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Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

economist.com

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Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#381

Post by baby »

fredley wrote: post #32

UK supermarkets are crap, and have got noticeably crapper in recent years. At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg, and a maeger selection of almost entirely prepackaged meat and fish. I have noticed many things are routinely out of stock and it can be a lottery shopping for a specific recipe. I recently visited Portugal, and in a small city supermarket there was a bakery, me…

Same in France. My parents basically never go there and just shop at farmers’ markets, or butchers, or bakers, or fishermen, etc.

Although I remember waitrose in the UK not being bad

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#382

Post by sealaska »

klodolph wrote: post #334
quartesixte wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child of immigrants (who were farmers/rural prior to coming to America) sit-down dinner with family was tantamount if you were eating at home that day. I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense. I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have beco…

American. Everyone I knew had dinners with the whole family most of the time. The Thanksgiving issue is when your bigoted aunt / uncle / cousin / grandparent shows up. Or your dad and uncle fight over something that happened fifty years ago, or your grandma acts like an ass to your lesbian aunt, or something. Just to pick examples from personal experience.

American. 28. Grew up going to an inner city school with a bit of a class divide. Thinking about it now, the upper class families were more likely to eat dinner together; but I knew very many classmates that did not.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#383

Post by bobthepanda »

b112 wrote: post #377
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was specifically about the sugar content and how American tastes have morphed to expect those things. Good tomato sauce does not take hours unless you're trying to cook it in a skillet on a sidewalk in Arizona. Sunday sauce is a bit different, but that's because you're simmering meat in it. Gravy is an entirely different animal. Yes, it's mostly flour and corn starch, but it's also not the star of the dish the way…

I'm going to hang my comment here! Your corn starch statement made a perfect hook, but there are a lot of gravy comments I don't understand in this thread. I don't get why people would use flavour packets when making gravy, or why people would use corn starch. Not saying it's wrong, but that it seems unneeded. For example, let's say I fry up a pork chop. I may put 1/2 a spanish onion in the pan, and I'd definitely ad…

Corn starch in American sauces was probably introduced by Chinese immigrants, where starched based sauces are extremely common instead of flour-based ones, since wheat is historically less common in southern China (where most early Chinese immigrants came from)

Starch also has the nice property of tenderizing meat and locking in juices when used in a marinade, in a process called “velveting.” https://www.bonappetit.com/story/velveting-meat/amp

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#384

Post by enos-ape »

asiachick wrote: post #310
jandrewrogers wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this generalizes, it really depends on where you live in the US. I work in Europe and know many US expats there, so this is something we talk about. The consensus has been that the quality and diversity of fresh foods in the US these days is frequently superior in many categories at the median, though notably worse in others. The paucity of good produce is noticeable everywhere, for example, a fraction…

You're right, I forgot about the cheese shops, because in France I wouldn't have to go out of my way to find good cheese. But, "Bread is indistinguishable"? WAT? Really? I guess we have different tastes. Other than some sourdough there is no bread I've had that I like in SF. That definitely varies by country in Europe. Hard to find good bread in Germany and some of those northern countries have their interesting brea…

> Hard to find good bread in Germany

Must be a different Germany in a different Universe..

Back in Germany anybody who (realy) cares about bread wouldn't even think about buying those mass-baked chemicals from the stores. For bread you go to a craft bakery which you can find everywhere - if you don't just look for around the neighborhood of the big Supermarkets.

And in those magical craft bakeries you'll find it hard not to buy anything at once, but at least a good dark, handmade in the night before, bread.

I've been around quite a bit, it's hard to find something comparable to a German or Central European dark bread enywhere else.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#385

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

fredley wrote: post #32

UK supermarkets are crap, and have got noticeably crapper in recent years. At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg, and a maeger selection of almost entirely prepackaged meat and fish. I have noticed many things are routinely out of stock and it can be a lottery shopping for a specific recipe. I recently visited Portugal, and in a small city supermarket there was a bakery, me…

Booths (regional chain in the northwest) are outstanding; Waitrose are obviously good too. Our local co-op, Midcounties (the second biggest, I think) has a number of Food Market stores which have a really decent range. But if you go by Tesco and Asda you’ll be disappointed.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#386

Post by sealaska »

lettergram wrote: post #276
quartesixte wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child of immigrants (who were farmers/rural prior to coming to America) sit-down dinner with family was tantamount if you were eating at home that day. I assumed everyone did this, until I found out most of my friends did not eat dinner together with family. My shock at this was immense. I wonder if Thanksgiving dinners are equally so contentious as they are cherished because of how rare family dinners have beco…

My family growing up and my family now; we make it an absolute must to eat every dinner together. We also tend to invite people over. It’s honestly the most important thing you can do as a parent. Let’s you know about your kids lives, share in the ritual, and generally bond.

