Montreal has become a glorified foodie town and there are many excellent restaurants here which help the tourist industry and give prestige to the city. But unless you own or work in such an establishment, they're just killing your bank account.
In recent years the restaurant industry has exploded in Quebec as Montrealers apportion far too much of their meagre after-tax income at such places.
We spend about five times more than by eating something similar at home.
Why? Because grocery shopping is inconvenient and time consuming.
In recent years we've heard the term food desert used increasingly to describe various neighbourhoods, (although desert is hardly a word that springs to mind when you look out the window at this hellishly cold winter).
The province created those deserts by driving half of all corner stores out of business over the last 30-or-so years. Quebecers once bought a good percentage of their groceries at such nearby, convenient locations, which were sacrificed for the glory of the much more distant grocery stores.
Getting to a grocery store and hauling back groceries can be difficult for non-car owners and young people are increasingly not buying cars.
I used to sling heavy laden bags on the handlebars of my mountain bike, an awkward and ungainly method but others are forced to take a bus or a taxi.
So grocery shopping is cumbersome and inconvenient and time-consuming to many but it's still worth it.
Grocery shopping by phone or through the internet has - rather incomprehensibly - never taken off in spite of repeated large-scale efforts, presumably because people want to see what they're buying.
But you've got to find a way to get those groceries, because your $14 restaurant meal is no better than what you can cook for yourself at home in your underwear and that $6 beer only costs you about a buck at home and ...hell invite your friends over, it'll still be cheap.
Plopping down $9 for your lunch is equally obscene when you can just bring a can of soup and a Lord Sandwich that'll cost you less than a buck, so stop going out for lunch while at work, you're just being a dick.
While restaurants are expensive, groceries are almost obscenely cheap now. We spend about 10% of our household incomes on groceries now, whereas we used to spend about 25% in the 70s.
So imagine next time you're at the cash of your local grocery store, multiply the bill by 2.5 and recognize that you are miraculously blessed that you're not forced to pay that much.
The money we save in groceries is clawed back through increased housing costs anyway, which take far more of our budget than they did during the 70s and 80s.
Restaurant-eating also comes with bragging component that grates on the nerves. I often hear people babble with bravado and showoffery about eateries they munched at but it's much more impressive to whip something up for yourself and you'd get far more esteem by inviting friends to eat chez toi and showing them what a great cook you are.
And if you're really inclined to brag, go shop at some exotic grocery joint like the farmers market and then blow people away with your grocery shopping know-how instead.
Creator > discerning consumer anyway.
So you need to get yourself logistically organized and learn a few basic recipes and learn the discipline of grocery shopping and restaurant-avoiding.
Meanwhile who wants to partner with me in a simple old fashioned venture: we buy a cheap old cube van to drive around selling fruits and vegetables to homes along the route.
The F-and-V rig would be souped up with a bell as well as a GPS app so people can know where you are and ask you to pass by their place. We'll make a buck and let water flow to the food desert.
In recent years the restaurant industry has exploded in Quebec as Montrealers apportion far too much of their meagre after-tax income at such places.We spend about five times more than by eating something similar at home.
Why? Because grocery shopping is inconvenient and time consuming.
In recent years we've heard the term food desert used increasingly to describe various neighbourhoods, (although desert is hardly a word that springs to mind when you look out the window at this hellishly cold winter).
The province created those deserts by driving half of all corner stores out of business over the last 30-or-so years. Quebecers once bought a good percentage of their groceries at such nearby, convenient locations, which were sacrificed for the glory of the much more distant grocery stores.
Getting to a grocery store and hauling back groceries can be difficult for non-car owners and young people are increasingly not buying cars.
I used to sling heavy laden bags on the handlebars of my mountain bike, an awkward and ungainly method but others are forced to take a bus or a taxi.
So grocery shopping is cumbersome and inconvenient and time-consuming to many but it's still worth it.
Grocery shopping by phone or through the internet has - rather incomprehensibly - never taken off in spite of repeated large-scale efforts, presumably because people want to see what they're buying.
But you've got to find a way to get those groceries, because your $14 restaurant meal is no better than what you can cook for yourself at home in your underwear and that $6 beer only costs you about a buck at home and ...hell invite your friends over, it'll still be cheap.
Plopping down $9 for your lunch is equally obscene when you can just bring a can of soup and a Lord Sandwich that'll cost you less than a buck, so stop going out for lunch while at work, you're just being a dick.
While restaurants are expensive, groceries are almost obscenely cheap now. We spend about 10% of our household incomes on groceries now, whereas we used to spend about 25% in the 70s.
So imagine next time you're at the cash of your local grocery store, multiply the bill by 2.5 and recognize that you are miraculously blessed that you're not forced to pay that much.
The money we save in groceries is clawed back through increased housing costs anyway, which take far more of our budget than they did during the 70s and 80s.
Restaurant-eating also comes with bragging component that grates on the nerves. I often hear people babble with bravado and showoffery about eateries they munched at but it's much more impressive to whip something up for yourself and you'd get far more esteem by inviting friends to eat chez toi and showing them what a great cook you are.
