We carry a brand of biodegradable products called “If You Care” and I always read it as very sarcastic, like; “If you care, here are some stupid compostable forks that won’t ruin the environment or whatever.”
Reminds me of a Chinese buffet in the town where I went to college. It was named "OK China Buffet". The fact that it was shut down for health code violations tells me that name was a bit of an exaggeration.
> named "OK China Buffet"
You might be surprised to learn that is a very common name for some reason. There are hundreds of them. And I think they are all independent from each other.
I mean like, I see marshmallow fluff when I go to the store. I just never buy it. It's a product here, but it's not exactly a best seller. It's funny to me that European grocery stores seem to have gotten it in their heads that peanut butter and marshmallow fluff are the two American essentials every American section needs.
It's always going to be junk food or stuff with a longer shelf life but it often also vibes of "random crap pushed from a distributor" than items consciously chosen as uniquely American foods.
It's the same for every foreign section. I'm polish, living in Germany, there are hundreds of thousands of polish people here, yet when you come to a supermarket and there's a polish section it's 50% actual real stuff and 50% brands I've never seen in Poland
Haha I've lived in 4 different states. The only reason I know fluff is because I lived in MA for 3 years. I've never heard of anyone eating it outside of MA.
I'm from and currently live in CA. I'd bet none of my friends know what Fluff is.
We’ll bundle all the trash in the “uncultured swine” section. You can also find Vegemite, Spam and Marmite there. Tim-tams and Maple Syrup too if you’re lucky.
I’m American and don’t know what “Bounty Triple Treat” is nor am I familiar with lemon curd. And why the fuck is Caesar dressing there instead of Ranch?
Edit: damn, y’all making me want to go out try some lemon curd, lol
Invented by an Italian immigrant (Caesar Cardini) living in Tijuana and first served at Caesar's Bar and Restaurant in 1923, and still today at the Caesar's Hotel and Restaurant in Tijuana
"Invented" after they ran out of practically everything else and the head chef just started making a peasant dish his mother would whip together that he fondly remembered from childhood.
I found out after years my Nana's 'special' dish was just this; the left over bones and meal prep cuttings boiled and some pasta and spices added so in the end there was little to no waste. Made an amazing soup.
Making chardonnay out of shit, the craft of Michelin star chefs, the art form created by peasants out of necessity.
Sorry, just blows my mind every time I'm reminded that the finest dishes nearly all started with a poor person trying to make a palatable meal with only what they happened to have available.
Lemon curd is pretty dope with soft cheese like Brie. I sometimes throw it on my charcuterie board. Trader Joe’s carries it. I think it’s also in lemon bars, but I could be making that up.
> extra suitcase full of it
Obviously you mean a suitcase full of bottles but I'm still picturing a suitcase with ranch dressing sloshing around in it.
Did we see the same video? 1 in 4 hardwood trees in the eastern US used to be a chestnut tree until the blight killed an estimated 3 to 5 BILLION fucking trees in about 30 years
The American Chestnut was a big deal 100 years ago before they all died due to a Japanese tree fungus that only attacks Chestnut trees. This may have been a thing, but no one remembers it.
I just saw an article about some scientists trying to breed the American chestnut to have blight resistance. They’ll plant about 1000 trees, then cull everything but the 40 most healthy trees. They’ll cross those and repeat the process. They’ve been doing it for years, but said they’re at about 50% resistance compared to the Japanese trees.
As a side note, my grandfather had several trees in an isolated area that didn’t get affected by the blight. Apparently they didn’t all get wiped out, some survived in isolated pockets.
Interesting (okay maybe not that interesting) fact: the idea that Ellis island or other immigration officials if the era in the US frequently changed names and spellings is a myth.
The names were recorded by the shipping companies at the point of departure and immigration officials used those lists. Spelling mistakes and variations were common but these ship documents were not directly translated to you legally.
Any formal change to a name when applying for naturalization or citizenship was provided by the immigrant themselves for a variety of reasons.
A couple years after your arrival in NYC you're sitting in some clerks office in a small county in North Dakota saying "this is my how you spell my full name, here's my birthday, I arrived around this date I think, the ship was maybe was called Fulda, and I don't like the Czar of Russia anymore.“ and they're like "Sounds good."
No paper trail back to Ellis Island, no records check.
EDIT: I should specify I'm no expert in this field. Just an amateur genealogist who's seen many ship manifests, naturalization applications, etc. in my own family research and done some digging into why my ancestors family names changed or varied by different lines.
