Eating in Switzerland, Part 1

Swiss grocery stores

(This is the first in a probably unending number of posts on Swiss eating and food-buying. I already know what post #2 and #3 will be. Stay tuned, because #2 will be pretty interesting....)

My dad keeps asking about the neighborhood fromagerie and boucherie, etc. He loves the idea of traipsing out on his own and visiting with the shop owners, sampling some cheese, stopping to talk to a butcher, etc. Dad, I've got good news! I did find the local fromager -- but it's not a cute little shop in a 300 year old house; his shop is in the little concrete-form-construction strip mall attached to the train station. And, really, when it comes to buying food in Switzerland, you're essentially talking about visiting one of the two Swiss grocery chains: Migros (MEE-grow) or Coop (COPE). The only real difference, so far as I can tell so far, is that Coop sells wine and liquor, and Migros doesn't. Oh, and Migros has a medium orange logo and Coop has dark orange and light orange (oooohhh)....

I made two "essentials" runs to the grocery store on my own, but we all went to the grocery for the first time two days ago. I needed help, because I can't buy everything myself. In a sea of different cleaners on the shelf that I can only differentiate by color, I needed someone to be able to read the labels for me and tell me which one can be used on wood floors, for example. I assumed they were the brown-tinged ones that looked kind of the same color as Pine-Sol or Murphy's Oil Wax in the US, but is that a good way to make a choice when our parquet floors are at stake? Especially when we just found out that damage claims when renters move out of apartments in Switzerland can run into the thousands of dollars?!

So, I needed Laura's help. And, when it comes to cleaning products I have control issues, so I couldn't send her out to buy them by herself. That meant the kids were coming, too. So, we plugged "Coop" into the tomtom, looked for the biggest sounding one (Coop Supercentre, Lausanne) and headed off.

*** Sidenote: Why did I need Laura? No, she's no better at reading French than I am, but remember that Switzerland has three official languages. So, while pretty much all of the help at the store only speak French (or at least, only admit to speaking French), all of the products are labeled in German, French and Italian. And, I have a really good  German speaking wife (don't bother asking -- she'll never admit it). ***

Of course, while our main objective on Friday was to go shopping, we didn't end up striking out until late afternoon. And, of course, Swiss supermarkets get really busy in late afternoon/early evening because they close by 7 pm. And, of course, because it was coming up on a holiday weekend, the grocery stores would be closed on Saturday instead of only Sunday (and maybe even Monday), so, well, I don't need to explain. The store was packed. And, 30 minutes in, I'm still trying to decide whether I should buy the Coop brand CFL lightbulb or pay twice as much for the Philips light bulb to get the "rapid start" technology. We haven't even made it to the detergent aisle yet, to say nothing about getting to any of the food.

So, we've been in this packed grocery store for nearly an hour and a half. Laura has gone to the aisle of chocolate (seriously, the grocery stores here have a whole aisle of chocolate bars) and found the one chocolate bar in all of Switzerland that doesn't have nut cross-contamination and pulled out a couple of squares because the kids are starting to completely lose it, and I'm looking for bacon. Do you know how much meat Swiss must eat? Refrigerated case upon refrigerated case of processed meat products: lots and lots of sausage, and unsliced bacon, but how does one slice bacon, anyway? I'm trying to picture myself slicing off thin ribbons of bacon with our extremely expensive Wusthof knives, and I just can't see it. I can hear American accents that are obviously my kids eight aisles over that are on the verge of screaming, and I grab some traditional Vaudoise (our region) sausage that looks sort of like breakfast sausage (we'll find out on Saturday it doesn't taste that way), and scurry off for the last two items on my list: pasta and rice.

And, this is where I begin to understand what the word "foreign" means. I mean, pasta and rice, they're about the same aren't they? Have I completely forgotten, or aren't pasta and rice usually in the same aisle in US grocery stores? Or at least in adjacent aisles? I think of them as really pretty similar foods and meals. Both starches that can serve as either a base of a meal or a as a side. I find the pasta pretty quickly, but I just can't seem to find the rice. So, I start what I think is a pretty reasonable search plan for the rice -- it would be a good idea for a lost person. Start in the last known location, and make concentric circles working your way out. I start at the pasta aisle and start working my way further and further out. You know where this is going. Pasta was in an aisle basically in the center of the store. When I found the rice, it was in the middle of a shelf on the outside side wall of the grocery. Did I cover the entire grocery store before I found the rice? No, but I did cover a good 80+%....

So, we were finally done. By some miraculous turn of events we happened upon a cashier with no line and were able to begin the process of unloading our overflowing 1/3 US-size shopping cart of food. We had also miraculously remembered our own bags, and the check-out process went very smoothly, even though we have to bag our own groceries (Ah, I'm from Minneapolis! I've shopped at Cub and Rainbow! I can do this!). But, the conveyor moves about 3 times faster than in Minnesota. And, all of the packages are very fragile. And nearly-supersonic-speed food items are alternately crushing our groceries or my hands as I'm trying to set a world-record pace for bag stuffing. And the line behind the cashier is rapidly growing and many Swiss eyes are rolling in our general direction. And our really not very adequate shopping list (as of Sunday most of the food is already gone) came to over $400.

But, success! We're done! We escaped in less than two hours! The boys, although annoying many patrons, have not killed each other!

And, we have many (I hope much briefer) stories and excitement that we will be able to share later:

- Shopping carts and how you get them (boys were entranced by this)
- Parking spaces (you're not in the USA anymore)
- Swiss people love Swiss food (and Swiss everything), aka, how a 7 million person country can have one of the highest standards of living in the world
- Labeling your own produce
- Speaking of produce, mm yum, do they ever have good produce here!
- Swiss liquor prices (urg) but also Swiss wine and Champagne prices (yay!)
- Etc.