RUSTIC RANT

Rustic (not to be mistaken for Artisanal), is a word used across Waitrose stores countrywide to describe many a food or furniture item.

Understandably having rustic products can be a desirable thing. It may make us feel down to earth or give us countryside memories. We can enjoy the chunky cut of root vegetables while imagining wooden ceiling beams lunging across smoky red rooms in our thatched roof cottages.

However, if we get back to reality, we are being fooled by the slight hand of marketing.

Quite frankly what we are really getting is a slightly burnt pepper that they couldn’t be arsed to cut properly and then branded it as rustic. It would have been no more effort to not blacken my peppers thank you and to have cut them into neat chunks. And I’m sorry but telling me that a table has “character”, because it is wobbly and gives me splinters is not going to cut the mustard. In the confines of rustic there is nothing to say that the product doesn’t have to fulfil it’s function. Something can be homemade, and simple and still work.

Furthermore, bumping up the price under this “rustic” guise is not acceptable. If you are going to charge me extra for a special type of vegetable it ought to be dipped in fucking gold leaf and displayed in a Swarovski crystal coated case.

Rustic maketing, you don’t fool me. Waitress shoppers BE WARNED!!