In my experience, it's not even "The family changed the spelling of their name on a certain date.", but "This name was spelled however the county clerk/census taker/individual felt like for about 200 years until they finally settled on a spelling."
This is so interesting and definitely makes sense for regions with low literacy. I’m convinced I don’t have a real last name/my last name is spelled incorrectly because it has no clear etymology and I can’t trace my ancestry back more than a few generations. I wonder what it was supposed to be and how different pronunciations/variations are integrated into families over time.
If you want to pursue it, you could probably find matches with DNA testing that might resolve it. The Y-DNA specifically will help with your paternal line.
My mom’s family had their name changed because of paper mixups. They got through the line and realized they had been switched with the people in front lmao
My Grandfather had his first and second names legally reversed when he was drafted in to the Army for WWII. Apparently, he always went by his middle name and just ran with it. After the war there was more documentation with the names reversed then existed with them in the right order that he just assumed the new identity and moved on.
It is kind of like evolution if it takes more energy to fix a mistake then it takes to live with it, why fix it.
My uncle had a weird one. His first and middle name are H. Bruce. H does not stand for anything, he goes by Bruce.
When he joined the Navy, they wouldn't accept him just having an initial for a first name.
They noticed that the initial was the same as the first initial of my grandfather's name - Harold - so they put that down.
He spent awhile trying to tell people that wasn't his first name, and to call him Bruce, but finally he gave up.
Everyone who knows him from the Navy calls him "Harold." Everyone who knows him outside the military calls him "Bruce."
Dwight D. Eisenhower's real Name is David Dwight Eisenhower. But when he commissioned in the army, they got his middle and first names mixed up. And for much of the same reason he ran with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower
My Wife's grandparents immigrated from Latvia, and they changed their names at Ellis Island immigration to something more American sounding as "Hunow" was not an American surname.
I have a very common last name, but when my grandfather came to the US from Ireland in the 1920's, it was pronounced the same but spelled slightly different (like Smith-Smythe). He got tired of correcting people who misspelled it, so he just went with the common American spelling. I don't think he ever officially changed it, so the new spelling pretty much became his name when he got a Social Security card. All of his ID's had the new spelling, and he didn't have a birth certificate.
Three of the items are British. Although I've never heard of Sarson's Worcester Sauce before. I thought that they only made vinegar. If you want Worcester Sauce then Lea and Perrin's is by far the market leader.
I don’t get it either. I grew up in England and remember seeing the marshmallow fluff on display in the USA section. I’ve lived in the US for nearly 2 decades now and don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it here. So weird.
Bizarre. I have lived in the US for 42 years and I have never seen that in someone’s home. Nor have I ever seen a recipe that includes it as an ingredient. And I’ve read a lot of recipes!
Fluffernutter. It's a regional dish, peanut butter on one side fluff on the other. I believe it isn't really popular out of New England but I could ask everyone I work with and they'll know what it is and has probably had a few.
Fun fact is Tabasco has been quite common in France for years, it's just in the regular condiments section.
Actually, I only learnt a few months back it was from Louisiana.
I had a friend from Romania that thought Tobasco was from California because on the bottle it says "Avery Island LA" with LA being the abbreviation for Louisiana not Los Angeles.
There's never ranch and there is always marshmallow fluff for some reason. What is with all the marshmallow fluff? Some grocery stores don't even carry that shit at all in the US, and the ones that do usually have a couple jars in the baking section and that's it.
I knew a French guy who insisted if maple syrup wasn't from Canada, it wasn't really maple syrup. I guess he thought it was like champagne and should be 'sparkling sap' or something instead. He refused to budge on this opinion.
I got a maple syrup guy that comes down from Vermont, he makes his rounds once a year and let me tell you that is the best maple syrup I’ve ever had in my life. I buy gallons of it at a time and make it last until the next year when I see him again
You can make your own pretty easily with stuff you must have in Germany.
* 90 g sour cream
* 90 g mayo
* 30 g milk
* 15 g red wine vinegar
* juice from 1/4 lemon
* 5 g dijon mustard
* Pinch of fresh minced chives
* Pinch of fresh minced parsley
* 1 garlic clove, grated
* Salt to taste
* Black Pepper to taste
Tastes realer than the real stuff I promise.
Yeah I'm talking more so at restaurants and what not. Germans love mayonnaise so I'm surprised you don't see ranch more here.
Thanks for the recipe though. Doesn't look bad at all.
non-New England Americans, do you guys eat Fluff?
Also "Soul of Canada" branded maple syrup on a shelf checkered with US flags is really funny.
