When we travel, Harry loves to visit historical museums –
particularly those with planes hanging from the ceiling. But I think the best way to find out about
the culture of a region is to visit their grocery stores. I love going to Monoprix in France, Waitrose
in England, and Lindl in Germany. There
was a great store next to our hotel in Maastricht in the Netherlands and Harry
will admit he enjoyed the chocolate puddings complete with whipped cream for
.19 euro. There are products we don’t
have here in the U.S. or they are packaged differently. Some of the European stores have refrigerated
shelves where they keep the dairy products that look like regular shelves. Eggs aren’t refrigerated at all in England
and in France there is more wine than soda.
But you don’t have to travel outside of the U.S. to
experience different cultures. I
remember when I was teaching in Arizona how the supermarkets there devoted an
entire aisle to salsa. An even closer
cultural phenomenon to us is the Piggly Wiggly. There are two Piggly Wigglys in Blountstown,
Florida on Route 20 about 40 miles away.
They are between Tallahassee and the beaches on the gulf coast so I must
make a stop each time we go. There are
products there that you don’t see in other stores. I always find something to buy. We stopped on the way back from Panama City
on Monday. I bought some string beans to
make with ham I had at home and also picked up a jar of “cranberry spread”
which I had never seen before and I love cranberries. I also bought some drink mix that is iced
tea/lemonade/pomengranate. That mix at
Whole Foods would cost about 8 dollars but I paid $1.50. You can see in the photos here of some other
unique products that I didn’t
buy.
I first became aware of Piggly Wiggly in the movie, Driving Miss Daisy. Miss Daisy was a wealthy older woman in
Atlanta and had a black chauffer who drove her everywhere – including the
Piggly Wiggly. They are a southern
tradition. I found that there is a museum
in Memphis that has an historical Piggly Wiggly replica:
Maybe Harry and I can both be happy with a stop there.
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