Cheaper Chutney & Worthless Heritage

I was invited to a colleague’s home in Settle at the start of summer to welcome the German teachers over for a school exchange. The host was making a curry and each guest was asked to bring some modest contribution. Acknowledging my limited culinary skills, I was merely requested to bring some chutney. I’d left it to the last minute and popped to the Co-op in Barnoldswick, en route to Settle. I purchased one jar of mango chutney for £1.20. As I drove, I felt rather niggardly at having paid so little and for bringing something so slight. My little jar, after all, might not go far, and I might embarrass my kind host. I therefore resolved to stop at Settle’s Co-op to buy a second jar. To my relief, they stocked it; to my horror, it cost five pence more. I felt cheated. I felt cross I’d not bitten the bullet in Barnoldswick and simply bought two there and then. That was five pence I’d never see again. 

We passed a pleasant evening and the German teachers did not prove too tiresome. On my return journey, I reflected on the difference in the cost of chutney, made by the same company, sold by the same chain, only 18 miles apart. Perhaps Settle, being a wealthier place than Barnoldswick, provided easy pickings for the Co-op bosses, who added a sixpence here, a threepence there, to maximise their profits. Maybe the Barlick palate was plainer than the Settlers’; only a cheaper price would coax them away from their plain northern fare onto the more exotic taste of the chutney jar. Or perhaps Settle is so remote, the Co-op management have to factor the additional transport costs onto each product sold. I’ll never know, but long-standing businesses are adept at correctly pricing their products, charging as much as they can without irritating too much their customer. Supply and demand is a law broken at one’s peril. Whatever the reason, Chutney is certainly cheaper here than it is in Settle.

We in the West value too cheaply the riches with which we have traditionally been endowed: our freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom in general. Murmuring calls to curtail these rights are more frequently being heard, and more loudly. Furthermore, our rich Christian heritage, in both the moral and spiritual spheres, are traditions many people around the world look upon with envy. Yet this too is increasingly considered cheap and worthless by those who reject Christianity’s benevolent legacy. 

Chutney is more valuable in Settle, and a Christian heritage is more highly prized in those parts of the world that never had one.

Image by Satinder Singh Chugh from Pixabay