Cheap food

[kerouac2]

I was raised poor and have never abandoned the impulse to buy the cheapest things possible.  My French heritage has certainly helped me in terms of understanding that that cheapest chunks of beef can become divine if you simmer them long enough to fall apart in cheap wine, and you can still call it boeuf bourguignon and consider it worthy of gourmet dining.  It might be more difficult to convince people of the merits of tripe, kidneys, gizzards or sweetbreads, but that's their problem, not mine.  Ah, and marrow bones! I have often also mentioned pork belly here.  It's fantastic but will never make it to most restaurant menus.

Anyway, today I bought some chicken carcasses.  Frankly, I was shocked by how much meat was still on them.  It was as though they had barely been skinned.  They are currently boiling in a pot, two huge carcasses for 3 euros.  The end result will certainly not be beautiful, but I am certain that it will be delicious when I strip the bones and combine them with vegetables or pasta..

Are any of the rest of you saving money with items like this?

[mickthecactus]

Not really but what we do do is ensure that no food at all is wasted ever. Left overs are always boxed and frozen for a later date. Veg trimmings are all composted and the result goes on the veg bed in spring. We buy reduced items on their sell by date and freeze them straight away. Chicken carcasses are always stripped clean. Old shrivelled veg goes into stir fries and curries and even in with roasts.

[kerouac2]

We just got compost bins in Paris this year, but the closest one to me is still not close enough.

[htmb]

I do like Mick and try to use up everything. I’ve gotten into the habit of freezing bits and pieces of vegetables and some fruit, like lemons, and then making a pot of vegetable stock once I have enough. Sometimes I then freeze some of the stock to use in future dishes, but often it’s used up immediately.

[mickthecactus]

Feb 14, 2024 20:20:13 GMT htmb said:

I do like Mick and try to use up everything. I’ve gotten into the habit of freezing bits and pieces of vegetables and some fruit, like lemons, and then making a pot of vegetable stock once I have enough. Sometimes I then freeze some of the stock to use in future dishes, but often it’s used up immediately.

I like you too htmb.

[htmb]

[cheerypeabrain]

There aren't many places where we could buy offal here. The covered market in town maybe. Liver and kidney is sold in some supermarkets, a lot of them only sell lambs liver and we prefer pork. There aren't many actual Butchers these days, and where they do exist they tend to be quite pricey, selling the more expensive cuts of meat and poultry...fancy sausages and pies. Some supermarkets have a butcher's counter but not many.

So here 'cheap food' is usually ultraprocessed crap sold in places like Aldi, Lidl and small backstreet shops, we have quite a lot of Asian and Eastern European stores in the outskirts of the town that sell strange and wonderful stuff I have no idea how to cook. I went to a very cluttered Indian supermarket a few years ago and bought heaps of whole spices, a box of frozen samosas and 100 frozen chapatis (in the days before I made my own) at quite low prices...but we don't go there often.

The only cheap food that I buy really is at The Company Shop, where they sell stuff that's near expiry, surplus stock etc...you never know what they will have in but I've bought a lot of meat an poultry there for the freezer.

My mum used to buy braising steak to make huge casseroles for us kids. Stuffed with vegetables and with a thick suet pastry top. We only had a cooked evening meal occasionally, after school we had a sandwich (and if we were lucky an apple or raw carrot). Mum would cook Dad a meal every week night and he loved liver and kidney, somtimes he would inist on sharing his meal with Mum.

On a Sunday we always had a big roast meal and a pudding. Any leftover roast meat would go in Dad's sandwiches for work. Us kids were always hungry...sometimes we were allowed a couple of biscuits...but with 6 children and only one wage I think that our parents did quite well.

Nobody in our family likes fat or gristle which doesn't always melt away when cooked long and slow. The fat imparts a particular flavour to the sauce that I'm not keen on. The only time I'll use a cheaper cut is when I'm making a curry. (Even then I'd much rather use something like rump steak...I'd rather buy a more expensive cut, just less of it to keep costs down.

Jeff eats things like faggots, spam (formed ham and pork), corned beef and pressed tongue (yuk)...but whilst they aren't as expensive as rump steak or chicken they aren't exactly cheap.

All the chefs on tv say that chicken thighs are tastier than chicken breast but I don't like them even tho they're less expensive. We're not keen on the skin, or bones...altho I quite like chicken wings in a spicy sauce nobody else can be bothered with all that faffing for a tiny bit of food...

