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Post by lagatta on Mar 9, 2010 15:24:52 GMT
Do we have a thread on supermarkets? Whether huge hypermarkets, little neighbourhood "superettes" or anything in-between.
These need not be utterly mainstream - supermarkets catering to different ethnic communities, religious rules (kosher or halal), those with an emphasis on organic or natural foods or more upscale ones - or downscale ones - can come in here.
While I adore street markets and little shops, it is also utterly fascinating to note what products are mainstream in supermarkets in different countries, regions and cities or towns. Several of us were commenting on how many prepared food items in plastic there are in Albert Heijn supermarkets in the Netherlands - more than in neighbouring European countries, and more as a percentage of stock than we'd find where I live.
And obviously certain food, beverage and non-food categories are larger or have a wider range in certain places.
If we do have a supermarket thread, this can be closed or merged into it.
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Post by komsomol on Mar 9, 2010 15:42:22 GMT
I always visit supermarkets even in different states. There is always some sort of local difference.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 9, 2010 16:08:04 GMT
Nice topic, LaGatta. You and Komsomol are so right that the local differences are most interesting. As for the topic being duplicated -- there isn't one just on supermarkets. Also, much as I love the Proboards (our host) format, the search engine is almost useless. I've been meaning to take some pictures of my superette, and this is the perfect impetus. (and one day I'm going to show up at your door, LaGatta, in order to place a camera firmly into your hands. ) This seems a handy place to link a couple of food shopping threads: Where We Shop Market day ~ What did you buy?
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Post by gertie on Mar 9, 2010 23:06:01 GMT
I always visit supermarkets because that is all we really have here. We used to have a meat market, but no more. The only produce market is a farmer's market on weekends between here and the next town. The big markets and wally world have run all the little guys out. I guess I would not mind so much except they tend to limit your choices. The other alternatives are the ethnic groceries. We do have Mexican and Asian groceries not too far off. I miss being able to easily obtain things like fat pork, tomatoes that smell and taste like food, not wax, and bones. Ever since wally world determined to keep the butchers from forming a union by firing them all and having their meat delivered from plants already ready to shelve, seems like everyone is getting rid of butchers, and thus you can only get certain popular cuts in most large chains. We do still have a butcher at one local grocery, but even so he is limited as they don't just order big sides of beef and pork, or so he has told me. We tried to have a pig roast and were lucky to find someone able to get one for us from of all things a 4 H fair last year.
Next time I head to the Asian grocery (which will be soon I'm low on some of my favorites) I will take some pictures. They always have such amazing collections of interesting things. Last Christmas I got my daughter one of her favorite gifts there. I bought a lovely tea pot with matching cups, bowls, spoons, and little plates. We really enjoy sharing tea on cold days.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 10, 2010 3:43:30 GMT
Oh that is a pity, gertie. The supermarket closest to me is Marché Milano, an Italian speciality supermarket, though in the wintertime it is competitive in terms of price and especially quality for general produce, and it DEFINITELY has a fleet of butchers, and cheesemongers. Not being able to get bones is criminal. Hope you can find them at the Asian grocery. I hate that packaged meat in plastic wrap.
All the supermarkets hereabouts have butchers and fishmongers, though I suspect Loblaws, being a very big chain, does get some of that cyrovac meat. The smaller supermarkets all have bones. I was surprised in the slow cooker thread about you using the slow cooker for boneless chicken breasts - I'd always do a whole stewing hen or pieces on the bone in that, but perhaps you can't get those.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2010 7:54:27 GMT
I enjoy supermarkets no matter where I am, even though it would be hard to surprise me with any of the items on sale these days. One of the main things I like is the sociological aspect of the supermarket experience -- who is shopping there and what are they buying? There are definitely different supermarkets for different economic classes, and it is always interesting to see who has the largest families. The lady buying not one but two 24-pack cartons of yogurt definitely has quite a few children.
The Chinese supermarket that I go to is even more interesting but not for the reason that a lot of people would expect. It actually operates as a Franco-Chinese supermarket, because it also carries the products of the French G20 supermarket chain, and the customers are split about half and half. By looking in the shopping carts, I can see assimilation into French culture in action, when I see the Asians buying saucisses de Strasbourg, roquefort or sliced ham. Often it is their children pushing them to buy the normal French products that they have had in school lunches or in friends' homes. On the other hand, there are the European customers who are split into to sub-groups: the ones who are there because it is a Chinese supermarket, and the ones doing their 'French' shopping as though all of the other products were invisible.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 10, 2010 15:55:18 GMT
I love reading all the bits you write about Montréal, LaGatta, as it seems to have retained all the touches that give a place charm, variety, and civility.
Kerouac, wouldn't you love to have access to the security tapes in those Franco-Chinese supermarkets? It would be fun to edit a video showing exactly what you describe.