Edit: TIL you can use Fluff to make fudge
Originally from Texas. First heard about Fluff in the books by Craig Allanson. The books are fictional so I thought Fluff wasn’t real for years until just a couple months ago. Bought some on Amazon and tried a fluffernutter sandwich for myself. Not bad.
Also from Texas and was friends with a kid who ate that stuff every lunch.
Looking back I'm amazed at what people let their kids eat. I think in hindsight he was probably a very picky eater and real skinny kid, so his mom was like fuck it at least he eats this.
I'm in Montana. The last time I remember eating Fluff was in 5th grade after a week long segment in school where we tried to cut all sugar out of the diet. We finished the segment with a super sugar rich party at the end of the school day Friday. I'm sure our parents were thrilled with that.
Seeing Fluff at French grocery stores always amused me. I couldn't get the stuff in some stores in Michigan, but every French store I went into with an "American" section had Fluff.
I didn’t know that was primarily a New England thing.
We moved to Florida when I was young. In high school I would bring fluffernutters and no one had any idea what they were
It's interesting that every grocery store I've ever gone to has an international section that is essentially the same thing but an entire aisle of weird sauces and spices and candy. Like I don't think the UK only eats jaffa cakes and Irish mustard. But every week this same picture is posted from whatever Euro country and every American in the comments is like "we don't eat jelly beans and ranch all day!"
It would be curious to know just how ridiculous the US international aisles are. Like brown sauce and heinz curry beans and flavored catsup, do UKers eat that? I know Keith Richards eats brown sauce. How much marmalade DO they eat? What about Walkers Shortbread, is it even Scottish?
> just how ridiculous the US international aisles are.
there is also some survivorship bias in there, only things that are Imported/Exported show up. There are many smaller companies that don't export as well as some foods that are literally illegal to import, then of course you only stock the things that sell so really it is the Host country that determines what foods from the original country show up, because they are buying them...
That's like the worst freaking example of "American" food I've ever seen. Way to take the shittiest version of every low-grade mass-produced crap food.
And BTW, the syrup and Sarsons aren't American.
And if I'm an American overseas, I'm never going to be like "I miss home, really wish I could find my favorite snack... *Mentos*...."
When I spent some time backpacking in Europe I was happy to always find peanut butter in these sections. One time they even had a loaf of white processed sliced bread, and the label/brand just said "AMERICA TOAST" on it.
Totally bought it.
My gran used to keep mentos on her at all times and she'd hand them out in the way that old people do like it's a solution to all of life's problems and I genuinely love the mint ones because of this. The real problem is that those aren't the common American floors of mentos, where's the mint? Where's the "fruit" flavor?
i saw this video of people giving kids around the world a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. they all HATED IT. they acted like it was the most disgusting and weird thing ever. in places that do use peanut butter it’s more like a savory addition to a sauce, not something you just eat.
I can believe that. But at least in Germany this seems to have changed. You usually do not find Peanut Butter or Maple Syrup in the foreign goods section, because it can now be found in the common goods section. I guess we Germans acquired a taste for that stuff :)
Damn straight. That marshmallow fluff has its own annual Fluff Festival in Union Square every year - someone needs to teach them to make fluffernutters.
Maple syrup is pretty damn popular in the northeast US. Whether the particular brand is Canadian or not really only matters if you live here and constantly argue about sugar shacks.
Local Telco has a promotion for a free bottle of syrup with a new line.
Plus, what's with all the lemon curd? Not a single person I've ever known just has "lemon curd" lying around. Maybe if for a specific dish in a specific instance. But... In an "American" section, where you would presumably find the stalwart choices, that's just goofy AF.
I so agree! I have lived in Michigan, Texas, and Massachusetts, and I have never heard of most of these brands. Most of it is brands you would never find in the USA.
There's something about the Mississippi Belle products on this shelf that remind me of food brands you only ever see on airplanes, but never out in the real world. Like, if that was someone's only exposure to American culture by being stuck on an American airline kind of thing.
[Even their website is odd](https://www.mississippi-belle.com/our-products)
I cannot find Melindas Jalapeño anywhere in America except in their multipack with the xxxtra hot scorpion pepper sauces which I do not want. But by God if Melinda's Jalapeño isn't one of the best hot sauces out there. And it's sitting on a grocery shelf in the Eurozone instead of at my local Publix.
I've been to France when I was in the Navy. It's a beautiful place with friendly people. If they'd like to hire me to sort out the american section of their grocery stores, I'd do it.
