On Thursday after work I went to the Japanese grocery store for the first time in ages.
It's really expensive so this week it wasn't the usual 20-30 € I spend on groceries, but I got some nice bento-able foods.
Afterwards I went shopping after 8 PM in Germany for the first time. Stores just started being open until 8 PM about five years ago, and still it's only the bigger supermarkets- many small stores, among them Asian and health food stores where I mainly shop close at 7 PM at the latest.
Amazing when you commute to work and are never home before six.
However, in late 2006, a new law concerning opening hours was made so now stores are allowed to be open until 10 PM. For the first half year or so only shops in the really big cities (~ more than half a million inhabitants) actually did.
Now for two months, even some (actually, THREE) supermarkets in my "tiny" quarter million city started opening until 9 PM. Wohoo!
- And I know why they didn't earlier: the shops are totally deserted. Just as people in this country refuse to go shopping on Sundays (everything closed here), they refuse to go shopping in the evening.
But the media keeps telling me Germany is full of urban singles. They even have ads telling me to start a family (not joking!). They tell me there are too many unemployed who have all the time in the world. Now where are those people when I'm out shopping at half eight?
Anyway, I found the supermarket to have built a new veggie section with lots of different soy milks, fake meats etc - are we participating in civilisation after all?
What I bought (green is organic) :
napa cabbage, spring onions, cocktail tomatoes, green bell peppers, apples, satsumas, a baby cauliflower, okras, parsley, frozen raspberries, agar agar, tinned tomatoes, veggie "salami", fake fish fingers, tiny baked tofu cubes, soba noodles, coconut milk, whole-wheat bread mix, mugicha (Japanese barley tea), inari pouches, dried kampyo, tinned edamame, chocolate, blanched almonds, dried wakame, star anise, sweet pickled Japanese red beans
2 comments:
pavotrouge: I checked that tandoori-spice mix which you ask. It contains coriander,salt,fenugreek,cumin,cinnamon,chillies,black pepper,ginger,onion,garlic,mustard,bay leaves,nutmeg,cloves,mace,cardamons and some food colourings(I checked there is no any animal-by products in those colourings,altough there is also some red colourings used).
And that is ready-bought big-bag of mixture. i bought it really cheap from one of those chinese/Asian market in my town.
Your japanese shoppings looks interesting! I love japanese food, so I hope there will be also some big,cheap,japanese-food-stuff selling market in ´my town, but there is actually only one japanese grocery store and it`s far away too expensive-kind of shop for me.. Poor student ;)
That's terrible that many stores close so early. I have a market that I can walk to that's open 24 hours. The nearest health-food shop closes at 9 pm though. I guess I can't complain. What happens if Germans get hungry after 11pm? Do they have to starve all night?
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