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Depends on the country I suppose. If you have adequate summer weather and a bit of garden, those tomatoes grow themselves. Bread is relatively cheap where I grew up and my grandmother even made her own bread. And lard would come from self grown pig that would be split with several families. It is not the same to live in a big city where you have to buy everything, and be in the country or small towns, where you can supplement with own grown stuff.

Nowadays people buy everything, they have no idea how to grow some veggies, care for some chicken, can food for winter. Out summers and autumns were full of canning after schools and my parent’s work hours, or weekend, vacations. You would buy the veggies when they were cheap in the markets, or grow yourself, if you had some land( we had a small garden, but sometimes we would find some strips of land outside the town via friends and colleagues of my parents, where we could grow more onions, garlic, beans, etc.)

And we had community. If you had surplus, you would share it. With a good community is easier to survive and thrive.

Also a big topic, people don’t know anymore how to eat seasonal. I have no problems eating cruciferous, root vegetables and potatoes the entire winter. In summer, if I get good tomatoes, I eat a lot of them. But I don’t buy them in winter. They taste like cardboard.