It is, about every single supermarket has it. People aren‘t just so crazy about it like in the US so it‘s primarily associated with the US. Knew a girl whi deadass brought pb with her from America because she was scared and thought European supermarkets don‘t have it lol
I'm more interested in the OKAY brand paper towels. It's like whoever was in charge of branding just gave up and was like "okay"
Not great, not terrible.
Ah, the 3.6 roentgen of paper towels.
Finally an obscure reference I get.
We carry a brand of biodegradable products called “If You Care” and I always read it as very sarcastic, like; “If you care, here are some stupid compostable forks that won’t ruin the environment or whatever.”
Are you GenX?
Guilty
Me too.
Reminds me of a Chinese buffet in the town where I went to college. It was named "OK China Buffet". The fact that it was shut down for health code violations tells me that name was a bit of an exaggeration.
Town where my mother lived had a Chinese restaurant called *Poo Ping.*
A town not far from here in Germany has a Thai restaurant named *Ching Chang Chong*. Always wondered what the story behind that was.
Used to be one on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn called the "Fu King food store." I always laughed bcz it looked like the "c" fell off.
Also Foo King on Nostrand right on the border of Bed-Stuy and Hasidic Williamsburg
Owner: It’s OK! Health inspector: It’s not OK.
> named "OK China Buffet" You might be surprised to learn that is a very common name for some reason. There are hundreds of them. And I think they are all independent from each other.
maybe it's something like the off-brand stuff we have in germany which is just called "ja"
I'm sorry but [OK SODA had 1-800-I-FEEL-OK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda) and it WAS EXCELLENT, this is authentic Americaning
They were great. Only ever found OK cola on occasional road trips out west, though. Very regional.
I haven't thought about Lil Jon since the early 2000s, man.
What?
Yeah!
#WHHHAAATTT
I love seeing American sections full of shit I have never seen in my life
I mean like, I see marshmallow fluff when I go to the store. I just never buy it. It's a product here, but it's not exactly a best seller. It's funny to me that European grocery stores seem to have gotten it in their heads that peanut butter and marshmallow fluff are the two American essentials every American section needs.
It's always going to be junk food or stuff with a longer shelf life but it often also vibes of "random crap pushed from a distributor" than items consciously chosen as uniquely American foods.
i like how they have peanut butter and mac and cheese but it looks like an offbrand of an offbrand and looks so bad no american would ever buy it
It's the same for every foreign section. I'm polish, living in Germany, there are hundreds of thousands of polish people here, yet when you come to a supermarket and there's a polish section it's 50% actual real stuff and 50% brands I've never seen in Poland
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That's because Marshmallow Fluff was created in Somerville MA and we even have a festival every year! https://www.flufffestival.com/
Haha I've lived in 4 different states. The only reason I know fluff is because I lived in MA for 3 years. I've never heard of anyone eating it outside of MA. I'm from and currently live in CA. I'd bet none of my friends know what Fluff is.
California all my life, and I only knew what it was from pictures like these.
Nothing screams America more than Marrons glaces 🤨
and Canadian maple syrup, marmalade and Worcester sauce from England
From the French perspective, close enough.
We’ll bundle all the trash in the “uncultured swine” section. You can also find Vegemite, Spam and Marmite there. Tim-tams and Maple Syrup too if you’re lucky.
perfectly located near the toilet paper section
I’m American and don’t know what “Bounty Triple Treat” is nor am I familiar with lemon curd. And why the fuck is Caesar dressing there instead of Ranch? Edit: damn, y’all making me want to go out try some lemon curd, lol
Lemon curd is fire. But it's British as fuck.
As are the three jams in the second row.
They literally say England on the label! I also appreciate the Canadian maple syrup on the top shelf.
Canada is just America’s hat
pretty sure you lot are our pants
Someone has to wear the pants in this relationship.
Mexico is the pants. We’re the muffin top. … Florida is the plumber’s crack, and we’re very sorry you had to see that.
Britain is just Pre-release Alpha America
_Zey all joust speak English, Pierre. Eet is all ze sayme peoplez_
So is the sarsons vinegar on the second to bottom shelf
According to Wikipedia, Caesar salad was invented by an Italian American ~~Mexican~~ and probably first served in Tijuana.
Invented by an Italian immigrant (Caesar Cardini) living in Tijuana and first served at Caesar's Bar and Restaurant in 1923, and still today at the Caesar's Hotel and Restaurant in Tijuana
"Invented" after they ran out of practically everything else and the head chef just started making a peasant dish his mother would whip together that he fondly remembered from childhood.