And if you're really inclined to brag, go shop at some exotic grocery joint like the farmers market and then blow people away with your grocery shopping know-how instead.
Creator > discerning consumer anyway.
So you need to get yourself logistically organized and learn a few basic recipes and learn the discipline of grocery shopping and restaurant-avoiding.
Meanwhile who wants to partner with me in a simple old fashioned venture: we buy a cheap old cube van to drive around selling fruits and vegetables to homes along the route.
The F-and-V rig would be souped up with a bell as well as a GPS app so people can know where you are and ask you to pass by their place. We'll make a buck and let water flow to the food desert.
The two solitudes are obviously not dead. Eating out is not about feeding oneself, it is about going out, seeing and being seen. Very European, very French, very Québécois.
ReplyDeleteChevron: I don't think it is a linguistic thing anymore, so much as it has become a generational thing. It is true that the French had a café culture long before the rest of us, but these days everyone's an aspiring "foodie"! In the office I work, all the younger (25-35) colleagues (mostly anglo/allo) spend their weekends trying trendy restaurants that I would consider too expensive for someone at twice their salary level (such as myself). I assume it has to do with the food/reality culture on TV, i/e/ Iron Chef America, Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Makeover etc.. I also think these younger people have stunted social skills on account of too many hours spent playing video games and updating each other on Facebook, and therefore are unable to enjoy a cocktail or dinner party; being in a public place and "being seen" takes the pressure off having meaningful conversation, right?
ReplyDeleteFrom the "TV: ruining everything since 1950" dept.: these days, everybody considers it their right to have a Hollywood-style wedding, complete with gourmet mutli-course meal, limosines, thousands of dollars of flowers, exotic honeymoons, and discotheque-quality DJs and live bands. Meanwhile, my parents managed to have a lovely reception in a Church basement in St-Sauveur, with sandwiches made by my grandmother. A great tie was had by all -- and they didn't have to spend the next 5 years paying for it!
I eat in my favourite restaurant more than I have to. First, it's a nice change to get out and enjoy something that is not often prepared at home mainly because that selection takes hours of work and requires much oven time and the purchase of items that have a short keep date.
ReplyDeleteOne such meal is Pizza, done properly, a big job at home.
I LIKE Anchovies!!
Same with making bread, or two-crust pie, or baking a turkey with all the trimmings, gravy and cranberries, pie for dessert.
I USED to make bread at home, especially in winter, as the oven helped heat the house.
Ditto Tortiere.
Now I eat out, or buy Deli-type bread.
Now, for the REAL reason I eat in restaurants.
If I do NOT eat in the restaurant, they might go bankrupt, and not be there? if the economy goes sour.
Who is to blame?
Where went the jobs? too?
Ditto the Autobus.
I ride the bus, buying a Pass in the winter months, as the roads are usually too dangerous to use my 4-8-2 bike, the preferred means of locomotion.
The darkness and wind make riding a bike unpleasant, and dangerous.
I always use lights at night.
For the same reason I patronize my local bike shop, a bit pricey.
If I go cheap and buy on-line, and they close?
There goes another business, and I have to do all the greasy crap myself.
I CAN afford it, and deserve a bit of a break after 7 decades??
Being a Cheapo can hurt others, as in loss of jobs, and business.
Blah, Blah, Blah.
Years ago the CNR had a town-hall type meeting in a small town, as they announced the upcoming abolishment of the branch line's passenger train, already downsized to a Doodlebug 'Gas' Electric car a la CN 15824 at Delson before tower service under the wire.
Anyway, a multitude showed up to protest the loss of 'Their Train'.
Rant, Rant, Rant, etc. Hoi Poloi at it's entitiled best.
The CNR guy then asked just how many of the Hoi Poliers came down on the train.
Answer, only two.
The rest came by car.
The steel is gone, now, too, big trucks pounding the highways to death.
Everybody in a hurry, stuck in traffic.
We did it to ourselves, in this case.
Thank You.
"Food desert" I don't think just means no food, but lack of good and reasonably priced food.
ReplyDeleteA lot of corner stores have higher prices, and don't carry that much food. Likely no fresh vegetables either. Great for some emergency things, lousy to live on all the time. That adds to the "food desert".
You've also talked about the isolation of NDG below the tracks, that fits in too. They may not be that far from Esposito and all that on Sherbrooke street, but they may have problems getting up there if not for the Melrose underpass.
The concept gets worse because it's often not just about "within range" but some areas may deliberately lack grocery stores, no profit to be made, or higher prices at the nearby grocery store. So the people most in need, because they don't have transport, suffer.
That said, some of that NDG Food Depot story this week did seem off. If you're out near Mtl West it may be difficult, but surely around Benny there is lots of variety and no hills to climb or whatever.
The people who live in "food deserts" have less money and less access, so are hardly the ones flocking to restaurants. That said, they often buy junk at premium prices because they don't have easy access to good food.
Michael
When buying groceries, the trick is to buy just enough to carry comfortably, dropping by the supermarket or depanneur every day or so on your way back home from whatever else you were doing--work, school, etc. It's a good habit one can develop easily.
