Staple What?

Jun 30, 2007 by Naomi.

After writing about the cotton dresses Mother sewed for me from the pretty flour sacks in the 1930’s I looked over my shopping list this morning, and the flour needed either as a staple food or source of my dresses is nowhere on my list. Wow have times changed! Flour, lard, sugar, and peanut butter are no longer the staples on my list. Nor do I sew dresses any more.

Now I need olive oil, a loaf of bread, frozen vegetables, fresh fruit, milk, canned juice, paper towels, and toilet paper. And I do not want to run out of any of them. Not so odd after all I suppose. Not only have my habits and needs changed but the entire market has changed as well. I’d be surprised if I could buy a hundred pound sack of flour if I wanted to. Lard? I doubt it. Oh I buy sugar in a ten pound paper sack once every six months. Left sugar out of much of the stuff I eat nowadays. Peanut butter has given way to walnuts.

The greatest change in my life as in everyone’s since the thirties is refrigeration. Milk keeps for a week as do fresh vegetables if I cut the stems out before putting them away in my fridge. Frozen vegetables and meats keep longer when properly wrapped in my freezer. I love it. That means electricity is an even more necessary staple.

I do not want to go back to the “good old days”.

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