Village Squire, 1979-02, Page 12The Leslie Cheese House, a landmark in Stratford for visitors, has opened its third location %. ith this
basement shop at Festival Square. Jane Richardson is on hand to help customers.
The food outlets that cram the
basement level of Festival Square
provide a
Valley of
temptation
10 Village Squire, February 1979
You might call it the valley of temptation. Situated in the
basement of the Festival Square complex in Stratford it is a little
like a valley. Filled as it is with specialty food outlets it's
certainly full of temptation.
Festival Square has just about the highest concentration of
specialty food outlets outside of one of the local markets. And the
complex is not completed yet. Eventually there will be a major
restaurant on the second floor to go along with the collection on
the first floor and basement levels. It will mean that one can
practically gain pounds just walking through the place.
Of course many of the owners of the food outlets would
shudder to think such a thought. They are part of the trend back
to simple foods. There is for instance Grains. Beans and Things,
the Stratford branch of the store first opened by the Odergaard
family on Richmond Street in London.
It's a tiny shop in size but it's as packed as an old fashioned
farm pantry at harvest time with things to eat. The emphasis is
the whole food movement. Jars contain bulk supplies of beans of
a seemingly endless variety: mung beans, white navy beans,
organic soybeans, lentils, limas, pinto beans, chick peas, kidney
beans. Then there's split peas, millet and even popcorn.
Row on row come other similar jars holding healthy supplies of
spices. There are sunflower seeds and peanuts and pecans and
soya nuts, cracked wheat, arrowroot flour, soy flour and rolled
oats, wheat germ and yogurts.
Bulk buying is the trend with many people these days as they
resist 'the morality that puts more into the price of the package
than into the contents. A lady visits the shop with her containers
to get them filled with fresh peanut butter, dipped from huge
five -gallon tubs. Honey is available in the same manner. In fact
nearly everything is available in bulk.
The store sells mainly the basics for those who want to do their