Bounty from the Grocery Store

I've just returned from a grocery shopping trip with my daughter. My primary purpose for going with her was to restock my supply of fresh fruits and veggies. A sizable section of the store was filled with bins of a wide variety of fresh vegetables and fruits. Most of these had come to Wyoming from a considerable distance away--California, Florida, Mexico, and Chile, to name a few. With at least six months of the year unsuitable for planting and growing food plants, we would have a very short season of fresh produce if we could only eat what we grew here.

My Bounty from the Grocery Store

When I was growing up in this very small, very isolated Wyoming town, our grocery stores were very different from today's bustling, fully-
stocked supermarkets. Other that what my parents grew in our backyard garden, we did not have much in the way of fresh vegetables. And this is definitely not a fruit-producing region. When my California aunt and uncle brought avocados from their own yard on one visit, they were so exotic and strange to us that I can't remember even being brave enough to eat them.

Of course, some fruits and vegetables did make it to our little groceries; I remember having oranges, grapes, and bananas occasionally. But oranges were such a treat it was exciting to get one in my Christmas stocking. For the most part we had canned vegetables and fruits. Some were home canned and some were from the store. When peaches came into town in bushel baskets, my mother canned what we didn't eat fresh, so we had peaches in the winter. Most of the year our vegetables were canned corn, peas, and green beans. Frozen fruits and vegetables were not on the market yet (OK, so I'm old as dirt), so when we could afford orange or grapefruit juice it came in a can. Quite a different taste than the fresh or frozen juices we get today. Bottled grape juice was a special item; we usually only got that when we were sick. For some reason that was one of the treatments our Mother used for upset systems on the mend.

Items such as broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, sugar peas in the pod, or any kind of pear that wasn't yellow were completely unknown to me until I was an adult. I still find myself a little hesitant to try some things now common in the stores, simply because I've never tasted them, but I am branching out a bit.

All I can say is, "Hooray for our modern transportation and preservation systems that make such wonderful fresh foods available!"