I'm old enough to remember small grocers, albeit pushed to the margins. Most of us buy our food from big supermarkets. Many of us don't have the choice - we might be able to choose between a couple of chains, but not every town...or every neighborhood...has, for example, a specialist baker or butcher.

This is an anomaly. Since civilization started, people bought food from specialists. (And many people did not cook - they bought their food already prepared from vendors).

The supermarket is a very strange thing that we think of as normal. It's not - so how did we get here?

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