The Confessions of a Fussy Eater...

[kerouac2]

Chicken thighs are my very favourite piece of chicken and I adore the skin!

[bixaorellana]

Chicken thighs rule!

Whenever you cut up a whole raw chicken, be sure to set aside any fat and any bits of skin that come off in the cutting up process. Slow cooked in a skillet, those bits & pieces turn into a wonderful chicken chicharrón, aka crackling.

I am a frugal cook because it horrifies me to throw away food and because I like doing all those cooking tricks to extend what's on hand. More and more I stay away from meat and that automatically lowers my food costs. There is a rotisserie place near me that has a whole chicken for 100 pesos or two for 150 on Wednesdays. Every once in a while I take advantage of the Wednesday deal and strip both chickens as soon as I get home. Since that's a lot for one person, some of it goes in the freezer. Of course the dogs are thrilled, as it's easy for me to be generous with them when there's all that abundance.

Whenever I have beans, which is often, I think how yes, someone could sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. There are thousands of ways to fix them, plus plain boiled beans can be thrown into all kinds of things. It's nice to make up a big potful and freeze a few containers for later.

[mickthecactus]

Cheery, have you actually shopped at Lidl?

I go there quite often and their meat in particular is easily as good as any other supermarket including Waitrose.

Aldi are crooks so I don’t go there.

[cheerypeabrain]

My little sister swears by Lidl. I go where I'm taken Mick, I don't drive and there isn't a bus from where I live to the nearest Lidl. The only supermarkets that I can get to are Tesco, Asda or Morrisons. I can get to Sainbury's if I don't mind a very long walk, Jeff thinks that they're too expensive. I do shop a bit at M&S but nobody in their right mind does a whole grocery shop there Sometimes I pop into Iceland (I still think of that as Bejam!) on a Tuesday to get my pensioner's discount when I show my bus pass.

My Mum used to send my big sister to all the different shops to compare prices. Then we would buy items where they were cheapest. To a certain extent I suppose I do something similar...if I know that our favourite brands of coffee, butter etc are cheaper at a particular supermarket then we will shop there. We're not particularly loyal.

I don't waste much, vegetables are so expensive I use every scrap. I do seem to buy bananas just to watch them rot in the fruit bowl tho..

[mickthecactus]

Doesn't Jeff drive?

The point I was trying to make was that Lidl have no more ultra processed food than all the others and a lot of their products are really good quality.

[onlyMark]

There are supermarket price comparison websites in the UK for what is the cheapest for the same thing where.
In Germany there are the range of supermarkets as in most countries where you generally get the cheapest or the best quality range. There can be a big difference in prices from one to the other. I use Edeka which is my walking distance one but five minutes away by car in the winter or ten minutes by bike in good weather there are other selections like Lidl/Aldi/Rewe etc.
For practicality I don't hunt around for the cheapest item, more I go to one and see what is on offer then adjust accordingly. For major stock ups like cleaning supplies I'd go to what I know the be the cheapest in general and leave it at that.

I have no problem with stuff from Lidl and often things do seem of a better quality and price, like salmon or some cheeses.
As a kid my dad worked shifts so if we had meal together it was at the weekend unless he was working overtime, which did happen quite a lot. My mother was a small woman who never ate a lot but she could scarf down a box of eclairs without a problem.
For a few years I got free school dinners anyway so we tended not to have dinner in the evening, also because it wasn't done in my area. Dinner was at lunchtime.
For five or six years my mother also worked as a dinner lady at a school so we did tend to end up with leftovers from time to time. Handy job that was, get paid and bring home most of a meal for the family.

Most men on our streets were miners and usually with little savings so if they were off sick/injured for more than a week or so they would get sick pay but it wasn't a full wage and the other households would chip in after a while with food (often in the guise of "Oops, I bought a bit to much and it'll go off so you might as well have it") so the kids didn't go hungry. There were a couple of times I remember when the husband was thought to be "swinging the lead", especially when he somehow managed to hobble to the pub, so the kids and wife would end up eating at someone else's house a few days a week and he would go hungry.
Nowadays I do check prices in the supermarket but I'm not so bothered to root out the cheapest of something.

[whatagain]

I like going to Aldi and Lidl. One of those or both have special deals that last me not a few days or weeks.
I bought stuff nearly for free and was surprised by the quality.