Do you, or will you, allow your children to participate in extracurricular activities? Or is eating every dinner together less of an absolute priority as you claim? Your comment makes it sound like you may have some.

I ask because most of the dinners I missed growing up were due to sports.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#387

Post by jhbadger »

basisword wrote: post #371
fredley wrote: post #32

UK supermarkets are crap, and have got noticeably crapper in recent years. At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg, and a maeger selection of almost entirely prepackaged meat and fish. I have noticed many things are routinely out of stock and it can be a lottery shopping for a specific recipe. I recently visited Portugal, and in a small city supermarket there was a bakery, me…

>> At even large mid-tier supermarkets you will find a paltry range of fruit and veg How much do you need? Is the problem that the supermarkets are crap or that your expectations are stupidly high? Any large Tesco/Sainsburys etc has every vegetable that I’ve ever tasted available all year round.

That reminds me of a scene from the movie "Infamous" which is about Truman Capote and Harper Lee traveling to rural Kansas in the 1960s to research Capote's true crime book "In Cold Blood". Truman visits a grocery store to buy cheese and only finds Velveeta processed cheese there. He asks an employee if that's all the cheese they have. The employee says "Well, how much do you need?" missing the point that it wasn't the amount but the lack of variety that was the issue.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#388

Post by hawaiianbrah »

sealaska wrote: post #386
lettergram wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family growing up and my family now; we make it an absolute must to eat every dinner together. We also tend to invite people over. It’s honestly the most important thing you can do as a parent. Let’s you know about your kids lives, share in the ritual, and generally bond.

Do you, or will you, allow your children to participate in extracurricular activities? Or is eating every dinner together less of an absolute priority as you claim? Your comment makes it sound like you may have some. I ask because most of the dinners I missed growing up were due to sports.

I had dinner together with my family very, very regularly growing up. I also did a ton of extracurriculars, including sports. I think when I was younger, it was every night as a family. In high school, I’d miss dinner on competition nights or when that particular sport’s practice schedule was incompatible with dinner time for whatever reason.

I plan on having dinner together as many nights as possible when I start a family, but not to the extent of disallowing extracurriculars. But I also think that I would discourage my kids from being so involved elsewhere that we can’t have dinner together as a family a couple times a week.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#389

Post by AngusH »

bpye wrote: post #330
laurencerowe wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I miss U.K. supermarkets now I live in the US. (I moved before Brexit so things are probably much worse there now.) Tesco somehow always managed to have what I needed but my local Safeway in SF frequently has empty shelves (predating the pandemic.) And unless you go to Trader Joe’s (which is missing a bunch of other stuff) there’re no nice freshly preprepared meals available.

I moved from the UK to Canada and still miss UK supermarkets to a degree. That said, I went back for ~1 month last summer and often ended up needing to go to multiple supermarkets to find basic things such as chicken breasts... If Brexit isn't the cause I'd be very surprised.

More likely covid was the issue (assuming you went in 2021?)

A lot of unavoidable staff sickness has caused major troubles in manufacturing and delivery of goods.

Plus some real stupidity relating to tax and licensing of lorry drivers. :-(

Yes, brexit has had an effect, but I think covid is more significant.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#390

Post by burnished »

solarmist wrote: post #322
burnished wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Like your railing on frozen food. You realize frozen food is far fresher and less likely to have “chemicals” or whatever is your choice enemy right? I think you're making stuff up here.

Nope. This is true, but phrased in adversarial way. Google flash frozen foods. When frozen they can pause the aging of the food at a chosen time vs shipping it both the consumer and shipper are hoping to get the timing right. So frozen goods have much better control over the state of the food the reaches the consumer. Freezing also physically protects foods by making them harder.

Thank you, I should have been more specific, I meant 'making stuff up' in reference to the adversarial portion.
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