Grocery Shopping Adventures

     I love cooking and eating, so every part of my food process is fun to me. Even the grocery shopping part. So I thought I’d give my readers a fun little tour through the interesting parts of grocery shopping here in Macas.

     Here in Macas, there are several places to grocery shop. You have Tia across town, which is more commercial, like Wal-Mart. There you can buy more than just food, stuff like school supplies, cookware, a few limited articles of clothing (I wouldn’t wear most of it), some odd household things like rugs or cleaning supplies. The food is more varied as well, with actual packaged meats (definitely the only place to get that here) and the biggest selection of packaged Americanish foods.

     Royal is closer to where I live, just about seven blocks down the hill. Royal is more like Piggly Wiggly, mostly just food but a little selection of cleaning supplies, personal/toiletry items, and things like plastic bags. Also the only place I’ve found in Macas that sells Pepsi.

     Markets. We have two main markets, the 27th of February Market and the market across from Tia. You can buy fresh fruits and vegetables grown by local and provincial farmers there for uber cheap prices, and a few other odd and end things like flowers or the sugarcane syrup.

     Small stores/micromercados. There are little bitty stores everywhere, specializing mostly in one thing. The bread store, the little produce stores. Sometimes there will be a little ‘quick stop’ market. We have one of those on the next block from our house that stays open almost 24/7 and sells pretty much anything, kind of like Dollar General. Very handy for when you run out of milk at 9 pm or when you have a sudden craving.

Fun Stuff at the Grocery Stores here:

Babacos...like giant starfruit, seedless, tastes like an apple, pear, and citrus mix. Ecuadorians blend them up and make juice from them, though it's rather pulpy for my tastes.

Mora jelly, sort of like blackberry. What kills me though, is the Snob brand.

Packets of margarine. They looove margarine!

I have no clue what this fruit/vegetable/herb is. But, it looks pretty weird.

The purple striped thing is a pepino. Like a little melon.

 Watermelon slices

 Pineapple slices

 Chicken hotdogs. They also sell sliced chicken sandwich meat, but no turkey to be found.

 It looks like milk, but nope, it's yogurt! It's a popular beverage here.

THIS is the milk.

Some type of melony things...

No clue, but fun to look at and imagine the taste.

It said melon, but looks more like a giant kiwi.

This is what they call peanut butter. I pass. If you ever want to send us anything, please let the boxes include the real stuff!

Baby peaches, about half dollar size.

 Tree tomatoes. They make juice from them.

Limons. They don't have lemons here, but these are like a lemon/lime mix.

Not food, but still funny. Johnson & Johnson makes cologne for 'young boys' and 'young girls' here.

And my favorite pic from the food world...CHICKEN ON A STICK!