ReplyDeleteLugging a whole week's supply or more--including heavy liquid items such as milk and orange juice for example--isn't practical. Besides, perishables are best purchased on the day they first appear on the shelves.
Another strategy is to go the market when it first opens in the morning, thus beating the mob. Nine-to-fivers can do this on weekends.
Restaurant food became more expensive during the early 70s; that period of general inflation on western economies, a situation often blamed on the Vietnam War.
There was even a period during the 80s when existing downtown restaurants couldn't keep up with the demand of workers needing a place to eat at lunchtime, which is about when food courts began appearing. Up until then, there were more reasonably-priced cafeterias available, but these inexplicably faded from the scene.
When the 90s came around, I seriously cut back on eating lunches out, grudgingly bringing sandwiches to work when I would have preferred a hot meal instead--the latter of which had been routine for me even as far back as grade school. I avoided smelly school cafeterias with their bland fare.
The notion or the "thrill" of "being seen" while eating out is nothing more than a form of foolish narcissism shamelessly encouraged by restauranteurs whose high rent presumably "justifies" their exorbitant menu prices.
Even wealthy Donald Trump favoured modest restaurants which served a full plate while he lambasted those so-called "posh" eateries that offered tiny "gourmet" portions at ridiculous rates.
The main reason to avoid eating out, apart from cost, is the health implications. Restauranrt meals are extremely, extremely, extremely high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat. Fats have been demonized a bit too much, as all the current research is trending. The big culprit in the obesity epidemic is sugar. The evidence keeps accumulating by the week.
ReplyDelete1973 - the $1.24 special at PVM's St. Lawrence Cafeteria. No tax then if meal under $1.25. Sausage and two veggies, and coleslaw.
ReplyDeleteOh man ! Good point .. the abolition of the tax free thing for cheap meals led to the spiraling of prices. It got up yo $3.25 about 1992 when it was discontinued.
ReplyDeleteDon't you just love watching old movies with scenes where cafeterias and diners display signs such as: "sausages and two eggs - 35 cents".
ReplyDeleteI can remember when a quart of milk was around 25 cents. We left a cardboard ticket in the empty bottle for the milkman.
Eating Out, Drinking Out.
ReplyDeleteAlmost Fifty years ago after we had spent a trying week installing, repairing and moving telephone instruments in the best traditions of 'Service' and 'No Job is so Important....' some of us would repair to the Bon Voyage Taverne on St. J. W/O on Fridays for a brew or two.
At the time fairly new and not as divey as the old white-washroom-tile everywhere in the long-established pisstank drinking holes downtown to the East, the latter where old men in trenchcoats would nurse a beer all day, their lives ebbing down, like the brew in the glass.
Once the BVT, situated between the Bell outlet to the West and the 'A Louer' edifice, one of an extensive chain, with their running mate, 'A Vendre'.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=45.458039,-73.627968&spn=0.00003,0.013797&t=h&layer=c&cbll=45.458112,-73.627895&panoid=7URIGtTjGJxul20INpPN6w&cbp=12,324.94,,0,17.53&z=16
The ugly skysores @ Sherbrooke and Cavendish visible in the distance above to right.
The Picasso ( Pig's Asshole ) 'Danseuse Nus, Danse Contact' across the street not yet built.
A great place to eat, as was 'Ben's'.
Anyway, I had just purchased a new car, could drive home at my own convenience, instead of 'slumming' on a Brill Autobus on the 106 or 105, and two of us, decided to stop at the BVT and meet the guys and have a few.
Mr. Novice Drinker trying to be a 'Man'. New job, new Chauffeurs Licence, ( Form 922 for the Bell 3 and 4 Speed transmission ), Money and a Bank Account, ( Walkley and Somerled where the 3A used to Wye. )
New car, New life! Expo 67 and the Metro on the way for Montreal, Quebec and the World.
( In retrospect, One might consider Expo 67 a great success, but, also a swan song for what once was. Things DID get different, much different, later, but we did not see that yet. )
So I sat with my peers and the beers and got happy, and learned to smoke, too! Drinking with my OWN money! from WAGES!!
A Man on his way, thru life!
Suddenly I was DRUNK, the world very confusing, everything moving, but I was sitting still!!!
Time to go, was decided after some distorted thought.
Still light out, a surprise.
WOW! was driving ever strange! Must have been the Beer? ( Remember DOW! )
We crept out into traffic, St. J. a busy route pre-Turcot Interchange, and held up traffic to the split at SKF Bearings and International Truck. Crept past the Coke bottling plant @ WB and turned right.
More horns and reckless passing from behind. F'ing Taxis!
Stopped at the tracks on Elmhurst, a 90 Brill at the corner.
Stopped at Coffee and West Broadway, and then at Sherbrooke by Loyola, the traffic lights not yet installed, a BAD place to cross.
Clear, both ways was the chant, left and right. Safety First!
Stopped at every corner, just to be safe, all the way to Fielding and Coronation to drop off the co-pilot and I crept home alone on the divided route past Doherty.
My Mother was at the door, wondering why I was late.
I pushed past her, ran down the hall, and barfed in the toilet.
The 'Man' and his car were home, safely.
The future ahead.
Thank You.