The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
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Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#2Shopping for food in grocery stores was one of the highlights of touring Switzerland in a rented motorhome (for the record Migros > Coop > Aldi IMO).
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#3I've been telling friends and family this for years. It's by far my favorite thing to see in a new city in a region I've never been before. It's sort of like a modern anthropological exhibit in more ways than any other single city structure.
There was a photography coffee table book I loved, where the artist took pictures of an entire family around their table, which had all of the food they ate for a week on it.
I've since forgotten the name of the book (if anyone knows it please tell me -- search isn't turning up much), but grocery stores feel like as close as a regular tourist can get to those personal scenes.
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#4I've been telling friends and family this for years. It's by far my favorite thing to see in a new city in a region I've never been before. It's sort of like a modern anthropological exhibit in more ways than any other single city structure. There was a photography coffee table book I loved, where the artist took pictures of an entire family around their table, which had all of the food they ate for a week on it. I'v…
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#5I've been telling friends and family this for years. It's by far my favorite thing to see in a new city in a region I've never been before. It's sort of like a modern anthropological exhibit in more ways than any other single city structure. There was a photography coffee table book I loved, where the artist took pictures of an entire family around their table, which had all of the food they ate for a week on it. I'v…
Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel
https://fstoppers.com/food/what-week-groceries-looks-around-...
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#6I've been telling friends and family this for years. It's by far my favorite thing to see in a new city in a region I've never been before. It's sort of like a modern anthropological exhibit in more ways than any other single city structure. There was a photography coffee table book I loved, where the artist took pictures of an entire family around their table, which had all of the food they ate for a week on it. I'v…
The book you're thinking of is probably Hungry Planet[1]
[1]https://menzelphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Hungry-Planet-F...
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#7As a kid the differences between Canadian and American grocery stores was amazing. Especially chocolate bars.
Not so different anymore, aside from the prevalence of corn based sweeteners.
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#8Libraries are also a good way to tour a city. Get a transit card from a grocery store or a convenient store (also a lotto ticket because you never know).
Start with the main branch, then on to the various neighborhood branches. It’s important to pick a section you are interested in beforehand. Fiction might be too overwhelming, so I’d go for the math or computer technology sections.
Once you’ve done this in multiple cities you can compare the sizes of those sections between different cities and how current the books are, i.e, for tech books, do they have books on the latest trend in programming languages.
Go to coffee shops and bakeries in between. I can usually squeeze in the main branch and one or two neighborhood branches in a day. Research the city to figure out which neighborhood libraries to go.
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#9As a kid the differences between Canadian and American grocery stores was amazing. Especially chocolate bars. Not so different anymore, aside from the prevalence of corn based sweeteners.
You still can’t get Mr. Big in American grocery stores.
Re: The best way to tour a city is through its grocery store
#10Which city only has one grocery store?