Food is one of the most quintessential portals to human culture. The dinner table defines celebrations, runs in tandem to traditions – you can learn a great deal about people, simply by eating what they put in front of you. Of course, food preparation is but one aspect of the cultural food identity. If you take away grandma’s secret recipe, or the thanksgiving turkey, or the special spice purée passed down through the generations, what you’re left with is the bare ingredients. Thus, food culture becomes less of what you eat, and more of what you buy. Where you shop, how you shop, and what you shop for all define a more personal food culture that’s more easily influenced by the social environment around us. For the last two weeks, I’ve been window shopping in a number of different grocery stores, in an attempt to better understand the food culture that surrounds them. Join me as a take a step back, and look at some of the aspects of food shopping that you may not always think about on your weekend trip to the supermarket.
Let’s start simple. Regardless of where you live and how you shop, there’s a brand name you probably know by heart: Walmart. Established in 1962, the Walmart franchise has become the poster child for mega stores, which sell everything from produce to furniture, and all that lies between. Even if your town doesn’t have a Walmart, you probably have the same store with a fresh coat of paint. Here in the Northern Midwest, we have Meijer. While I have very limited experience with Walmart, I can assure you that the two stores are essentially the same. Food is allocated to the far left-most portion of the store, and the selection is as enormous as the warehouse roof overhead. Proteins, grains, dairy, produce - if you could serve it at a table, Meijer has it in at least 3 different name brands. Products line a football field’s length of shelves, stacked back to back and sold in bulk. Entire aisles are dedicated to breads, or lunch meats, or sodas, while more exotic options are allocated to subsections of the occasional “foreign foods” aisle. This is a common theme throughout the store; while specialized foods exist, they are vastly outnumbered by common household staples. Of course, the Meijer shopper isn’t known to be a connoisseur – it’s hard to pass as sustenance savvy when you’re buying eggs from the same aisle as your toilet paper. Meijer is popular among college students and lower class adults, due to its competitive prices and broad spectrum of options. Sales line the walls, Meijer brand products provide inexpensive alternatives for those less concerned with quality, and there are cleansers, clothes, and toiletries for those of us too busy with school or work to make a second trip. It’s not unusual to find yourself navigating a sea of shopping carts as you try to stock up in the final hours of the weekend bend. Additionally, Meijer is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, so anyone can wander in whenever they please. After all, the name of the superstore game is convenience; specialty stores may do better, but they could never do as much.
Of course, if you have a good deal of money and time to burn on a more specialized shopping trip, there are a number of smaller franchises willing to accept your patronage. Foods for Living is a small grocery store hidden in an isolated shopping center, about half a mile from Meijer. I stopped in on a Sunday afternoon in hopes of finding the same kind of crowds you would see rushing the superstore supermarkets. Needless to say, I was woefully unprepared for what I found inside. As you walk in, you are immediately confronted with the smell of lavender and sage; decorative foliage lines each wall as young, enthusiastic cashiers greet you from the entrance. First, let’s discuss prices. Gallons of milk cost $5. Cereal boxes cost anywhere from $6-10. Pomegranates were $2.50 each, a whopping 50 cents more expensive per head than at Meijer. Everything I would normally buy myself for the week was 2-3 times more expensive than the brands to which I was accustomed. That, and the brands are completely unrecognizable. Unusually shaped boxes and bottles advertise freshness with colorful labels and tempting visuals that you really don’t find in the standard spread of foodstuffs. Bread was allocated to a single heated cabinet, while significant store space was dedicated to organic granola and nuts of all shapes and size. I could not find a single brand of any variety of product that I could recognize off-hand. The customers were few and far between, even on a busy weekend. I noticed a handful of mostly elderly, mostly white individuals that would greet the cashiers by name and rarely collect enough groceries to fill a hand basket. The price ranges certainly favor a wealthier clientele, and the slew of healthier looking options likely appeal to a more discerning crowd. As a college student who’s just looking to eat enough in the coming week without binging on cheap pizza, I found myself quickly overwhelmed with everything that lay before me. I waited until all of the cashiers were busy to slip out unnoticed; this didn’t seem like a store you could walk into just to browse, and I was certain that my empty hands made me seem a kleptomaniac.
Our final grocery gathering destination is a local farmer’s market, held once a week until the winter months, during which it’s held twice a month at an indoor pavilion. At the moment, the market manifests itself as a collection of tents set up in a local parking lot. Farmer’s from all across the county greet passersby with kind expressions that make you feel guilty for never bringing quite enough money. I had the opportunity to sit down with a number of local growers that explained their production process in great detail, only to get interrupted by regulars who would complete a transaction so thoughtlessly comfortable that I didn’t even notice the exchanging of goods through all the small talk. It’s awfully hard not to feel at home when you’re surrounded by actual families, selling you their lifeblood with shivering smiles and heartfelt sales pitches. The customers were just as colorful; older folks would stare discerningly at price tags and demand exact product details while younger shoppers would roll through and leave with tote bags full of whatever they could get for $20. It was difficult to determine whether or not prices were fair, since most products were sold independently. $8 for a jar of pesto seems perfectly reasonable when you see the calloused hands on the man who made them. The produce felt much more affordable, with smaller items like eggplants and tomatoes clocking in at incredibly low prices. I ended leaving with a bag of red tomatoes, a slightly overpriced bag of greens, and a collection of lemon scented body soaps, which were given to me for free. The entire venture cost me $13, and it was the only shopping trip wherein I couldn’t help but indulge.
