Posts tagged “produce”

Ugly Yet Yummy

From the New York Times comes this story about Fruta Feia, or Ugly Fruit, a cooperative in Lisbon that has found opportunity through a combination of economic pressure and reframing conventional norms for food appearance.

There is a market for fruits and vegetables deemed too ugly by government bureaucrats, supermarkets and other retailers to sell to their customers. A third of Portugal’s farming produce goes to waste because of the quality standards set by supermarkets and their consumers. Fruta Feia buys the unwanted food at about half the price at which producers sell it to supermarkets. It has quietly subverted fixed notions of what is beautiful, or at least edible.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • [from steve_portigal] National Onion Labs, Inc. – [Bet you didn't know that there was a national onion lab, or that there were standards for onion certification. Now you do. You're so very welcome!] People use onions for their unique and distinctive flavors and by looking for the appropriate NOL certification you can be assured that the onion you choose will be appropriate for your use. Look for NOL’s trustworthy quality certification Certified Extra Sweet®, Certified Sweet®, Certified Medio™ and Certified Sizzler™ when selecting onions.
  • [from steve_portigal] From Muses To Music: Where Ideas Come From [NPR] – [Transcript of a Talk of the Nation episode at the Aspen Ideas Festival, with a broad cross-section of participants.This was my favorite snippet.] Q: Joining us now is Eric Fischl. He's a painter and sculptor…Not where do your ideas come from, but how do you come up with them? A: I'm a painter of people, so one of the sources of my inspiration is body language. And when I see people sitting, standing, moving, twisting, turning in very specific, very idiosyncratic ways, I'm riveted by it. I don't know why. If I have my camera with me, I take a photograph of it. And then back in my studio, I look at that photograph and try to find a context for explaining why I was fascinated by that particular gesture.[They don't all work out] but the process is always fascinating.
  • [from steve_portigal] Technological Superstition [The Technium] – [KK takes a direct look at how we imbue objects with meaning, although he frames it as "superstition." Funny how that word really agitates me, whereas my term (meaning) is pacifying. In our work, perception often is reality, but I'm refreshed and challenged by Kevin's close reading of reality, just plain reality.] They honestly believe that artifacts can transmit the aura of a human who uses it. In this case, the steel transmits the bravery of the firemen rescuers, and the innocence of the civilians who died. But it can also transmit cooties. They believe that wearing Hitler's sweater would be a bad idea, while sleeping in a room (completely remodeled) that Lincoln slept in is a good idea. This is magical thinking….In the end, a historical technological artifact is one of the reservoirs in the modern world where superstition still flows freely.

Supermarket tales

I’ve been doing fieldwork for the past couple of weeks, which often means stopping in at a variety of grocery stores for quick bites to eat or bathroom breaks.

In making the rounds, I saw a couple of things I thought were worth sharing.

are-you-in-uniform3
Andronico’s, Berkeley

I thought this was an interesting way to extend the function of the mirror, and a good reminder of how much more you gain from feedback when it’s deployed at just the right time and place in a process.





cheeses1
Whole Foods, San Francisco

This was without question the most fragrant cheese counter I’ve ever encountered. I was standing with my back to it, looking at the fruit, and I kept thinking something was wrong somewhere. I finally turned around and understood what I’d been smelling.

Who’s thinking about the customer experience here? What would some alternatives be? Put it near the fish? Or how about near the flowers! A giant plastic dome over the whole thing? Perhaps an information station explaining why cheese can sometimes be stinky…

London Bananas

In our recent AIGA Gain article about noticing, we relate how the process of noticing once and then noticing again is a way to find patterns and uncover themes.

During my recent trip to the UK, I took this picture of a discarded banana peel.
banana-in-london.jpg

I didn’t notice other bananas, but someone else did and they’ve started the London Bananas Project, a fantastic archive of banana peels in the London public space.

When I arrived I noticed something straight away: there’s a lot of banana skins around.

I see them everywhere. They’re languishing on doorsteps, hanging out in the middle of the road, dangling off street signs, peeking out of piles of garbage, reclining in the middle of the sidewalk, riding the bus for free. A great number of them are bright yellow as if they’re fresh and have just been dropped, although they appear in all states of decay. I don’t know how or why they caught my attention, but within a week of being in London I couldn’t get my mind off these banana skins. Where were they coming from? Who was eating all these bananas and leaving the skins around? Why was it always bananas I was seeing, and not, say, oranges? Was it a sign? Was there something sinister going on? Apparently these little hazards were a covert operation going completely unnoticed; everyone I asked about it said that they had never noticed anything of the sort and looked at me as if I was nuts.

That’s a great description of the power of noticing (even if it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s still a great set of muscles to keep flexing).

Here’s bananas in Bangalore:
bangalore-bananas.jpg

See also: Street Mattress

I love all different kinds of produce

I blogged this before, back in 2004, but ah, technology. Actually a $5 cable is all I needed to be able to pull audio from a microcassette into my PC, and onto Odeo, so that I can blog it here.

I received this voice mail a couple of years ago. It’s obviously misdirected, perhaps because of my Museum of Foreign Groceries which used to be displayed on this site. But that’s all packaged foods, so? Hard to figure out what the other person was thinking, but it’s funny anyway. Give it a listen!

