Supermarket shopping in Germany

Since my Holland supermarket shopping post, you may wonder what I do the 7 out of 8 weeks when I am not across the border in either Holland or Belgium. Then I do my weekly shopping in Germany, mainly in the tiny town of B. where I live. In my neck of the woods (tiny town between Cologne and D'dorf), these are the usual options from most to least expensive:

1. Get in the car or take the bus/train to either Cologne, D'dorf or Bonn to the Kaufhof Galeria. I rarely do that because it requires too much effort and the food part is in the basement where there's no natural light. When I would go: when I require a nice bottle of wine, champagne, or something very specific that is difficult to find elsewhere, such as pasta shaped and colored like little sombreros.

2. Get in the car or go on foot to the Kaufpark in B. They have all of the basics that you could do your shopping there every single week, from vegetables to washing powder as well as some other stuff like a rack of greeting cars, some school supplies, sewing needs, plastic kitchen implements, etc. When I would go: when I need a crate of beer or water, or maybe when it's snowing outside and I just want to go to one place and be done with all shopping. Would not so heavily recommend the one in B. in the summer as the meat counter has a strong smell and it's next to the frozen area which is next to the checkout, so you're stuck with the scent whether you like it or not.

3. The heavy hitters of discount: the Penny Markt, Aldi Sued, Lidl, and Plus. They are smaller than the above stores, but inventory is ever-changing so if you go away for two or three months, perhaps 15% of the store has moved on to something new--like it was Chinese week when you left and now it's Mexican week, or computer week changed to exercise week. I know people who do all of their shopping at these places, in particular if they watch a budget. You can get all of your basic foodstuffs and vegetables there, as well as other things like toilet paper, chocolate, washing powder, or a bunch of cut flowers. They all go through 'themes'. Most of them are doing 'garden things' right now, so they'll sell garden gloves, plant dirt, watering cans, whatever.

Their advantage is that their prices tend to be very good. Their disadvantage is that once they've sold something, it's basically gone. Also, it's sometimes a 'take it or leave it' place. For example, they advertised a nice little 2 gig usb stick at Penny. Since my colleague goes every week, I sent her with the cash for the following week when they would sell them, and the instructions, 'it says various colors, you know what that means?' 'Yes Heather, no orange for you.' So what color does she come back with? Orange. Why? Because this particular Penny only got a shipment of Orange.

4. My personal favorite-the Turkish vegetable stores. The other side of B. is heavily Turkish. I stumbled into one of these stores the one day and was pleasantly surprised by the selection of vegetables, although they also sell some other Turkish things, like pepper, bread, dried lentils, and yogurt. I was unpleasantly surprised when the woman shouts across the room in a booming Turkish/German voice, something in German about 'return'. My brain moved in slow motion...i didn't have any bottles...they close at 19, it's only 18....oh--she's noticing that I have returned, I was here last week. Her friendly shouting and asking if I needed help in my early days of German comprehension actually scared me into going into the other Turkish store about 2 min away on foot where they are much more soft spoken.

At this 'other' one they also sell Portuguese and Polish foods, in addition to the usual German and Turkish stuff. It's the type of mom and pop place that you may remember as a kid in the US, or at least on TV. The friendly shop owner often gives the kids a piece of candy and things mysteriously appear from under the counter for certain customers and are put into their bags as a special gift. When I've gone in and it's not busy either the owner or her son have put up with a lot of my bad German because they insist on asking me questions, like what I am doing here. Very friendly people, she showed me a photo from under the counter of her daughter in a wedding dress. The daughter now lives in Portugal, which explains the Portuguese wares.

On Saturday I stopped by, with my TJ bag filled with some empty bottles and handed her the bag. She takes care of them while I shop. Then, I usually buy a bagful to get me through the week:

Here was this week's fine bounty, for a grand total of 8 euros. That's a head of lettuce, some cilantro, an eggplant, a small broccoli, a zucchini, 2 bunches of green onions, some green beans in the front in the plastic bag, some mushrooms in another plastic bag, a hunk of ginger, two cans of kidney beans, and on top of them, a Polish candy bar to share with my Polish teacher as I go back to class on Monday.

You'll also note 3 garlics. Garlic isn't looking that great anywhere, but it is essential for the recipe I was making. I picked one up and as the owner was ringing me up, she frowned. 'Go and pick another one.' Ok, so I pick another one, and she frowns again. Obviously the American cannot be trusted on this task, so she gets up herself to go feel up all the garlics and to frown at them. Finally she picks the biggest one, comes back and says, 'I'm not sure, so I only charge you for one' and throws the three in the bag.


So what was the end result of the above? My favorite Chinese dish, recipe comes from here. (Yes, it includes tofu on the top left. That came from Aldi Sued.)

5. Since it is the tiny town of B., there is also the option to buy direct from the local farms. Apples, potatoes, jam, honey, uncultured yogurt, whatever is in season that they produce, they sell. It's a good option, but it does involve the car and a 7 min drive minimum which is why I don't go to them every single week. However, if you ever need a certain variety of potato, I know just the place, a farm that does only potatoes, on the edge of B. You go in and tell them what you're looking to cook, and they will tell you the proper potato variety that you want to buy to make your recipe turn out its best.