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Post by bjd on Mar 10, 2010 16:29:10 GMT
Whenever I go abroad, I always go and check out the supermarkets when they exist.
I have found surprising things. In Argentina in a small town, there were shelves and shelves of yerba maté (a drink Argentines are addicted to) but no black chocolate. In Chile, in Santiago, the butcher's counter had hardly any customers, but the counter selling sliced yellow cheese and cold cuts had huge lines. I was told Chileans often just have sandwiches for supper. In Ukraine, one store had a huge assortment of frozen varenyky (a kind of dumpling).
And of course, when friends come to visit me and we go shopping, they are always surprised at the number of cheeses available.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 10, 2010 17:07:49 GMT
In Carrefour here, in the tinned veg section, we have half a metre of peas and sweetcorn and about a hundred and fifty metres of different types of 'ful medames'. Then one lonely solitary can of baked beans.
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Post by bjd on Mar 10, 2010 17:09:45 GMT
I was told that in Carrefour in Chengdu, China, you can get snake meat and chicken feet.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2010 17:37:18 GMT
The Turkish superette next door to my apartment, in which I have never been, sells 5 cans of foul for 1.50€. Sooner or later I am going to have to spend 1.50€ in there.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 10, 2010 18:08:48 GMT
That's a lot of foul!
Why haven't you been in there, k2? Turks have great vegetable spreads, nice jarred veg, all sorts of interesting things...
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Post by cristina on Mar 11, 2010 1:29:20 GMT
The Turkish superette next door to my apartment, in which I have never been, sells 5 cans of foul for 1.50€. Sooner or later I am going to have to spend 1.50€ in there. 5 cans of foul food? Or 5 cans of canned fowl? Neither one sounds especially appetizing, to be honest.
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Post by cristina on Mar 11, 2010 1:44:15 GMT
I always visit supermarkets because that is all we really have here. We used to have a meat market, but no more. The only produce market is a farmer's market on weekends between here and the next town. The big markets and wally world have run all the little guys out. I guess I would not mind so much except they tend to limit your choices. The other alternatives are the ethnic groceries. We do have Mexican and Asian groceries not too far off. I miss being able to easily obtain things like fat pork, tomatoes that smell and taste like food, not wax, and bones. Ever since wally world determined to keep the butchers from forming a union by firing them all and having their meat delivered from plants already ready to shelve, seems like everyone is getting rid of butchers, and thus you can only get certain popular cuts in most large chains. We do still have a butcher at one local grocery, but even so he is limited as they don't just order big sides of beef and pork, or so he has told me. We tried to have a pig roast and were lucky to find someone able to get one for us from of all things a 4 H fair last year. gertie, its disappointing to read about your experience (especially in a cattle state!) I can say that while not perfect, I can still get most cuts of meat prepared by a butcher at Safeway, for example. Sometimes I need to put in a request a day or so ahead of time, but I have never been told that I couldn't get something. Yesterday, I had inquired about getting a lamb shoulder. They get shoulders ( or maybe more than the shoulder itself...I didn't ask), but they generally cut the shoulder into chops, I think. If I call in the morning, they will reserve a shoulder for me. No problems with getting bones when needed either (although they used to be free ). Regarding tomatoes...I'm with you sister! I haven't had one that smelled or tasted like a real tomato since I was a child eating them from my mother's garden.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 11, 2010 3:48:42 GMT
cristina, in English, the sound of "foul" would be more like "fool" but shorter. It would have nothing to do with jesters,nor ijuts, nor with foul or foul things.
You don't grow your own tomatoes? You can do that on a balcony. I've done it, though there are very good ones in season at Marché Jean-Talon.
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Post by cristina on Mar 11, 2010 3:58:06 GMT
cristina, in English, the sound of "foul" would be more like "fool" but shorter. It would have nothing to do with jesters,nor ijuts, nor with foul or foul things. You don't grow your own tomatoes? You can do that on a balcony. I've done it, though there are very good ones in season at Marché Jean-Talon. Lagatta, in English, fowl and foul sound exactly the same (at least American English, anyway). I was just having a little fun with K2. As for my growing tomatoes...that would require a green thumb and some discipline. This is not my forte at all. Even if I think it should be.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2010 5:53:23 GMT
This is foul:
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Post by onlymark on Mar 11, 2010 6:29:54 GMT
But this is more like how I eat it -
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2010 6:42:22 GMT
And I bet that the stuff that comes out of a can doesn't look quite like that.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 11, 2010 9:35:00 GMT
You're right, it doesn't, that's why I don't buy them. I slipped into my local Carrefour today to do the weekly shopping, and took my camera. Unfortunately after a couple of minutes a Manager type came to me and told me off as it was forbidden. I hung my head in shame and apologised profusely and bought myself a tray of ready peeled garlic in compensation, as I hate peeling them. However, I may have exaggerated as to the amount of tins of fuul, foul, ful there are - The poor quality is my fault as I was trying to do it without being spotted, but I was. But there are many tins of tuna - Plenty of garlic - And some other fruit and veg - I must also go back to find out what the difference is between 'super herring' and normal herring.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2010 9:40:44 GMT
I will probably go to Carrefour on Saturday, so we can compare!
