Caviar and Curry

It occurred to me this afternoon, as I was preparing a snack (caviar on crackers), that our local grocery store is weird.

Grocery stores are awesome places. In Korea, there were entire aisles of ramen noodles, tuna and seaweed. You could buy things like green tea noodles, and a million different kinds of tofu. The seafood section was immense, with live fish, and giant crabs in tanks (in Taiwan, we saw live frogs for sale next to the giant crabs). You could also find $100 bottles of whiskey, but no normal cheese or butter.

Obviously, eating habits are cultural... and grocery stores reflect this. I remember being reverse culture-shocked to see how big the "bakery" section was in grocery stores in Canada.

The local co-op here obviously doesn't sell pork or alcohol (but we can go to the Spinney's in Abu Dhabi to find those items -- the pork is accessed through a door at the back of the store marked "Pork for Non-Muslims Only", almost like the Adult section of a video store), but you can buy clothes, towels and toiletries. There are entire sections full of spices and basmati rice, olive oil from Palestine and chutneys and pickles from India. In amongst these items are baffling luxury imports like garlic mayonnaise and caviar, or cheese from Ireland. The fresh produce section is non-existent, except for a small counter where you need to pick through to find the non-wormy apples (there is a fruit market in town where you can find all manner of odd fruits, like lichees or spiny melons too).

Over the past 3 years, there are certain items which, for me, have become "imported luxuries", like coffee, brown bread, not-fluorescent-yellow mustard and certain veggies, like celery and iceberg lettuce -- all universally difficult to find/very expensive outside North America -- that I will pay top dollar for when I find them.

Only a few more days before we reach Canada! And brown bread! And celery! Mmmm, my mouth is watering already.