Faddy/trendy foods

[Stan_Lite]

Yesterday, I bought a nice bit of mackerel for today's lunch but I forgot to get some oatmeal to fry it in (my favourite cooking method for mackerel). I took a wander up to Sainsbury's this morning to get some but, despite a long time searching, I couldn't find any - I found many varieties of porridge oats but no oatmeal. I eventually gave in and asked a member of staff. She couldn't find it either so went to the office to ask. When she came back she announced, to my utter amazement, that they no longer stocked it During my search, I came across a great many trendy, faddy ingredients including about twenty different "exotic" types of flour, six different types of couscous and a great many grains and pulses I had never heard of.

I fully understand that supermarkets need to make a profit and, as a result, have to prioritise the goods they stock, substituting poor sellers for quicker moving lines. What got to me was that, whilst one was spoilt for choice with regards to couscous, a relative newcomer to popular cooking, one couldn't buy a basic commodity which has been in use in this country for thousands of years.

I have nothing against couscous and only cite it as an example (I love the stuff and have some in my cupboard) of an ingredient that, until recently, was rarely used in most homes.
When I lived in Shetland where mackerel (and herring) are plentiful and cheap (free if caught by friends), I always had a bag of oatmeal in my cupboard - as did pretty much every household.

On my way home, I thought I'd pop into the corner shop at the bottom of our road and see if they had any. In there, I could buy two different styles of Himalayan pink rose crystal salt but no oatmeal

I'm a great believer in trying new foods and regularly try new things I see in shops. My main beef is that, items we took for granted a few years ago are now becoming difficult to source, having been replaced by these "modern" faddy foods. Surely the likes of Sainsbury's could drop one of their six kinds of couscous or one of their twenty kinds of exotic flour to stock a few packs of simple oatmeal.

Does the blame for instances like these fall at the feet of the consumer for embracing fads and trends to the detriment of more traditional ingredients, or is it the fault of the retailers for abandoning traditional ingredients for more lucrative lines? I tend to think it's a bit of both.

Is this phenomenon a worry to anyone else or am I just a moaning old fossil who needs to "get with the times"?

BTW: I fried my mackerel in flour and still enjoyed it - just not as much as I would have done if I'd had oatmeal.