"Working summers at an authentically quaint roadside produce stand, a teenage salesperson is schooled in the not-so-subtle art of how to con a foodie from the big city."

Narratively Allison Kinney

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/l...=pocket-newtab

From the first half:


....But I dreaded the New Yorkers. They were my first foodies, a type that, until then, I hadnt known existed. Growing up in a middle-American, meat-and-starch-eating household, I had never before met people with strident opinions about vegetables quality, freshness and origins, who would use their children as mules to smuggle forty-cent nectarines to their cars.

Their foodie-ism was the worst kind, all about visual aesthetics, immediate gratification €” and bargains. They fetishized the ideal forms of Jersey produce, but had no idea what the real thing looked, smelled or tasted like, much less the state of agriculture in that rapidly developing part of the country. In their quest for perfection, the foodies tried to haggle with me. They squeezed and bruised the tomatoes. They pawed through my displays to find the two prettiest peaches at the bottom, dropping the rest onto the ground. They asked me to pick a pound of the best cherries one by one, to wrap each tomato in a separate plastic bag. They sneaked extra corn into their shopping bags and paid for only a dozen; when caught, they protested that the stand down the road sold bakers dozens. €œFourteens not a bakers dozen,€� I told them. They grumbled all the way to their Mercedes.

Yet I didnt like cheating them. When questioned about the produces provenance, I told the truth. €œThe tomatoes arent from around here, but they did arrive this morning. Local tomatoes wont be ripe until July.€� €œThe corns not local, but it was fresh-picked this morning. Local corn wont be available until July.€�

The foodies argued. €œBut I bought local Silver Queen from the stand down the road last week!€�

I said, €œThe stand down the road is lying. Local Silver Queen wont ripen till August.€�

They didnt believe me. They couldnt bear the challenge to their connoisseurship. Or perhaps theyd rather believe that I was maligning the competition than confront the possibility that they couldnt buy anything they wanted, whenever they wanted it. They had traveled to Jersey in search of an authentic country food experience, and theyd be damned if they didnt get it...

(snip)




Lenona.