If we ever receive a four-minute warning for the end of the world, you will find me standing beside a pile of apples arranged on a square of artificial grass, looking at vegetables. Because nowhere makes me feel more happy and hopeful than a greengrocers.
Whether it’s an end-of-the-pier root vegetable, a bunch of free carrot tops for my guinea pigs, exotic jewel-like pomegranates or blood oranges or a romanesco cauliflower to breakup the carbohydrate beige of Britain in April, a trip to the greengrocer is my most reliable source of wonder. Sadly, of course, fruit and veg are one of the things hit hardest by our current cost of living crisis, climate emergency and Brexit. Fresh food prices are up 17% in 12 months and in October 2022, The Grocer (I’m not yet a subscriber but I’m not ruling it out) found that “vegetable consumption in the UK has fallen by 7.5% over the past year, as consumers react to the cost of living crisis”.
Supermarkets – with their punishing profit margins and apparent disregard for an ecological future – are edging out local greengrocers, which are the kind of places where oranges are sold in pyramids and apostrophes rain down like cherry blossom. The kind of places where you can pick up a dragon fruit or buy your BFG-loving son a karela, telling him it’s a snozzcumber.
Aside from the produce, a good greengrocer is defined by its staff. The chain-smoker who doles out the pumpkins, the woman in a woollen hat and overalls who gives you gardening advice along with your carrots, the boy in a lilac Ellesse tracksuit who adds up £29.17 in his head like lightning and the man in fingerless gloves who wants to talk about Steely Dan: I just love it. I love it all.
And, judging by the current crop of potatoes and carrots I’m growing (a blank stretch of soil and three string-width seedlings), I’m not going to stop needing greengrocers anytime soon, even if it does bankrupt me.
• Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood.
