Jap and French stuff are just more expensive.
Somehow, due to some perception and history, it is deemed that folks from these countries, take their crafts very seriously and master it at an exceptionally high level and thus charge a premium for their produce.
So we all go to supermarkets and restaurants and many people pay a steep premium for these products and services.
And I go to supermarkets and see nice pretty Japanese packaging in Japanese text and pick it up and admire it and look at the ingredients and ..... There I see it.....
Made in China... -.-|||
It's all over the place... Can't say it's false advertising... It's a Japanese styled cookie or whatever... So they pack it in a Jappy packaging... Yes, some people don't notice where it's made in and they are happy consuming the product.
The thing is... so many people are concerned about how a thing looks instead of the actual quality of the product itself. Go to Japan, it's the same. I've bought boxes of biscuits back from Japan. Some are nice, some aren't, but most of them are nicely wrapped. Some of the nicer stuff I bought back from Japan are not nicely wrapped as well. So in all seriousness, wrapping doesn't make a difference. And yet it affects so many of us.
Wrapping or presentation is the key. Go to a restaurant, the menu is written in French and you can hardly understand the dish names and you rely on the description. In the end, it's maybe grilled chicken, or baked salmon said in a nicer way.
And behind in the kitchen, it's a China guy or a Malaysian prepping the food...
Had that experience before? I'm sure you have. Either that or you don't know that there's a China guy or Malaysian in the kitchen, but it's a high chance that he's in there.
So why, as humans, are we so fixated on what we see.... Well, I tend to believe that it is cos we have no choice. There's no better way to determine how good an item is until we try it. And how do we determine if we even SHOULD try it in the first place? Well, by sight, what other way is there? Now we have online reviews but we don't always look at those and not everything has a review. We can't smell everything, so all we have left is sight. And we think... if it looks nice, then it must taste nice, and sometimes, that is right. Or if they are so skillful at making it so nice, they must be skillful at preparing it as well...
I worked at a restaurant before when I was younger. I was speaking with the chef. He told me, "You have to make the dish look nice. They look at the menu and think the food is expensive. When you bring the food to them, they look and it and go "WAHHH" and they forget the price. That's what we're supposed to do."
I was quite young. Lesson learnt... so that's how the game is played.
Above I mentioned about sight and smell right? Usually we see something and we think it's nice right?
How about smell? We walk past some bakery and Wooo... nice bread smells? Nice cookie smells?
Ever seen these?
Yes, these exist. Air fresheners that smell like bread or cookies.
Can't believe anything these days.
They can't be baking bread or cookies the whole day through. So they just spray some of this into the air to keep the retail outlet always smelling nice and delicious.
Love truffle fries? They are usually pretty expensive. Cos of the truffle right? Or truffle oil?
Well, most truffle oils are just plain olive oil with truffle smell... They isolated the chemical which gives truffles the unique smell and mix it with regular olive oil.
If you look for those oils with real truffle in the oils, they don't come in 300ml bottles. They come in maybe 150ml bottles and cost $50 each. Something like that...
So where am I going with this post... as usual, it's about awareness. We are all humans and are stimulated by sight and smell and other things. And we need to be aware that we are easily fooled. So I believe, as consumers, we need to be aware of these things, that what we see isn't what we always get.
Like that they always say,
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
At least when I buy truffle fries or truffle oil, or whatever food, I know that I'm not paying for real stuff and I am aware of what I'm paying for.
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