At our grocery store here in Germany they rotate a line of products representing a different country every week. Two weeks ago it was "Greek week" and the week before it was "British week".
Besides the eagerness with which I grab for comfort foods from home, American week is always fun because it's interesting to see how people outside America perceive our popular foods and eating habits.
The line of products are all red, white and blue, with stars and stripes and a Statue of Liberty in the corner. The product line is called Mcennedy and says "American Way" under it.
Yet, often the things they sell with this label are things I have never seen in America. It's always just a little ... off. For instance, today they had square cartons of blueberry juice. Despite our vast array of crazy juices in the States, I have to admit that's one I've never seen back there. There were also jars of blueberry jelly. I guess that's kind of like grape jelly.
Then there was the caramel popcorn-flavored yogurt and the chocolate cranberry-flavored yogurt. I just had to try those. I admit they sounded good, but I've never seen that kind of yogurt back home. I finished the chocolate cranberry one moments ago and I might just have to write Dannon a letter recommending it.
They sell hot dogs ... in a glass jar. In liquid. I suppose our plastic-wrapped packages of 10 hot dogs back home could look weird if you've never seen them that way. But that's how I felt about the hot dogs in a jar.
Among some more common American foods like brownies, peanut butter, blueberry muffin or pancake mix and microwave popcorn were a few oddities. Take the bottles of "Hamburger sauce." What exactly is hamburger sauce? In the States we call that ketchup. Or the tubes that squirt out stripes of blended ketchup and mayonnaise or mustard and ketchup a la Aquafresh toothpaste? That's a new one.
Ah yes, American Week is always an adventure. I can't wait for Mexican week next. Garlic and onion tortillas, here we come!
No comments:
Post a Comment