There’s a story told by writer and journalist Lynn Barber in her book ‘An Education’ of how an ordinary night out at the cinema in the 50’s turned into one of historic note.
She describes how up went the lights, onto the stage walked the cinema manager, with the announcement that the end of sweet rationing had just been declared. She recalls the stampede which followed to take advantage of the ‘full selection of sweet and chocolates available in the lobby’.
What reminded me of her story was reading about the impact of the Florida Freeze on the availability of tomatoes for the US tomato lover.
It would seem 70-80% of the early year crop has been lost due to the shock cold weather and whilst some of the gap is being made up by tomatoes imported from Mexico, some suppliers have taken a more austere approach.
If you are ordering a Wendy’s burger it seems you have to specifically ask for tomato to be included whilst at Burger King you may experience the disappointment of having none at all, due to ‘spot outages’ of tomatoes.
In the UK in years gone by I remember odd ‘outages’; sugar, bread, even toilet roll – but never, thank goodness, tomatoes. I hope the sun is now shining brightly down on Florida and that tomatoes are soon back; between slices of bun and from wherever else they’re currently missing.
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US fast-food consumers probably aren’t missing much; cheap, mass-produced tomatoes are rarely anything more than a blob of bland cellulose, like Golden Un-delicious apples. Most of the out-of-season toms we get here come from Spain or North Africa. Home-grown and seasonally-produced tomatoes almost always taste far better, IMO of course.
I also remember bread shortages, potato shortages, oil shortages and power cuts etc. I have my father’s petrol ration book from the 1970′s. Let’s hope those dark days are long gone, and look forward to proper-tasting tomatoes!