Dear readers, I have been sharing quite a number of my meal experiences on this website.
Meal experiences tell a lot about the economy and finances.
For example, higher prices of meals charged due to higher cost of ingredients, inflation.
Shrinkflation or reduced flavour and ingredients for the same aforementioned reason.
Just yesterday, I again experienced another of the financial element at play in my meal experiences.
You see, I frequent a western meal stall which sells nice crispy chicken.
Yesterday, I found 2 unfamiliar stall attendants at the stall and I proceeded to order my favorite crispy chicken meals again as takeaways.
When I unpacked the food at home, I was shocked! There were no plastic utensils that the stall always provides. The number of chilli and ketcup sauces were reduced!
Worst of all, the fried crispy skin of the chicken was very battered. There was no marination of seasonings or salt. And I have reason to suspect that the seasoning ingredients were not used and this led to the bitter taste of the crispy skin. Was that intended to save costs as well?
The unfamiliar sight of the aforementioned 2 assistants was not used. At the visit prior to my visit yesterday to the stall, the assistants at the stall were also not the regular ones (and the taste of the crispy chickens was also not up to standard). I am not sure whether those unfamiliar stall assistants were adhoc sudden replacements to the stall, with no knowledge on how to cook the usually nice crispy chicken. Again if the replacements are true, then this also circles back to financial reasons: albeit related to manpower-related ones.
As we partake our food to provide energy to our bodies, please remember that each food is linked to finance of ours, others and the economy.