Note: I’ve redacted the phone number to protect her privacy.

Fruit Comes To The Door – but from how far?

In Fruit Comes To The Door I wrote about some our experience with home delivery of organic produce

Small farms – I don’t know if this true and I don’t care to verify it but I get the vibe that the producers of these products (perhaps because of the organic thing) are small businesses themselves, and as consumers we hear about the corporate farms and how that’s vaguely bad, so there’s a further flavor of Doing Good attached to this purchase.
Local farms – Again, I don’t know if this is true, but it’s part of the mythology of the service – but I’m guessing the food hasn’t come a long way (the stand itself highlights some local farms). We’re being told that having a product sit on a truck and burn fuel to go a long distance isn’t good for us or the environment.

Nice improvement to the weekly pricelist from Sweet Peas (in the form of a spreadsheet) – now includes the name of the grower, their location, and the distance to Montara, where Sweet Peas (and we) are located.
SweetPeasPriceList.JPG

Much, but not everything is local (however you interpret that term), but at least they are transparent about it. Way to go, Sweet Peas!

Speaking of local food, I had an amazing (free) lunch at Google’s Cafe 150 a few weeks back. Everything is from within 150 miles.

Fruit Comes To The Door

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In a post-Omnivore’s Dilemma world, we had a recent chance to participate in a service usually reserved for big cities – home delivery of organic produce.

Here in Montara (pop. 4000 or something; home to an Alpaca ranch, a cafe, and a convenience store but very little else commercial) there is a little produce stand called “Sweet Peas” and they’ve begun home delivery.

I don’t think I’ve ever had non-restaurant food delivered (and I can’t remember the last time I had restaurant food delivered at home). We were totally struck by our visit to the suburbs of Mumbai when our host called and ordered some bottles of water and cigarettes and they appeared a few minutes later. One of my first real design/research projects, in fact, was a grocery store home delivery service (pre-Webvan, in fact, pre-web). And many many years later, I finally experienced it.

They send out a Tuesday email with a spreadsheet; you fill it out and email it back that day and the food comes on Friday. Leave the resuable boxes (they have our names on a sticker) out next week and do it all over again

I’m intrigued by the complexity of the cultural factors that impact the experience, and here’s my first pass at it:

Home delivery – food comes to the door – time-saving and convenience
Organic – I admit I don’t care about this as a principle, but some of the food does taste better, richer, fresher. There’s a snob factor to organic as well that I’m sure I am participating in. Hey, those two boxes cost $41. The prices are definitely higher, but I’m trying not to compare apples and apples, if you will.
Local business – I am surprised at how much this appeals to me – maybe the lack of commerce in my area makes this more tangible. Maybe I can relate, as a small business myself. The fact that we walk our dog past the owner’s home and see the garage filled with produce boxes makes it more tangible; we’re presumably doing good for our community and helping someone we can point to make a living. Of course, our Safeway employs locally and shopping there gives people jobs well. But Safeway seems like The Man and this feels like Sticking It To The Man; a rare chance to feel some power, to have some choices. These delivery services have appeared over the past several years in big places like New York (where FreshDirect seems to have had a similar cultural impact to Starbucks) and Vancouver. We’re getting some of that big city flavor of small(er) business in our own small community.
Small farms – I don’t know if this true and I don’t care to verify it but I get the vibe that the producers of these products (perhaps because of the organic thing) are small businesses themselves, and as consumers we hear about the corporate farms and how that’s vaguely bad, so there’s a further flavor of Doing Good attached to this purchase.
Local farms – Again, I don’t know if this is true, but it’s part of the mythology of the service – but I’m guessing the food hasn’t come a long way (the stand itself highlights some local farms). We’re being told that having a product sit on a truck and burn fuel to go a long distance isn’t good for us or the environment.
Reactive eating – For our first purchase, we picked from a list, but Sweet Peas will also let you specify a weekly dollar amount and simply pick stuff for you based on what’s fresh that week. In combination with the local food thing, this suggests a different philosophy of food consumption, that we bend with nature rather than forcing it to our will through the magic of science
Surprise and Mass CustomizationBecause of their local and small nature, Sweet Peas seems very willing to help come up with a weekly menu that is some combination of staples (i.e., we always want 3 bananas) and what’s fresh (i.e., to make a total of $XX.XX). Even if we don’t make use of that, the flexibility and choice seem very appealing.

I love all different kinds of produce

Recently I found this message on my voice mail. I have NO IDEA why this person called me. And no, I did not call her back.

Hi. My name is Ruth and I’m trying to find out what a …I guess it’s pronounced ‘kayote’ – it’s spelled c h a y o t e s. It’s a green uh some type of fruit or vegetable and it’s from Costa Rica and I was just wondering what it was and uh how you prepare it. I was given one and um I love all different kinds of produce and so I’d like to add it to my list of fruits and vegetables. If you can help me call me back at XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXX-XXXX-XXXX. Thank you.

It’s actually better to hear it, she’s got a bit of a southern accent (the area code is Florida), but still it’s quite funny.

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