Intergrity of food..sellers..

Salam,
Today I went to TESCO Shah Alam to buy some groceries (as usual). After an hour of grocery shopping, I decided to but some kaya balls. Haven't had them for a long time and they seemed to smell so good as the aroma travels around, suggesting a great, pure taste of round, fluffy pancake-liked dough with kaya inside. Well, Rm2.50 per 10 pieces of pure...crap!!! was what I got. Half of the balls were burnt and the kaya tasted like it was made like a year ago! (almost near its deadline, I supposed)..I was disappointed. But what intrigued me to write in this blog is not the kaya balls. It's the fact that the kaya-balls sellers got away with this and still sold enough to make a profit for them to continue the business. And the even pathetic part of all this is that she (I presumed the owner is a she) is not alone. Over the years, I've encountered many similar incidents. Food sellers without integrity. The funny thing is they started really good. The food tasted like heaven and they were, at that point of time, promising. Unfortunately, some of them decided that it is not profitable to maintain the quality of the food. They started to cut the ingredients here and there and used lower quality brands. The taste of the food become even blander and customers started to complain. But do they care? Of course not! They turn to other customers..the first timers who they still can con to buy their food. No moral conscious whatsoever. This situation is even apparent during the Ramadhan fest, the infamous 'Bazar Ramadhan'. Supposedly, this particular month is the time we can see variety of food around Malaysia and is when our taste buds figuratively will beg us for mercy, but what do we get? We end up getting only a spoonful of really good food. The rest are merely ingredients mixed together without any taste or passion about it. Someone I know said that if we want good food, we must be prepared to pay for it as quality ingredients are expensive. My question is why should we? To begin with, the cheaper ingredients are already of good quality. We get some of the best local producers of great ingredients with cheaper price. Quality of the ingredients should not be blame. To me, it is about the mixing process..a.k.a the chefs! Some of the sellers thought that they could cheat on the ingredients to save cost. What they did was cheating on their own skills (if they even have any in the first place)..So, if we are to get good food in the future, I guess the best way is..we learn to cook it on our own..Hello AFC...

My 2 cents..