A trip to a Swiss grocery store never ceases to astound me. First of all, there’s the issue of product organization, or the lack thereof. Wine is sold next to dog food, and milk shares shelf space with chocolate. It takes me an inordinate amount of time to collect a short list of groceries that fit into one shopping basket, because I have to circle the entire store for each item, not knowing if I should look for spices in the candy aisle or the canned goods aisle, or somewhere else altogether.
The actual products being sold can be equally baffling. Got milk? There’s the boxed kind that stays good for months, and there’s the bottled kind that requires refrigeration. Whole milk is king, because apparently, low fat and skim milk are not so popular here. Want toothpaste? The most popular brand here is black licorice-flavored. Knowing how our normal, mint toothpaste tastes with orange juice, I shudder upon imagining the stomach-turning flavor combinations experienced after brushing with licorice toothpaste. Need ice? It’s not a simple matter of going to the corner store to buy a five-pound bag, since most Swiss don’t buy ice. You can go to the fish market and ask them to fill up a bag of ice (I can only hope it’s pre-fish ice, rather than post-fish ice), or you can go to the cleaning supplies aisle of the grocery store and buy these little plastic bags that you fill with water and freeze to make ice balls (no automatic icemakers or ice cube trays here).
So then you take your basket to the cashier, and you realize that you haven’t brought grocery bags. D’oh. Add some to your basket for about 25 cents each, or try to carry everything home in little plastic bags that each fit one or two items. Bag it yourself, since there isn’t an awkward teenager standing at the ready to put your groceries in bags for you.
The next hurdle comes when unloading groceries at home. The fridges here are about half the size of a regular American fridge, and the freezer is even more miniscule. My parents have two full-sized fridges and freezers full to the gills at home, just for the two of them, but I have to fit everything into a hobbit-sized fridge. I have been told that the Swiss make multiple trips to the grocery store each week, but who has that kind of time, since it takes an hour to find and buy each basket of groceries?
So, knowing how frustrating it is to find groceries, carry them home and take them upstairs, last week I decided to try out the grocery delivery service that is available here. There is only a limited selection of goods available, and the delivery charge is pretty hefty, but there’s a new user’s discount, so I figured I’d give it a go and see if it matched up to FreshDirect (it didn’t). I was specifically shopping for Fiver’s food, as the vet has put him on a new diet of horse and potatoes. Yes, the grocery stores here sell horsemeat, as in "giddyup, horsie, let's gallop to the slaughterhouse so I can eat you," and what I find somewhat mind-boggling is that I can have pounds and pounds of horsemeat delivered to my door with a click of the mouse, but I can’t find things like creamed corn.
In any case, you would think that with all these difficulties in finding and storing food that I would have starved to death by now, but I seem to be quite safe, probably due to the fact that cheese, chocolate, and pasta have become three of my main food groups here.
On an unrelated note, I have dreamed up a malicious plot, ahem, I mean, an interesting psychological experiment that I would love to try out at some point, if I am motivated enough, and if I decide that the potential negative ramifications are minimal. The Swiss adore rules, and will obey them blindly and to the letter, without ever stopping to question the purpose and effectiveness of said rules. My proposal is to make some official-looking signs setting out a temporary rule, something along the lines of, “Due to intermittent construction, please use the opposite sidewalk for the week of ____.” Next, post the signs on a street that gets a lot of pedestrian traffic, and sit and laugh, (read: make sophisticated scientific observations). Will they notice that there is no construction? Will they obey the sign? Or perhaps I should make it even more absurd. “To use this street between ___ and ___, please take a ticket, or if there are none left, please apply for a ticket at [office] on Mondays and Thursdays between 2 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.” How many people would show up at the office? How many people would use the street without a ticket? And the Swiss question, could I get in trouble for doing this? The American version of the same question, what are the chances that I would get caught?
Also unrelated: I went to a Chinese restaurant this past weekend. Well, *tried* to go to a Chinese restaurant. But they were closed for two weeks for vacation!! Their phone rang and rang, unfettered by an answering machine, and it was only upon arriving at the front door of restaurant that we discovered the two week closing. What kind of restaurant, especially a Chinese restaurant, completely closes for two weeks? And what kind of business doesn't even leave an answering machine on, letting customers know that they are closed??
