]

We can produce a lot of product that be a chicken

Should I have them label the chickens as 'gift' to avoid the VAT?

Maybe you should look into whether the gift deserves being labeled as 'chicken'...

[raamv]

Looks like I'll have to resort to desperate measures and order direct from the manufacturers, according to their website:

We are a Narakjung Company. We have a origin place in Thailand that certificate of origin. We are selling food and drink. Actually We mostly sale chicken and about food if you want. We can delivery within 15 day to your country. We can produce a lot of product that be a chicken

Should I have them label the chickens as 'gift' to avoid the VAT?

Have them labeled as Book Choy!! in this way, they will either confuse this with a cabbage or a book!!

[SaxonManFinland]

Following a comment from Kahu I asked a friend about "Chicken from China etc being used by McDonalds etc. He tells me E.U regulations now state that Chicken (or any meat) must enter E.U through approved E.U based facility. So China can send chicken but it must be inspected before being mixed, used, cooked or turned into an exotic dish , so that makes Jimmy Chows Chow mien a tad difficult

Funny, in Scotland they catch Prawns, pack them frozen whole and sent to Far East, where they shell them and prepare them, send them back to Scotland as Prawn Tails, balls etc. In Scotland they wrap them in breadcrumbs etc, package them and then sell to UK supermarkets as FRESH E.U produce.

How bloody silly is that. Carbon Footprint springs to mind.

[Karhunkoski]

Yup. Quite true that it is possible to import meat from the far east, inspect and process it in the EU, the packet is then stamped with an EU meat processing mark, so the customer has absolutely no idea where the original meat came from.


I remember reading a report about the scampi-shipping affair. Yes it sounds crazy at first, however IIRC the processing would have been mechanical (lots of energy=high carbon footprint) in the UK, but manual (much less energy=low carbon footprint) in the far east. This energy saving more than covered the extra energy/carbon footprint caused by the long-distance shipping. Still sounds crazy though.


For me the worst culprits are those who buy produce that has been flown in from exotic locations.

[SaxonManFinland]

I notice it is becoming very common for the large shops to now sell " Local Produce". Packaged and identified as being "Locally Grown" This is everything from Fresh Vegetable Produce to Chickens, Eggs, Meat etc. Prices are the same but at least the goods travel short distances. Bit like Finland !!!! but without the "Finnish is Best for you" logo which used to really annoy me.

Now there is even a backlash against Flowers and vegetables grown in artificially heated glass houses, using cheap European semi slave labour in Holland.

Maybe we will go back to a more decentralised food market, but some how the BIG supermarkets will just bamboozle us with cheap prices and marketing and sadly the current FAD of Care for the Planet will die away against the greed of the suppliers and the need (GREED) for cheap prices at any cost.

[Hank W.]

but without the "Finnish is Best for you" logo which used to really annoy me.

The Swan says "Good from Finland". Indeed such an annoyance in the face of clean and healthy local products

Quite true that it is possible to import meat from the far east, inspect and process it in the EU, the packet is then stamped with an EU meat processing mark, so the customer has absolutely no idea where the original meat came from.

Really? I thought the origin controls were far stricter than that? At least the Finnish swan and key symbols wouldn't let that fly. And say NZ lamb and Brazilian beef have been quite distinctively marked even though they have the EU stamps. And then of course theres the "origin control" brands so that now its "salad cheese" the Danish feta.

[Karhunkoski]

Really?

Yup, really.

You see the "Meat processing plant registration number", e.g. "UK **** EEC", merely tells any food-anorak where the packaged meat product was processed and put in its box. It does not tell where the ingredients came from.

[rinso]

Now there is even a backlash against Flowers and vegetables grown in artificially heated glass houses, using cheap European semi slave labour in Holland.

Most Dutch flowers come from Africa these days.