Inflation
Or a fun tool from the Office for National Statistics that lets you see how shafted you've been in the last year. Spoiler alert - the diligent home cook has been shafted more than most
I’ve had this sneaking suspicion, hitherto backed only by hunches and anecdotal evidence, that the diligent home cook is being handicapped more than most in the current inflationary squeeze.
And then, this week I was confronted by an article in the FT highlighting a fun tool from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (I’m aware that ‘fun tool’ and ONS are rarely seen in the same sentence, especially when ‘fun tool’ is also referring to the ability to calculate the degree to which one has become poorer over the past 12 months, but play around with it and ‘fun tool’ is a more than apt description, I promise) where one can calculate the degree to which all sorts of things have seen inflationary price increases in the last year. Fun tool, you see.
Of course, my initial thought was to link King Charles’ swelling fingers to the equal swelling in the price of sausages (+21% price increase since last year, seeing as were deep in the gag by now.) But once such whimsy passed, I started to put together little baskets of shopping that might reflect some stereotyped groups and their culinary characteristics, and a fascinating picture started to emerge.
Of course, I have just randomly added items to the shopping basket on the ONS tool that correlate to the lifestyles of the stereotypes outlined below, and as such this is not a perfect science, but equally it’s a pretty close approximation of how we all go about our lives, tossing things into our proverbial shopping baskets largely as it suits us in the moment, and so whilst not a scientific study, the price increases below do paint a picture of how we’ve all been affected by the broader economic moment.
Take from that what you will, but safe to say it feels harsh on poor old Yann, below, who in many ways likely stands for a great proportion of us, or of people we know, that he is the stereotype below who has been most impacted by the inflation of the last year or so. Poor old Yann.
Young family Yann - 20% increase in the cost of their shopping and eating since last year
Yann is a capable but time-poor cook, relying largely on his local supermarket for a blend of raw ingredients to cook nice simple one-pot or one-tray meals with, and the occasional ready meal or frozen delicacy to get him out of a hole when the day has got away from him and the kids need feeding, and then he and Fiona need feeding, and he’s got nothing ready and can’t quite face getting out all the cookbooks and ingredients. Yann likes a bulk cook on a weekend, and his fridge is full of clingfilmed bowls of things that can be reheated for the kids. Despite his best efforts, when things get fraught, Yann often abandons best intentions and runs a few trays of beige freezer treats such as chips, nuggets, fish fingers or waffles through the oven and alongside a bowl of peas, the kids he and Fiona tend to be as happy with that as they are with Jamie’s Spanish chicken thighs and peppers or sausage and bean cassoulet. The problem for Yann is that his method for feeding his kids on his budget is like a completed bingo card for high-tariff inflationary items.
Cookbook Clara - 19% increase in the cost of their shopping and eating since last year
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