Quality Control and Variability
I buy my oats from a local farm that sells organic grains. (I’ve eaten oatmeal for breakfast since grade 3. That’s probably more than a ton of oats so far!) The first time I received them, they were oat flakes. I was used to ‘quick’ oats and it took some time (and lots of chewing) to get used to a longer cooking time. But, wow, the flavour! Quick oats just taste bland now and need so much more sugar to make passable.
Anyways, when that bag was gone, I couldn’t get more for a bit (hard to get to the farm as we don’t have a car), so I bought store brand large oat flakes. They still took as long to cook and had a similar nutty flavour. But then, I got another bag from the farm and I was very excited.
Disappointing first bowl. The flakes looked smaller, almost like ‘quick’ oats, and my first bowl was overcooked. I reduced cooking time to what I used to do for ‘quick’ oats. That worked pretty good. So, I called up the farm to say that I think they sold me ‘quick’ oats instead of oat flakes.
Their response made me think.
“No, that is still oat flakes. We have different providers and each may process slightly differently giving variability in the final product.” I almost responded with my disappointment over this.
But, why does everything have to be exactly the same each time? When did that become so important?
Quality control should ensure something is not dangerous, etc. But at some point variability became unacceptable.
And so everything is the same. A burger from Burger King tastes the same no matter where you go in North America. Same bland lettuce and tomato… Tim Horton’s donuts are all made in one place, then shipped frozen to each store where they are ‘cooked’ and all taste bad everywhere. Mishapen fruit and vegetables never reach the grocery shelves. (Someone told me that oranges aren’t a uniform orange. They are green and yellow mostly. The ones we eat are all painted orange.)
I want local specialties and natural variability. I want to savour food the way it comes, not after it’s been sorted and doctored.