Let’s start simple. Regardless of where you live and how you shop, there’s a brand name you probably know by heart: Walmart. Established in 1962, the Walmart franchise has become the poster child for mega stores, which sell everything from produce to furniture, and all that lies between. Even if your town doesn’t have a Walmart, you probably have the same store with a fresh coat of paint. Here in the Northern Midwest, we have Meijer. While I have very limited experience with Walmart, I can assure you that the two stores are essentially the same. Food is allocated to the far left-most portion of the store, and the selection is as enormous as the warehouse roof overhead. Proteins, grains, dairy, produce - if you could serve it at a table, Meijer has it in at least 3 different name brands. Products line a football field’s length of shelves, stacked back to back and sold in bulk. Entire aisles are dedicated to breads, or lunch meats, or sodas, while more exotic options are allocated to subsections of the occasional “foreign foods” aisle. This is a common theme throughout the store; while specialized foods exist, they are vastly outnumbered by common household staples. Of course, the Meijer shopper isn’t known to be a connoisseur – it’s hard to pass as sustenance savvy when you’re buying eggs from the same aisle as your toilet paper. Meijer is popular among college students and lower class adults, due to its competitive prices and broad spectrum of options. Sales line the walls, Meijer brand products provide inexpensive alternatives for those less concerned with quality, and there are cleansers, clothes, and toiletries for those of us too busy with school or work to make a second trip. It’s not unusual to find yourself navigating a sea of shopping carts as you try to stock up in the final hours of the weekend bend. Additionally, Meijer is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, so anyone can wander in whenever they please. After all, the name of the superstore game is convenience; specialty stores may do better, but they could never do as much.
Of course, if you have a good deal of money and time to burn on a more specialized shopping trip, there are a number of smaller franchises willing to accept your patronage. Foods for Living is a small grocery store hidden in an isolated shopping center, about half a mile from Meijer. I stopped in on a Sunday afternoon in hopes of finding the same kind of crowds you would see rushing the superstore supermarkets. Needless to say, I was woefully unprepared for what I found inside. As you walk in, you are immediately confronted with the smell of lavender and sage; decorative foliage lines each wall as young, enthusiastic cashiers greet you from the entrance. First, let’s discuss prices. Gallons of milk cost $5. Cereal boxes cost anywhere from $6-10. Pomegranates were $2.50 each, a whopping 50 cents more expensive per head than at Meijer. Everything I would normally buy myself for the week was 2-3 times more expensive than the brands to which I was accustomed. That, and the brands are completely unrecognizable. Unusually shaped boxes and bottles advertise freshness with colorful labels and tempting visuals that you really don’t find in the standard spread of foodstuffs. Bread was allocated to a single heated cabinet, while significant store space was dedicated to organic granola and nuts of all shapes and size. I could not find a single brand of any variety of product that I could recognize off-hand. The customers were few and far between, even on a busy weekend. I noticed a handful of mostly elderly, mostly white individuals that would greet the cashiers by name and rarely collect enough groceries to fill a hand basket. The price ranges certainly favor a wealthier clientele, and the slew of healthier looking options likely appeal to a more discerning crowd. As a college student who’s just looking to eat enough in the coming week without binging on cheap pizza, I found myself quickly overwhelmed with everything that lay before me. I waited until all of the cashiers were busy to slip out unnoticed; this didn’t seem like a store you could walk into just to browse, and I was certain that my empty hands made me seem a kleptomaniac.
Our final grocery gathering destination is a local farmer’s market, held once a week until the winter months, during which it’s held twice a month at an indoor pavilion. At the moment, the market manifests itself as a collection of tents set up in a local parking lot. Farmer’s from all across the county greet passersby with kind expressions that make you feel guilty for never bringing quite enough money. I had the opportunity to sit down with a number of local growers that explained their production process in great detail, only to get interrupted by regulars who would complete a transaction so thoughtlessly comfortable that I didn’t even notice the exchanging of goods through all the small talk. It’s awfully hard not to feel at home when you’re surrounded by actual families, selling you their lifeblood with shivering smiles and heartfelt sales pitches. The customers were just as colorful; older folks would stare discerningly at price tags and demand exact product details while younger shoppers would roll through and leave with tote bags full of whatever they could get for $20. It was difficult to determine whether or not prices were fair, since most products were sold independently. $8 for a jar of pesto seems perfectly reasonable when you see the calloused hands on the man who made them. The produce felt much more affordable, with smaller items like eggplants and tomatoes clocking in at incredibly low prices. I ended leaving with a bag of red tomatoes, a slightly overpriced bag of greens, and a collection of lemon scented body soaps, which were given to me for free. The entire venture cost me $13, and it was the only shopping trip wherein I couldn’t help but indulge.