Cheese, Reusable Bags, and Other Shopping Conundrums

         If I ever publish a memoir of my time in Switzerland, I will call it Seventeen Different Kinds of Emmentaler. In the good old Geneva days, when I did my shopping online, I would type “fromage” into the Migros search engine, and the virtual cheese aisle would display an array of cheese choices to satisfy any palate -- as long as what that palate wanted was Emmentaler. This makes a certain kind of sense, of course, if one realizes that Emmentaler is what in the U.S. we would call Swiss cheese. It’s white and has holes. I have often thought that the entire country of Switzerland actually smells a little bit like Emmental cheese, which is off-putting at first. But one becomes accustomed, even fond.
Lucas and I once went on a hunt for provolone cheese in Geneva. He wanted to re-create his favorite Penn Station sub, which included lettuce, mayonnaise, bacon, and provolone. After an unsuccessful trip to Migros, we decided to visit the outdoor market cheese man, who that day was at the Grand-Lancy market, close to Drew’s school. When we asked him if he had provolone, he responded in an affronted tone, “I have only SWISS cheese.” Indeed. He did introduce us to a delicious cheese, of which I never learned the name. I always identified it by the red and green speckles of herbs in it, and we called it, “that good cheese from the cheese man.”
This past Monday morning, I went shopping at Martin’s, which is one of about 10 grocery stores within a two-mile radius. Martin’s has a typical American cheese aisle, with provolone, along with colby, cheddar, mozzarella, muenster, and more, all available shredded, cubed, in chunks, or in sticks. It also has a gourmet deli cheese section, where one can purchase brie, fresh mozzarella, feta, havarti, edam, jarlsberg, gouda, and -- if one is willing to pay over $10 a pound -- Emmentaler. I didn’t see anything resembling the good cheese from the cheese man, but I’m sure that’s just because I didn’t look hard enough.

I'm sure that if the grocery store doesn't have what you want, they will  order it for you.

Good old Emmentaler

The variety in the typical American grocery store is overwhelming. When I re-started serious grocery shopping this summer, I would wander up and down the aisles, staring in awe at all the different kinds of cereal, corn chips, jelly, and juice. It was sensory overload. I now try to cope (as I’m sure most people do) by finding the brands I like and becoming blind to everything else. This only works if I always shop at the same store, which I don’t. On the upside, every shopping trip is an adventure of discovery, and I never lack for fun, new snacks to try on the kids. Last week it was freeze-dried fruit. Not bad. Of course, in America, fruit of all varieties is perpetually available. In season? What’s “in season”?

The berry selection in November. This was right after I told Drew that I wouldn't be able to buy
 raspberries for his cereal, because they weren't in season. I should have asked him instead if he wanted red or black.

It isn’t only the variety that sets American groceries apart. I never recall the cashiers in Switzerland asking so many questions . . . . Paper or plastic? Cash back? Credit or debit? All on the card? Donate to cancer research? Amount okay? Buy reusable bags? I have more than once hit the red “cancel” button at the end of all those questions, just because I have becomes so used, during the long transactions, to hitting the red “no.” 
In America, food (except Emmentaler) is cheaper and packages are larger than in Switzerland. Also refrigerators are larger (as, often, are families). People here generally drive to the grocery store, rather than walking or taking the bus. All this means that we can buy a lot more at once. This is a good idea, as it encourages meal planning, saving money, and reducing waste. For some reason, however, I am having trouble getting used to the idea of a full cart. I keep flashing back to the bad old Geneva days, before I discovered online grocery shopping. My cart overloaded with food that would feed our family for about three days, I would look frantically for the person with the next-fullest cart and hop into line behind her, hoping the cashier would be used to embarrassing quantities of food by the time she got to me. Of course, in Geneva, one also has to bag one’s own groceries -- a process made much more difficult by having a cartfull, in which, inevitably, my de rigueur reusable bags were buried under several liters of milk and cans of tomatoes.

Those bags, interestingly, are the only thing that is smaller in the American grocery store. I have had more than one clerk in Giant, Safeway, or Martin’s comment on the large bags into which I ask them to pack my groceries. Why, in the country where people are buying more food and carrying it a shorter distance, would the bags be smaller? This is perhaps not on the level of the 10-hot-dog, 8-bun conundrum that has baffled the thoughtful for decades, but it’s a mystery that’s been puzzling me.