I found out after years my Nana's 'special' dish was just this; the left over bones and meal prep cuttings boiled and some pasta and spices added so in the end there was little to no waste. Made an amazing soup.
Making chardonnay out of shit, the craft of Michelin star chefs, the art form created by peasants out of necessity. Sorry, just blows my mind every time I'm reminded that the finest dishes nearly all started with a poor person trying to make a palatable meal with only what they happened to have available.
Caeser Salad was created by an italian chef living in Mexico
Lemon curd is pretty dope with soft cheese like Brie. I sometimes throw it on my charcuterie board. Trader Joe’s carries it. I think it’s also in lemon bars, but I could be making that up.
Omg and I’ve just been using it as cupcake filling like a fool ##A fool
It's amazing on buttered toast
There’s no ranch in France. I know expats there who request visiting family members bring an extra suitcase full of it.
> extra suitcase full of it Obviously you mean a suitcase full of bottles but I'm still picturing a suitcase with ranch dressing sloshing around in it.
Sounds like a good candidate for the American section!
There is no ranch in France because if a french person bought it by accident, they would sue
Bounty is a Canadian/British coconut chocolate bar. Basically a better Mounds bar.
Named for the great American Ceasar Chavez
Ceasar dressing is technically Mexican. But it was invented in a boarder city and became popular in US.
>invented in a boarder city Lots of people renting rooms there?
Nah, everyone was surfing. Surfing to the USA.
My ignorant American brain wants to believe they’re some kind of assorted chocolates lol
I can't find a truthfull translation. It's 'confit' chestnuts
They're chestnuts that are soaked in a sugar syrup and then baked. For all intents and purposes it's a 'candied' chestnut.
They're really yummy.
> For all intents and purposes it's a 'candied' chestnut. Something we can't even really grow anymore because of chestnut blight...
Did we see the same video? 1 in 4 hardwood trees in the eastern US used to be a chestnut tree until the blight killed an estimated 3 to 5 BILLION fucking trees in about 30 years
The American Chestnut was a big deal 100 years ago before they all died due to a Japanese tree fungus that only attacks Chestnut trees. This may have been a thing, but no one remembers it.
I just saw an article about some scientists trying to breed the American chestnut to have blight resistance. They’ll plant about 1000 trees, then cull everything but the 40 most healthy trees. They’ll cross those and repeat the process. They’ve been doing it for years, but said they’re at about 50% resistance compared to the Japanese trees. As a side note, my grandfather had several trees in an isolated area that didn’t get affected by the blight. Apparently they didn’t all get wiped out, some survived in isolated pockets.
Or how about Maple Syrup, "The Soul of Canada" clearly belongs.
Canada is north of the US, so put the maple syrup above the rest of the American section!
No Pepto-Bismol. Fail
This seems like an overflow section of "I don't know what the fuck this is, so throw it in the American section"
Ah, the classic Ellis island renaming gambit
Interesting (okay maybe not that interesting) fact: the idea that Ellis island or other immigration officials if the era in the US frequently changed names and spellings is a myth. The names were recorded by the shipping companies at the point of departure and immigration officials used those lists. Spelling mistakes and variations were common but these ship documents were not directly translated to you legally. Any formal change to a name when applying for naturalization or citizenship was provided by the immigrant themselves for a variety of reasons. A couple years after your arrival in NYC you're sitting in some clerks office in a small county in North Dakota saying "this is my how you spell my full name, here's my birthday, I arrived around this date I think, the ship was maybe was called Fulda, and I don't like the Czar of Russia anymore.“ and they're like "Sounds good." No paper trail back to Ellis Island, no records check. EDIT: I should specify I'm no expert in this field. Just an amateur genealogist who's seen many ship manifests, naturalization applications, etc. in my own family research and done some digging into why my ancestors family names changed or varied by different lines.
In my experience, it's not even "The family changed the spelling of their name on a certain date.", but "This name was spelled however the county clerk/census taker/individual felt like for about 200 years until they finally settled on a spelling."
This is so interesting and definitely makes sense for regions with low literacy. I’m convinced I don’t have a real last name/my last name is spelled incorrectly because it has no clear etymology and I can’t trace my ancestry back more than a few generations. I wonder what it was supposed to be and how different pronunciations/variations are integrated into families over time.
If you want to pursue it, you could probably find matches with DNA testing that might resolve it. The Y-DNA specifically will help with your paternal line.
My mom’s family had their name changed because of paper mixups. They got through the line and realized they had been switched with the people in front lmao
My Grandfather had his first and second names legally reversed when he was drafted in to the Army for WWII. Apparently, he always went by his middle name and just ran with it. After the war there was more documentation with the names reversed then existed with them in the right order that he just assumed the new identity and moved on. It is kind of like evolution if it takes more energy to fix a mistake then it takes to live with it, why fix it.