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Post by gertie on Mar 11, 2010 9:48:03 GMT
I once purchased canned corned beef and wow I couldn't imagine how it was seemingly a whole country liked that glop. Now I've had the real deal and love it but it is amusing and hasn't stopped me from buying random things that look interesting in markets. Some of the things I have purchased were real treasures, and I have learned a lot of things.
Asian BBQ sauce isn't like ours, where you purchase one bottle and glop it on, apparently. I bought some thinking I'd try making some Asian BBQ such as I had eaten in restaurants and found it contained only a fishy-smelling oily liquid. I'm pretty sure either other things are used with it to get the customary color of Asian pork BBQ or this stuff was meant for grilling fish. I did get brave and use it on some tilapia I grilled and it tasted quite nice with just a splash of lemon.
Just because it has a chicken on the label doesn't mean there is any chicken actually in there.
Some fruits are not meant to be consumed like eating an apple.
Canned escargot can be pretty tasty if one tosses them in the food processor and lightly processes with some bread crumbs, a dash of flour, and garlic before frying sort of like spoon bread in ghee.
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Post by cristina on Mar 11, 2010 14:27:22 GMT
This is foul: OK...I misunderstood. Its what I have seen written "fuul."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2010 14:35:58 GMT
There are lots of ways to transliterate Arabic to the Roman alphabet. But the English version on the cans is usually written 'foul' -- at least the last cans that I bought imported from Syria were.
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Post by lagatta on Mar 11, 2010 14:52:15 GMT
I've also seen "ful", but most often "foul" (which would probably be from the French transliteration).
One store here has it in Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian recipes. But it is much nicer homemade.
only Mark, which country are you living in?
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Post by lola on Mar 11, 2010 15:16:42 GMT
We have a Shop N Save a half mile away. I take my bike with panniers or the shopping cart usually. Some Thursdays they have a deal where they subtract $10 when you spend $50 or more (excluding liquor). We call it "fifty dollar day", and my daughters and I will go and throw something more extravagant into the cart to offset the savings. Good produce, including organic, decent cheese section, an entire aisle of "international" food heavy on the Mexican but increasingly Bosnian, Indian, Thai. The clientele tends to be lower on the socioeconomic scale.
Trader Joe's is a 20 min bike ride away, or during the winter gets combined with other trips in that direction. That's where we get our $2.99 wine, frozen fish and other treats, organic chicken, dried fruits, breads. Our houseguest from Lyon was impressed by the cheese selection there, and thought their cheap CA Cabernet Sauvignon was just fine. Here you'll run into a more educated crowd, cute little kids pushing the miniature shopping carts alongside their parent, people from out of state telling the checker they wish they had a TJ in their town.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 11, 2010 15:25:31 GMT
Egypt.
I originally moved here to advise on a project the Egyptian government had as regards the pyramids at Giza. The encroachment of the city of Cairo was causing problems and pollution, as you would expect, also. There are also several other sets of pyramids within 30 kilometers or so and as a review of the tourist infrastructure and development of that field a decision was made in line with the current thinking of relocating the Egyptian Museum to the outskirts of the city.
They decided that a purpose built area would be set aside further south from Cairo where all the pyramids could be displayed in their full glory. No more fighting your way through traffic and suffering dirty air. You could now view the Giza, Dashur and Sakkara pyramids all at one site in a clear area in the desert. I was to advise on the best methods of moving the three at Giza about 20 km south.
The plans came to nothing though, as they often do here, due to corruption and argument of tenders for the work. British, German and Chinese companies offered to do the work but the British one pulled out at the first hurdle when they realised the tea was different. The German one stopped because they decided the measurements when the pyramids were built were inaccurate, and wanted to straighten it out a bit and line it up properly. The Chinese were, as you would expect, the cheapest, but it was rejected because they didn't want the insidious integration of Chinese take aways which would subject the local falafel and koshari food shops to financial hardship.
As it stands I'm in limbo waiting for the nod from the government to start dismantling the Sphinx first. Head, legs, body is the way to go, I think. The nose will have to be found though, or a new one made.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 11, 2010 15:26:48 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 11, 2010 15:32:26 GMT
Ay, Mark. Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark. ;D ;D ;D
You had totally suckered me in there for a minute.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2010 15:39:17 GMT
Mark, April 1st is still more than two weeks away.
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