[cheerypeabrain]

Jeff would drive me to Lidl if I asked him to I suppose. We have preferences....the menfolk in particular like their Heinz baked beans and tomato ketchup, their Marmite and SunPat peanut butter, Pepsi Max, Anchor butter and Birds Eye Cod Fish Fingers! I'm fussy about my instant coffee...the only one I'll drink is Nescafe gold blend intense and I like hermeseta sweeteners. We like to buy the tubeless double loo rolls (we get through tons because of our son's crohns)... and as far as I know there's only one make.

We've tried the alternatives to the brands that we like over the years but weren't impressed. My sister sometimes takes me to Cost-Co or similar so that I can buy enormous packets of washing powder and packs of 10 bottles of washing up liquid (more branded products that we use)...bulk buying saves money altho you have the initial big spend I suppose.

We've been to Aldi a couple of times. Jeff was unhappy at the way he wasn't able to pack the bags quickly enough at the checkout and we didn't like their products. It was cheap tho...

[kerouac2]

It's funny that the only time I remember buying a "huge" quantity of something was when one of the hypermarkets had 12-roll packs of toilet paper with a "2+1 free" deal so I ended up with 36 rolls of toilet paper. Sure lasted a long time, though! There are plenty of times where I would like to take advantage of some of the deals on perishables, but there is no way that I can eat or conserve the quantities involved. This is yet another instance where people who live alone are at a grave disadvantage economically.

[onlyMark]

I don't pack bags at the checkout at Aldi or Lidl. I put everything back in the trolley and usually behind the check out is a long shelf to pack your stuff. Take my time and sort it out as I pack it into the different bags.

[mickthecactus]

Yup. We do the same for the same reason.

[lugg]

I am reading and taking note as I still have not learnt how to shop and buy enough for just me and I hate wasting food. BUT ...I have learnt that when I fail , I need to freeze what I have not eaten and I do that often. I do try to buy wonky veg and fruit etc , I look for the bargains in the supermarket... whichever I am in... all you have mentioned above I have no shame Lidl, Aldi , Morrisons etc .

But mostly I buy locally from the village shop / local farm shops because I want to support them and consequently it is rarely cheap ( but I still seek out the bargains) .

[cheerypeabrain]

I love going to farm shops. One of my sisters will take me occasionally. Expensive but nice.

I often cook too much, especially if I'm making something like spag bol or chilli, I intend to freeze half but sometimes my beloved decides to go in for a second helping I've started having the freezer container ready to fill when we've dished up.

[mich64]

My husband goes to town each weekday morning to go to the gym. Every Wednesday I check the updated Flipp App that has all the sales at our grocery stores. I make lists for each store and he will stop at one or two each day to pick up the good sales I find. I realized yesterday that it has been a couple of months that I have been inside a grocery store. By checking the sales each week, I find I have not had the need to do a big shop.

Today he picked up 3 packages of chicken thighs that were on for a really good price. Often, I make something out of leftovers for lunch the next day and freeze others.

I refuse to buy margarine, toilet paper, paper towel, coffee, tea, peanut butter or condiments if they are not on a good sale. I keep my pantry stocked with these items when they are on sale. What I will pay full price for is quality fruits and vegetables.

[whatagain]

I also like to buy those ‘silly things’ in large quantities when discounted.
There are always such actions as ‘second at half price ‘ etc

[kerouac2]

I bought pigs' feet at Carrefour today. Ridiculously cheap price of course. They also had ears and tails. It is unusual for them to have all of those in stock but I'm thinking that it is because of Chinese New Year, since the Chinese know what is good, and Aubervilliers is a very Chinese neighbourhood. The same Chinese lanterns are hanging from the lampposts as in Chinatown in Paris.

[cheerypeabrain]

Like you Mich, I stock up on items that are a good price if I can afford to. The price of my favourite coffee varies from £5.99 to £8 for 200g, our butter anything between £2.75 and £4.75 for 500g. Whilst I won't buy other brands I will search out the best deals. When it comes to meat and poultry I'll buy local wherever possible..which isn't necessarily cheap.

[cheerypeabrain]

None of us have ever been hungry enough (or curious enough) to try feet, brawn, brains, testicles, heads, tails or eyeballs. So far as we know...

[bixaorellana]

Three pages of conversation on that very topic: anyportinastorm.proboards.com/thread/770/organs-offal

[cheerypeabrain]

I bought some liver today...not cooked it for 13 years! I'm breaking with tradition and cooking it tomorrow for Sunday dinner (with trepidation cos the last time was so bad)