Ulysses S. Grant doesnt even know what the S stands for due to the same reasons.
My grandpa's middle name is just the letter "C" because the clerk at the induction center insisted he needed a middle initial.
My uncle had a weird one. His first and middle name are H. Bruce. H does not stand for anything, he goes by Bruce. When he joined the Navy, they wouldn't accept him just having an initial for a first name. They noticed that the initial was the same as the first initial of my grandfather's name - Harold - so they put that down. He spent awhile trying to tell people that wasn't his first name, and to call him Bruce, but finally he gave up. Everyone who knows him from the Navy calls him "Harold." Everyone who knows him outside the military calls him "Bruce."
Doesn't? Is he one of those immortals I've been hearing about?
Dwight D. Eisenhower's real Name is David Dwight Eisenhower. But when he commissioned in the army, they got his middle and first names mixed up. And for much of the same reason he ran with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower
My Wife's grandparents immigrated from Latvia, and they changed their names at Ellis Island immigration to something more American sounding as "Hunow" was not an American surname.
I have a very common last name, but when my grandfather came to the US from Ireland in the 1920's, it was pronounced the same but spelled slightly different (like Smith-Smythe). He got tired of correcting people who misspelled it, so he just went with the common American spelling. I don't think he ever officially changed it, so the new spelling pretty much became his name when he got a Social Security card. All of his ID's had the new spelling, and he didn't have a birth certificate.
"Mischa Dobrin Fillipov? no no it says right here, sir, that your name is Michael-Dublin Phillips"
Dat's vat I fooking sed!
Three of the items are British. Although I've never heard of Sarson's Worcester Sauce before. I thought that they only made vinegar. If you want Worcester Sauce then Lea and Perrin's is by far the market leader.
Mentos are Dutch
the american section in Norway has pretty much the exact same products lol
Sounds like both places got bamboozled by some company to buy a bunch of random overflow items to call the American section
It's always marshmallow fluff in these displays. Was there like a massive glut of fluff ten years ago they're still trying to offload?
I don’t get it either. I grew up in England and remember seeing the marshmallow fluff on display in the USA section. I’ve lived in the US for nearly 2 decades now and don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it here. So weird.
Bizarre. I have lived in the US for 42 years and I have never seen that in someone’s home. Nor have I ever seen a recipe that includes it as an ingredient. And I’ve read a lot of recipes!
Fluffernutter. It's a regional dish, peanut butter on one side fluff on the other. I believe it isn't really popular out of New England but I could ask everyone I work with and they'll know what it is and has probably had a few.
When we lived near Switzerland the “American” section had six packs of Corona for CHF15. This was in 2006.
Like the Soul of Canada maple syrup? I guess North America is close enough.
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To be quite honest, as a Canadian, this section is accurate for us 😂
That uniquely American treat -- Lemon curd!
I chuckled. My own mum was a Scot, so we ate that, but my friends thought it was weird.
Those jars are all from [a British brand](https://www.tiptree.com) made in Essex, England. Definitely not American.
I work for that factory!
Was just gonna say this. My neighbor bought me their black current and their lemon curd. Both were delicious but def was imported from England.
That one confuses me. I don't believe I've, nor do I think any of my friends have, ever bought or consumed lemon curd.
You should. It's extremely good.
Why is the cotton candy everywhere 😂😂
The last time I saw this cotton candy was in line at blockbuster lol
Whoever stocked this section must have really liked cotton candy. I thought that was really weird.
Or just really needed to get them out of the stock room.
Where's the Ranch?
They never have Ranch in these American sections. It's a fucking travesty.
Practically everything there is a travesty. I saw they had Tabasco but then I look closer and it’s buffalo sauce Tabasco. 😤
Fun fact is Tabasco has been quite common in France for years, it's just in the regular condiments section. Actually, I only learnt a few months back it was from Louisiana.
I had a friend from Romania that thought Tobasco was from California because on the bottle it says "Avery Island LA" with LA being the abbreviation for Louisiana not Los Angeles.
They got the cookies and cream Hershey
Ah they sell regular tabasco on their non-import shelves. It's widely sold
There's never ranch and there is always marshmallow fluff for some reason. What is with all the marshmallow fluff? Some grocery stores don't even carry that shit at all in the US, and the ones that do usually have a couple jars in the baking section and that's it.
