The Grocery Store...

Robin and I went to the grocery store for the first time on Saturday. One thing we have learned in our time thus far in Trondheim is that there are about a million grocery stores. Most are tiny but some would compare to a small US major grocery store. There are two major chains here: REMA 1000 and Bun Pris (Good Price) and there are very few fundamental differences between the two. What we have learned is that one store may have a really good selection of international cheeses and another may have lots of international sauces (mustard, ketchup, etc); however, it should be noted that I have not found A1 steak sauce as of yet. None of the stores have everything international. Although the grocery stores are smaller they still all seem to have all of the staples. They seem to get away with smaller size just by carrying less variety than you would expect to see in the US. For example (because this one really chaps my hide) is that there really only seem to be about 6 different types of cereals in Trondheim. They are primarily muslix type grainy goodness but they do have a kellogs type plain flake cereal and most disturbingly only one sugary good cereal. The sugary good cereal is CoCo Puffs and I have a feeling I am going to eat it everyday for the next 700 days or so.

The grocery store visit was super awesome for multiple reasons. The first was because it was crowded as all get out. I have a feeling super markets on Saturdays are like the perfect storm. First nothing is open on Sunday (except for plant stores which is weird) so if you want to grocery shop on the weekends you have to go on Saturday. Second because there is no such thing as the night shift at a Norwegian grocery store they do all of their stocking during the day. So there are a million people running around the store trying to buy their crazy over prised groceries while stock boys and girls are plodding around with their pallets full of Norwegian goodness. Add to this the fact that because there is no night shift they also do all of their cleaning during the day. So now imagine that everyone is at the store, people are stocking like crazy, and other employees are tearing up and down the isles with big automatic floor cleaners that are leaving the floors clean but also very wet. The final addition to this problem is that the average Norwegian does not give a crap about cutting you off, pushing in front or around you, and personal space is only a fond memory. All in all it was awesome but i don't think Robin is going to be doing much shopping on Saturday afternoons anymore.

Like I said most of the grocery stores we went in had most of the basics. Of course there are some items that just say "Welcome to Norway". I will add pictures later but some of those items are the fish paste, the fish pudding, and of course there are fish cakes on just about every isle in the store. Don't think that the only meat in a Norwegian grocery store is fish. Oh no they have meat too. Robin and I were strolling through the meat department trying to find something to add to our dinner when we stumbled upon the "Ground Meat" area. They had pork, chicken, and lamb clearly labeled but what we couldn't find was actual ground beef. They had some stuff that looked like ground beef but it was just labeled meat (the chicken and lamb were also labeled meat but there was an extra word that described what type of meat). Finally after several minutes of debate we decided to ask one of the locals what type of meat we were looking at. A very nice girl, probably about 18, offered to help us with our issue. She clearly explained that what we were looking at was meat and she pointed out the ground chicken that we had already found. We asked her where the ground beef was and she took us to another section where the steaks were. We took her back and asked her specifically about our mystery meat and if it was beef. The conversation went something like this...

"Is this beef?" Robin pointing at mystery meat

"No this is meat not beef" Norwegian girl

"What type of meat is it?" Robin

... silence...

"Is it chicken, pork, reindeer?" Robin

"No this is meat."

"But what type of meat?"

... silence...

"Thank you for your help, I think we will just get the chicken." Robin

Something in Norwegian probably loosely translated as "Stupid Americans"

As we were walking away another lady stopped us and told us that the mystery meat was in fact beef.

We discovered another fun thing about Norwegian meat a day later when we went to cook the chicken. It expired the same day we bought it!!! I love this country.

Till Next Time. I will add pictures to this post later.