See. But What Is It?

I remember shopping for vegetables with my mother (see blog April 10^thand May13th, 2012). There were two local green grocers, One green grocer (and various family members who moved in and out of the little back room) was either Italian or Greek. It was hard to tell, as they spoke a language my ear was not used to hearing back then. I’m pretty sure they were Italian. But the brother ran the local fish shop and the dad ran the local real estate. I just can’t remember the name. It was interesting to watch the men, in and out of the little back room of the store. Always sitting, and watching the customers. What went on back there? There were always men sitting and talking. Often, consuming glasses of a dark looking liquid (No doubt, this was only coffee, but then, I only knew about instant coffee, and certainly was never allowed it). This was a dark serious liquid they would sip. It was often the woman who came out to do the final bagging and cost the vegetables for us. They must have wondered a little at our regular purchases. Probably thought our food was boring. We always seemed to buy the same potatoes, carrots, a cabbage and sometimes some beans. But remember, our mother was feeding ten people, so it tended to be the cheaper foods that could cover several meals.

I remember standing and waiting while she shopped, or before I was asked to load a bag, looking at the layered leaves of the artichoke, the deep purple eggplant and pointy okra (yes, there were a few Greeks in our neighbourhood), the Chinese snake beans and Lebanese cucumbers. There were often several strange vegetables here where we shopped regularly (providing my mother was getting her value for money). If there was any feeling that she wasn’t getting her money’s worth, then she went to the alternative greengrocer, around the corner. He was a small smiling Chinamen with a busy family. Even the young children, if they weren’t child minding, they would come out to serve. Unfortunately my mother had a bit of a hang up about Asian faces after the war (from some twenty-five years earlier). We were always threatened not to marry a Japanese person. But she could obviously overcome her dislikes if savings were necessary, despite her common saying if one of the kids complained about something being ‘not fair”. She would rapidly reply. ‘No dear, and neither is a Chinaman’. Then we found it funny, not Racist. It was just an old English saying. She certainly never intended harm, but was just regurgitating the English heritage attitude, which had been instilled in her early years. The old sayings from the turn of the 20^th century. At the Chinese greengrocer, he used to have selection of even stranger fruits. Then, the weird and wonderful fruits that were occasionally available. The large short spiked Durian, the fiery looking Dragon fruit, even the Paw-Paws and the five sided Carambola.

(Continued tomorrow)