Food frenzies 1 - shopping

Finally it’s the weekend! You wake up on a Saturday morning and don’t have to get up, jump in the shower, get your daughter ready for nursery, have breakfast and run out the door to work.

No, far, far worse than that.

It is Saturday and Saturday means weekly food shopping day. You and your husband love food and enjoy cooking, but you both hate your weekly food shop with a passion (unless you go to France, which you try to do as often as possible).   You won’t find any supermarkets in Germany open on a Sunday, so you have no choice but to face up to the fact that it’s either shop or starve. You know you have to be there early or all the fresh produce will be gone (what’s the point in restocking shelves anyway?) and if you leave it any later than say 10am, you will be fighting half the population of Heidelberg for the remainder of said fresh produce. There is also no such thing as online food shopping in Germany yet (at least not for fresh produce.) But in their favour, nowadays at least supermarkets here will accept credit cards, in Rewe they have even started offering cash-back, and the opening times are far better than when I first moved here (back in 1998, they shut at 2pm on Saturday and didn’t reopen until Monday morning).

You and your husband always go food shopping together to provide each other with moral support. There are certain supermarkets that you hate more than others. Your local Kaufland, for example, is also where the local drunks go to buy their beer for breakfast and the first shelf you encounter on entering the shop is stacked with “Hundefütter”. Yes, dog food, really enticing. Nevertheless, you often go there, simply because it’s the closest and most convenient supermarket.

Before leaving, you double-check that you have enough bags to pack your shopping into (it’s either bring your own or pay for them), and that you have a 1 Euro coin for the trolley. You then bite the bullet and off you go.

The selection of brands in Kaufland is limited and if you are looking for more “exciting” products, like curry spices, or even international products like your baked beans or digestives, go straight to a Rewe or an Edeka (more upmarket supermarkets). Alnatura is also a really nice place to shop. Also, don’t expect much selection of meat (apart from everything pork) or a fresh fish counter. The only advantage of a warehouse-like shop, such as Kaufland, is that because there is no choice, you can whizz up and down the aisles, getting your weekly shop done in no time at all.

You are extra careful in the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket. Under no circumstances must you forget to weigh all your fruit and veg. The last thing you want is to face a long line of outraged shoppers in the queue behind you as you are forced to weigh the celeriac you were convinced was charged by the piece.

After a quick stop to drop off some empty beer bottles to collect your so-called “Pfand” (bottle deposit), which can be as much as 25 cents per bottle (so don't throw any away by mistake!), it’s time to pay.