Pak Choi and the Supply Chain

The trouble with a popular recipe, for example one featured on a main TV channel at peak viewing time by a celebrity chef is that some of the ingredients become almost impossible to find in the shops. There must be a collective name for this effect- along the lines of  Berrymania, Nigellistic, Steining or Martinism.

The same sort of thing happened in recent months with the Great Prosecco shortage with consumers showing a first world desperation to track down and possess one or more bottles of the stuff. 

Once in a while a foodstuff comes to prominence as the next Super Food with often fantastic and later disgraced claims of being the antidote to the excesses of modern lifestyles. Quinoa, multi-grains, kefir, Skyr are relatively new on the shopping list but I seem to remember from my childhood a similar phenomena with prunes, dried apricots, almond slices and fresh orange juice. 

I fell victim to the influences of just such advertising just today following a rather irrational but ultimately health conscious intention to cook a Thai Laksa curry for the family evening meal. 

The Christmas period did see the stocking up of our cupboards and drawers with a wide range of food components and it was a pleasure and a joy to put together a particular dish without having to dash out to the local shops in a mad panic to acquire an essential ingredient. 

However , there is an inevitable running down of the larder and although most of the Laksa recipe items was to hand I was missing the Pak Choi, or Chinese cabbage, just one of the many parts but still important to add texture, colour and body to the mix. 

It is an interesting natural product also known under the names of bok choy, horse’s ear, celery cabbage and white mustard cabbage. 

Such is the global food chain and logistics that it is available on an all year round basis from various growing areas but is also quite a cultivatable plant in the British Climate and has become a popular feature on that very trendy thing of a home vegetable patch or allotment. 

I live in a mixed residential area with the housing stock including what is rather aptly although disrespectfully termed Muesli and Brown Bread occupants, these being hipsters, anxious and socially aware types who champion nutritious and home cooked food. 

In contrast there is also a typical demographic of houses in multiple occupation, bedsits, flats and other shared accommodation. 

The clever algorithms operated by the likes of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury, Aldi, Lidl and The Co-Operative all of whom have stores within a short walk of my house kick into action to indicate what is being purchased, where, when and how much and this in turn feeds through to the supply of specific products where they are in demand most. 

I have definitely seen Pak Choi on the shelves of each of the aforementioned commercial operations at one time or another and yet when it came to my shopping trip today it was nowhere to be seen, or at least not in the first two supermarkets, Asda and Aldi, that I wandered into. 

This was both disappointing and frustrating in the extreme. 

I had to think a bit more laterally about where I could find this crucial ingredient for the meal. 

This brought in a lot of prejudices, prejudgements, insecurities and stereotyping about which I felt bad. I do have some brand loyalty however and decided to try out what was becoming a sort of social experiment by visiting the remaining local stores in what I felt would be an order of increasing likelihood of successful acquisition of Pak Choi. 

Lidl, usually a very liberal and non-judgemental institution can usually be relied upon to have stock items and a few interesting surprises, mostly bike and exercise related. On the Chinese cabbage front I drew a blank. 

The Co-Op, a socially responsible and ethical concern was my next stopping off point but again no luck. 

Tesco is usually the most accessible in terms of opening hours and product range but not today. 

That just left Sainsbury’s and in my local area there are two outlets within about 200 metres of each other. 

The first is in quite a cosmopolitan area amongst coffee houses, wine bars and bistros and I was certain would stock what I was after. It appears that the population were not big users of the stuff. 

That left just one more shop in the distinctive livery in a busy neighbourhood location with a high student occupancy. 

True to form this demographic were those who were repeat purchasers of Pak Choi and in a sort of smug and satisfied attitude I bought a couple of packs and made for home. So what can I deduce from my Pak Choi Theory? 

Well, not a lot apart from the likelihood that;

a) the largely student population were given cook books for Christmas and 

b) Laksa is both cheap and easy to put together whilst providing a good chance of providing most of the recommended daily intake of vitamins, minerals  for a healthy lifestyle.