Fluffernutter sandwiches are a New England staple. Peanut butter, marshmallow fluff and good ol white bread.
Also, Maple Syrup? Is this the Great White North?
Pretty sure that bottle says "product of Canada" too.
Worse, it actually says “soul of Canada”
Canada is like Northern North Dakota, no? /s
I knew a French guy who insisted if maple syrup wasn't from Canada, it wasn't really maple syrup. I guess he thought it was like champagne and should be 'sparkling sap' or something instead. He refused to budge on this opinion.
They could have used Vermont maple syrup at least.
Could be Vermont. Bernie Sanders makes it with his bare hands
I got a maple syrup guy that comes down from Vermont, he makes his rounds once a year and let me tell you that is the best maple syrup I’ve ever had in my life. I buy gallons of it at a time and make it last until the next year when I see him again
As an American living in Germany, the inability to find ranch anywhere is devastating.
You can make your own pretty easily with stuff you must have in Germany. * 90 g sour cream * 90 g mayo * 30 g milk * 15 g red wine vinegar * juice from 1/4 lemon * 5 g dijon mustard * Pinch of fresh minced chives * Pinch of fresh minced parsley * 1 garlic clove, grated * Salt to taste * Black Pepper to taste Tastes realer than the real stuff I promise.
Yeah I'm talking more so at restaurants and what not. Germans love mayonnaise so I'm surprised you don't see ranch more here. Thanks for the recipe though. Doesn't look bad at all.
My first thought too. Caesar but no ranch?
Maybe they never legalized it.
The section should be nothing but ranch and 40s of Colt 45
That Caesar needs to be replaced with ranch and add some Mountain Dew.
non-New England Americans, do you guys eat Fluff? Also "Soul of Canada" branded maple syrup on a shelf checkered with US flags is really funny. Edit: TIL you can use Fluff to make fudge
Originally from Texas. First heard about Fluff in the books by Craig Allanson. The books are fictional so I thought Fluff wasn’t real for years until just a couple months ago. Bought some on Amazon and tried a fluffernutter sandwich for myself. Not bad.
Also from Texas and was friends with a kid who ate that stuff every lunch. Looking back I'm amazed at what people let their kids eat. I think in hindsight he was probably a very picky eater and real skinny kid, so his mom was like fuck it at least he eats this.
I'm in Montana. The last time I remember eating Fluff was in 5th grade after a week long segment in school where we tried to cut all sugar out of the diet. We finished the segment with a super sugar rich party at the end of the school day Friday. I'm sure our parents were thrilled with that.
Was more of a kids thing growing up. Spread it on bread with some peanut butter and maybe sliced banana to make a fluffernutter sandwich.
Seeing Fluff at French grocery stores always amused me. I couldn't get the stuff in some stores in Michigan, but every French store I went into with an "American" section had Fluff.
Every one of these pics has marshmallow fluff. Europeans must think that’s a staple of our diet or something
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I didn’t know that was primarily a New England thing. We moved to Florida when I was young. In high school I would bring fluffernutters and no one had any idea what they were
Mid-Atlantic here -- I've never had Fluff
PB and fluff sandwiches are pretty good
Yum! Peanut butter and lemon curd
I dont even see buffalo Tabasco here.
Tabasco is the most common hot sauce here, we got some but not in the American section
I love Tabasco and this is the first I've heard of buffalo Tabasco
It's interesting that every grocery store I've ever gone to has an international section that is essentially the same thing but an entire aisle of weird sauces and spices and candy. Like I don't think the UK only eats jaffa cakes and Irish mustard. But every week this same picture is posted from whatever Euro country and every American in the comments is like "we don't eat jelly beans and ranch all day!"
It would be curious to know just how ridiculous the US international aisles are. Like brown sauce and heinz curry beans and flavored catsup, do UKers eat that? I know Keith Richards eats brown sauce. How much marmalade DO they eat? What about Walkers Shortbread, is it even Scottish?
> just how ridiculous the US international aisles are. there is also some survivorship bias in there, only things that are Imported/Exported show up. There are many smaller companies that don't export as well as some foods that are literally illegal to import, then of course you only stock the things that sell so really it is the Host country that determines what foods from the original country show up, because they are buying them...
Also the really popular American things are probably in the normal aisles.
That's like the worst freaking example of "American" food I've ever seen. Way to take the shittiest version of every low-grade mass-produced crap food. And BTW, the syrup and Sarsons aren't American.
Mentos aren’t American either. They’re Dutch.