The actual products being sold can be equally baffling. Got milk? There’s the boxed kind that stays good for months, and there’s the bottled kind that requires refrigeration. Whole milk is king, because apparently, low fat and skim milk are not so popular here. Want toothpaste? The most popular brand here is black licorice-flavored. Knowing how our normal, mint toothpaste tastes with orange juice, I shudder upon imagining the stomach-turning flavor combinations experienced after brushing with licorice toothpaste. Need ice? It’s not a simple matter of going to the corner store to buy a five-pound bag, since most Swiss don’t buy ice. You can go to the fish market and ask them to fill up a bag of ice (I can only hope it’s pre-fish ice, rather than post-fish ice), or you can go to the cleaning supplies aisle of the grocery store and buy these little plastic bags that you fill with water and freeze to make ice balls (no automatic icemakers or ice cube trays here).
So then you take your basket to the cashier, and you realize that you haven’t brought grocery bags. D’oh. Add some to your basket for about 25 cents each, or try to carry everything home in little plastic bags that each fit one or two items. Bag it yourself, since there isn’t an awkward teenager standing at the ready to put your groceries in bags for you.
The next hurdle comes when unloading groceries at home. The fridges here are about half the size of a regular American fridge, and the freezer is even more miniscule. My parents have two full-sized fridges and freezers full to the gills at home, just for the two of them, but I have to fit everything into a hobbit-sized fridge. I have been told that the Swiss make multiple trips to the grocery store each week, but who has that kind of time, since it takes an hour to find and buy each basket of groceries?
So, knowing how frustrating it is to find groceries, carry them home and take them upstairs, last week I decided to try out the grocery delivery service that is available here. There is only a limited selection of goods available, and the delivery charge is pretty hefty, but there’s a new user’s discount, so I figured I’d give it a go and see if it matched up to FreshDirect (it didn’t). I was specifically shopping for Fiver’s food, as the vet has put him on a new diet of horse and potatoes. Yes, the grocery stores here sell horsemeat, as in "giddyup, horsie, let's gallop to the slaughterhouse so I can eat you," and what I find somewhat mind-boggling is that I can have pounds and pounds of horsemeat delivered to my door with a click of the mouse, but I can’t find things like creamed corn.
In any case, you would think that with all these difficulties in finding and storing food that I would have starved to death by now, but I seem to be quite safe, probably due to the fact that cheese, chocolate, and pasta have become three of my main food groups here.
On an unrelated note, I have dreamed up a malicious plot, ahem, I mean, an interesting psychological experiment that I would love to try out at some point, if I am motivated enough, and if I decide that the potential negative ramifications are minimal. The Swiss adore rules, and will obey them blindly and to the letter, without ever stopping to question the purpose and effectiveness of said rules. My proposal is to make some official-looking signs setting out a temporary rule, something along the lines of, “Due to intermittent construction, please use the opposite sidewalk for the week of ____.” Next, post the signs on a street that gets a lot of pedestrian traffic, and sit and laugh, (read: make sophisticated scientific observations). Will they notice that there is no construction? Will they obey the sign? Or perhaps I should make it even more absurd. “To use this street between ___ and ___, please take a ticket, or if there are none left, please apply for a ticket at [office] on Mondays and Thursdays between 2 p.m. and 3:45 p.m.” How many people would show up at the office? How many people would use the street without a ticket? And the Swiss question, could I get in trouble for doing this? The American version of the same question, what are the chances that I would get caught?
Also unrelated: I went to a Chinese restaurant this past weekend. Well, *tried* to go to a Chinese restaurant. But they were closed for two weeks for vacation!! Their phone rang and rang, unfettered by an answering machine, and it was only upon arriving at the front door of restaurant that we discovered the two week closing. What kind of restaurant, especially a Chinese restaurant, completely closes for two weeks? And what kind of business doesn't even leave an answering machine on, letting customers know that they are closed??
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