Pans and Eternity

I love things that are very well made and last forever, or threaten to. It was a blow last week when one of my much-loved Le Vrai Gourmet stainless steel pans, bought more than 20 years ago, parted from its handle. It was worse when in late spring our ancient food processor packed in. As that was an engagement/shacking up present we'd had it 29 years.

As regards the food processor design, or quality, has gone backwards, its replacement is far less solid, harder to clean, more awkward to assemble, and generally a bit annoying. Same maker though. Looks like planned obsolescence has hit the kitchen appliance market since the 1980s.

It's a lesson. Buy expensive and well made and it is cheaper than buying cheap and crappy. My late father-in-law's toolbox was full of chisels and wrenches and saws that he'd probably had since the late 1940s when he came to England. He too bought the best, but he also maintained them, oiled steel surfaces, sharpened blades, polished wood. I try to follow suit with kitchen gear like my paella pan, lovingly re-seasoned after each use.

I'm due to go to the tip today or tomorrow to get rid of rubbish that has accumulated here, including a Kodak printer that died young and unloved. I really need to transfer my thinking about kitchen stuff to my other purchases.

Sublime and Ridiculous

The last few days have provided me with personal examples of the worst sort of product of the consumer society, and not far off the best.

To begin with the worst: I bought a belt at Sainsbury's on May 17th. It looked smart but casual, something to wear with jeans. Today, May 29th, I returned it just before it had time to break. The backing had peeled off, and it was nearly worn through. At the customer service desk there was no argument, just immediate repayment. It left a bad taste nevertheless, this was a waste of effort, something so temporary and so poorly done.

The best by way of contrast is a pair of fairly smart brown boots (the sort you can just about wear with a suit if needs be) that I bought I think before my now sixth-former son was born. They have finally worn through at the sole. I am tempted to have them repaired, but as I bought a second pair at the time (oxblood rather than brown) that I have worn far less, perhaps not.

Those boots were not expensive - if memory serves a pair cost £15, reduced drastically at I think Clark. Doubtless they were not stylish enough. But they lasted maybe 20 years.

If all shoes lasted 20 years would shoe shops go bust? Not necessarily, I have bought other pairs meanwhile.  But carry such workmanship over to other things and we would be depleting world resources at a far slower, maybe even sustainable rate.

The Fragility of Self-Reliance

For me self-sufficiency is a myth, as to play a full role in modern life - wear decent clothes, enjoy the benefits of any electronic device, use the most effective medicines etc - we rely on wider society. What many people mean by self-sufficiency is growing most of their own food, better expressed as self-reliance. We are happy to grow a small percentage of our own food: we have hens for eggs, and an allotment that provides a large proportion of our vegetables from say June to mid-October, plus beds in the garden for herbs and additional veg, especially salads. But we are far from self-reliant and certainly not self-sufficient.

The dangers of such a path have been emphasized this year by what has happened to our fruit harvest. The combination of a dry spring and horribly wet summer and early autumn, with frequent damaging winds, has left us with barely a fruit on our two cooking apple trees, nothing on the eater, nothing on the cherry, nothing on the pear. The cobnut bushes produced a less than exciting 100g of shelled fruit, made into pesto and long gone already. If we had chosen a true peasant existence we would be done for.