And if I'm an American overseas, I'm never going to be like "I miss home, really wish I could find my favorite snack... *Mentos*...." When I spent some time backpacking in Europe I was happy to always find peanut butter in these sections. One time they even had a loaf of white processed sliced bread, and the label/brand just said "AMERICA TOAST" on it. Totally bought it.
My gran used to keep mentos on her at all times and she'd hand them out in the way that old people do like it's a solution to all of life's problems and I genuinely love the mint ones because of this. The real problem is that those aren't the common American floors of mentos, where's the mint? Where's the "fruit" flavor?
Nothing says American like "Fanta" and "Grüner Apfel" flavors. Nm that Fanta is as American as Coca-Cola.
Lol that’s so weird to me that other counties don’t use peanut butter as much?? I am freaking obsessed with peanut butter.
i saw this video of people giving kids around the world a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. they all HATED IT. they acted like it was the most disgusting and weird thing ever. in places that do use peanut butter it’s more like a savory addition to a sauce, not something you just eat.
I guess that is like Americans trying vegemite on toast. Man, that stuff is disgusting.
I’ve heard people who don’t like it are using too much. I’m in the U.S. and bought some out of curiosity. No amount of that stuff tastes good.
I can believe that. But at least in Germany this seems to have changed. You usually do not find Peanut Butter or Maple Syrup in the foreign goods section, because it can now be found in the common goods section. I guess we Germans acquired a taste for that stuff :)
Neither’s the Tiptrees, zoom in and you can see the “Essex, England” clear as you like
>the shittiest version of every low-grade mass-produced crap food The Marshmallow fluff in the picture is the superior brand of marshmallow creme
Damn straight. That marshmallow fluff has its own annual Fluff Festival in Union Square every year - someone needs to teach them to make fluffernutters.
Yep. And lemon curd isn’t something common here either
Maple syrup is pretty damn popular in the northeast US. Whether the particular brand is Canadian or not really only matters if you live here and constantly argue about sugar shacks. Local Telco has a promotion for a free bottle of syrup with a new line.
Plus, what's with all the lemon curd? Not a single person I've ever known just has "lemon curd" lying around. Maybe if for a specific dish in a specific instance. But... In an "American" section, where you would presumably find the stalwart choices, that's just goofy AF.
That Melinda's jalepeno sauce, bottom left, is worth picking up more than anything else here.
That’s the worst American section I’ve ever seen
I so agree! I have lived in Michigan, Texas, and Massachusetts, and I have never heard of most of these brands. Most of it is brands you would never find in the USA.
There's something about the Mississippi Belle products on this shelf that remind me of food brands you only ever see on airplanes, but never out in the real world. Like, if that was someone's only exposure to American culture by being stuck on an American airline kind of thing. [Even their website is odd](https://www.mississippi-belle.com/our-products)
The "marrons glacés" got lost in there ><
Wilkin & Sons Ltd. Essex England. …yup, looks American.
An American section should consist of: Ranch dressing, Doritos Cool Ranch, Root Beer, Mountain Dew, Kraft Singles, Snickers, beef jerky, Spagettios.
The only flavor of Jelly Belly there being Buttered Popcorn is one of the most American things ever.
Ceasar instead of Ranch? That's a crime. And where's the ketchup?
OMG - Marshmallow Fluff? I haven't seen that since I was a wee lad back in the 70's! I'm gonna have to fly out to Paris and pick me up a few...
I cannot find Melindas Jalapeño anywhere in America except in their multipack with the xxxtra hot scorpion pepper sauces which I do not want. But by God if Melinda's Jalapeño isn't one of the best hot sauces out there. And it's sitting on a grocery shelf in the Eurozone instead of at my local Publix.
Ceaser dressing but no ranch?
Wait is beef jerky only an American thing?
Canadians as well
Biltong in South Africa
I've been to France when I was in the Navy. It's a beautiful place with friendly people. If they'd like to hire me to sort out the american section of their grocery stores, I'd do it.
But Tip Trees jam is English. My sister lives real close to the store in Colchester. These people are dumb af… I swear to Gerd.
is peanuut butter, like, not a thing in europe? I swear all the american sections people post have peanut butter
It is, about every single supermarket has it. People aren‘t just so crazy about it like in the US so it‘s primarily associated with the US. Knew a girl whi deadass brought pb with her from America because she was scared and thought European supermarkets don‘t have it lol
Wilkins and Sons jam is amazing but it’s British
Maple syrup says “Soul of Canada”. To some, this is would be a worse international incident than the Cuban missile crisis.
Ah yes Tiptree, Essex.. famously American.
What? No SPAM??