I’m not sure if I mentioned this here, but I used to work in a very upscale Westchester town, but I loved the market there. I used to get my lunch there every day as they had a well priced/stocked salad bar - cheaper than any lunch I could get at one of the restaurants in town. Anyway, I digress. One day I was behind a man who, after having his items rung up (BTW - this place had no express line) said - oh, I need to go get money. Really. He left. Was he going to his car to get a wallet he forgot? Where was he going? The cashier was very sweet and voided his sale and took my item. She did it quickly enough that I saw this guy jump into his mercedes and leave! Found out the next day he came back a few minutes later - I think he went to the bank!!!
You haven’t even addressed all the printed coupons they hand you as well. If there’s too much for me to deal with, i just push my cart out of the way and then sort everything out. Then again, at the supermarket, I always use a credit or debit card, so I have coins and bills only at a place like Dollar Tree or the produce store.
Me, too. Especially in non-European countries; these are from South Africa:
(If the caption on the first is too small, that’s a whole oxhead in the freezer section.)
Where we were there were are two stores, Superspar and Boxer. As our guide described it, Superspar is where people with electricity shop and Boxer is where people with kerosene stoves shop.
Boxer’s symbol is, not surprisingly, a boxer. Apparently the people in southern Africa are heavier and more muscular, so that is the region know for its boxers, while east Africans are more wiry and produce more long-distance runners. So this explains, I guess, why the name and symbol–many of the heavyweight champions have been of southern African origin.
The customers may not have electricity, but Boxer does. It has freezers, credit card swipers, and so on. It even has an electric bread-slicing machine; after you buy your whole loaf of bread, you can have it evenly sliced. (This is sort of like the coffee grinders in stores that sell whole beans.)
However, it is a bit shabbier-looking than the Superspars (although to be fair, we did not go into the Hluhluwe Superspar, and it may have been shabbier as well). The lights are not as glaringly bright, the produce not as perfect-looking (and mostly sold in bulk sacks, rather than individual items), the freezers not as modern. In Superspar, the freezers are upright sections with shelves and glass doors. In Boxer, they are the waist-high open-top freezers of our youth (well, my youth, anyway). And what is in them is far more basic. There is no ice cream–no one who shops in a Boxer would buy a carton of ice cream to take home. Instead there are packages of chicken heads and feet, whole ox heads, packages of mixed offal, and so on. (In Khayelitscha we saw roadside vendors selling all the various parts of chickens.)
Fascinating look at the supermarkets there!
What is the paraffin used for?
Sold by Shell. How interesting.
I have a friend from childhood who’s a missionary in Nigeria, but her market looks more like a roadside produce market. Lots of interesting fruits and vegetables.
It’s apparently another name for kerosene, and used in cooking stores, etc.
Ah! Not what we sealed jam and preserves jars with.
Thanks!
I’m having company this weekend and decided to make marzipan cheesecake. I needed 8 oz and, of course, the package was 7 oz so I got 2. It’s marzipan, I’ll eat it! They were $7.99 each. That was Stop and Shop, who, naturally, did not have everything I needed, so on to Shopite. Happened to pass the marzipan there. Same thing - $5.99.
My sister recently mentioned an old recipe of our Mother’s she had made. She felt it didn’t turn out the same as it used to. I mentioned the shrinking sizes of foods which she hadn’t noticed. She’s planning to remake the recipe with the amounts of ingredients called for and see if that was the issue.
There are so many older recipes which just call for a specific sized can - it was such a given that all the brands contained the same quantity.
Here are some more “Tip” containers at the check out of Food Bazaar! 37th Avenue & Junction Blvd. .Jackson Heights, NY
One of the reasons I don’t shop at Stop & Shop even though it’s a 10 minute closer walk than the other store. While it’s a decent stocked stores, many items are a good 5-15% more. I only go there if I’m desperate and need something now, or if it’s a product the other stores don’t carry.
@PHREDDY – that’s weird to me. I’ve never seen tip jars and tip cups at a cashier at a grocery store.
I do think it is deplorable, but the stores I have noted are in areas with very diverse immigrant populations…perhaps it is a cultural thing?
Hi everyone!
Just saw this thread and I had to join! My number one supermarket pet peeve is when you’re waiting at the queue to check out and somebody bumps you from behind with their shopping trolley (it’s happened so often to me that I’m used to it by now).
How often has it happened to you guys?
Yes, I hate that. People with prams do it as well. They probably ram your parked car and think nothing of it.
Also, welcome to the forum. Check out the into thread and other sections, too.
Hi Presunto!
Thanks a lot, I was going through some of the other discussions right now, as a matter of fact! And yes, I totally agree with you, some people just don’t have any sense at all!
I actually had one woman do it on purpose. I was paying and not getting out of her way fast enough so she just kept walking forward - pushing me with her cart!
And welcome Clamshell!!! Nice to have you here!!
I thought this interesting…
I can relate to this essay. (I’m dating myself) I grew up in an America where there were no supermarkets, and very few suburbs. In those days, someone you knew had a Dad who was a Milkman, and another Dad who sold bakery items from a route truck. Every neighborhood had a Corner Store; and if it didn’t stock an items you wanted, you didn’t need it.
Thanks for posting this, bbqboy.
My latest: The ShopRite in Aberdeen remodeled a couple of years ago and created an “organic” section of a couple of aisles. Now when I want to look for, say, grape juice, I have to check the regular juice aisle and the organic aisle. For some things, I also need to check the “ethnic” aisle. For banana chips, it turns out that the brand I was looking for were not with the other banana chips at all, but on an end cap.
I understand completely why more people are just ordering on-line. Trying to navigate the mysteries of where things are located (don’t even get me started on how many times in the last two years they’re re-arranged the dairy section!) is just ridiculous.
Remember. The shopping cart or basket with no one tending it had absolutely no cred of holding the line for them . Unless they return before their turn in line .
