Green Capsicums Choking the Cost of Living

I went to the shops the other day and was forced to take out a bank loan to afford a red capsicum. It wasn’t the biggest scarlet pepper I had ever bought but it came with a hefty price tag just the same.

I remember back when I was a child my father would only ever buy green capsicums, which is why we never really got along. The bitter taste of a green pepper to a small child is like a physical assault to the senses. Thin green beans, nasty green cucumbers, and vile green capsicums were shopping essentials for my dear old dad. You should have tasted his depression era watery stew. I swear I found an old leather shoe in that pot one time. Green capsicums choking the cost of living out of my reach or was that retch?

Green Memories of Inflation in the 1970s

Times were different back then in the 1970s. The supermarkets were dark and had dirty old concrete floors. Charlie Carters prided itself on bad lighting and clunky shopping trolleys. My mum refused to go shopping for groceries, she left that to dad and we all suffered for it. I had never seen broccoli and an avocado until I had left home and moved to Sydney. I did not know these things even existed. My childhood was fed on cold corned beef and iceberg lettuce with canned sliced beetroot. Oh and a salad dressing made from condensed milk that I always avoided on principle. The only way I navigated my way through these ingredients was to turn everything into a sandwich.

Entrenched Conservative Hate of Unions & the Chinese

Inflation was real bad in the 1970s. We had something called stag-flation, which was nothing like those sordid buck’s parties I saw on TV. It seems like any time those conservatives lose government they somehow ensure that the hopeful idealistic new government is immediately burdened with an economy crippled by inflation. Gough Whitlam strode onto the stage like a Greek god after a generation of grey men in cardigans. There is so much hate inside socially conservative people and they can’t stand to see people having a good time with hope in their hearts. Fear mongering is the favourite card of the Peter Dutton’s of this world and there were plenty like him back then.

It’s enough to bring up those thick slices of raw green capsicum in dad’s favourite salad and backwash the bile in my gastronomic memory. Mum always made a nice dessert, however. The chocolate log made with jam and cream filled Granita biscuits was a personal favourite I sweetly remember. Life is a balance; a lot of apparently wise folk have told me. Getting that balance back then in terms of sweet and sour was only possible on the nights we dined at the August Moon Chinese restaurant. I loved those Chinese lanterns and all that shiny red décor, as we looked over the Canning River next to the bridge there.

Dining out was one of my dearest hobbies, even back then, when I was a kid. I was greedy for the sweetest and most succulent parts of life from an early age. Perhaps, I wasn’t the most loveable child, in fact I got called a brat a lot. We are what we are and life is what we make of it.

I do recall helping a bent over little old lady carry her shopping up the hill to her home one time. Green capsicums choking the cost of living were not in her brown paper bags, if I remember rightly. I was filled with altruistic self-love for my good Samaritan action. I was on a high for some time after that, but it never really took. The shortest path to satisfaction was my preferred route most of the time. Living with yourself is the name of the game in my experience. This is only reinforced the longer I spend here on planet earth. Later in life I studied philosophy and what the good life meant to Aristotle. Those high profile Greeks and later Romans were very big on civic duty.

My older brother missed the conscription call by a mere 12 months and was very happy to do so. I was madly writing anti-war poetry in my spare time deep in the dark recesses of my suburban bedroom.

Now, that I am an adult I quite like bitter foods. My favourite pizza is topped with black olives and anchovies. However, I do insist on red capsicum to balance things with a modicum of sweetness. The price of red peppers in the current economic climate is outrageous. Housing and rents have gone through the roof since the pandemic. Australia is a nation that values its homes so much that its citizens cannot afford to live in them. Property investors grow wealthy on the fat of rich profits, as the next generation are locked out of the market.

The two political parties in Australia will not do anything about the current state of affairs because it is politically unpalatable. Wealthy and aspirational Aussies do not want their property nest eggs messed with. Labor tried it in 2019 and the conservatives spread the fear of ALP policies abolishing negative gearing and superannuation tax loopholes to win the election against the odds. Once bitten twice shy, my dear old nan used to say.

I grew up associating red capsicums with wealth and excess. Perhaps, I also should have realised that their colour is a symbol of communism and China. Maybe when the Chinese eventually get here the price of red capsicums will come down. Every year I take a kilo of green capsicums to my father’s graveside. Green capsicums choking the cost of living remind me of my dwindling remaining years. Is there still time to encase everything unloved in bread? The price of bread is rising too of course.

You know when I was a young man I met a gregarious gay chap who owned two greenhouses in Chatswood. He used to dine at a café where I worked and was a charming flirt. Not so many years later I met him on the streets of Adelaide and he was homeless – it was a steep fall from grace. I remember being terribly shocked by the experience at the time. What does life have in store for each of us, I thought. The economic wheels of the capitalist economy are turning once again – recessions always follow inflation. The ALP will most likely be elected in the federal election and have to deal with the worst effects of a moribund economy. The conservatives will bitterly blame the socialists and bang the Chinese invasion drum. Life will go on for some.

Robert Sudha Hamilton

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