Grocery Store Finds in Germany

The food here in Germany was the least of my concerns when anticipating the big move. Living in a hotel for over a month in MA and here left us nutritionally challenged, even when ordering salads in restaurants. Over here, it’s meat and potatoes land! And pastries. I was glad to have very basic cooking facilities in temporary quarters, so I could have oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, and I made spaghetti at least once per week. Jeff says he likes how microwave baked potatoes taste, especially when they are slathered with salsa, but I’ll stick with oven baked, wrapped in foil.

Thank goodness the commissary (military grocery store) sells 2 hard boiled eggs for 40 cents in a small plastic container, along with thousands of other familiar products from the US. I’ve visited a bunch of German grocery stores, and am pleased to let you know that they are phenomenal, except for the toilet paper. We found out after we signed the lease that we are not allowed to use comfy American TP due to narrow sewage pipes, so there goes that idea. Anyway, this is about food, not the end result, so here are our preliminary findings:

Globus is a huge store with a Target/super Walmart feel (large kitchen appliance section, small book section, etc.). Jeff highly recommends the fresh chocolate pudding sold in beverage-sized disposable plastic cups with whipped cream in both the fridge section of the store and the bakery at the front of the store for people who don’t have time to go all the way into the store!

L: Lemon Mousse  R: Hash browns for Easter Casserole "crust"

Aldi (and at least one other store) has a machine that “bakes” products on the spot! Jeff recommends the instant pizza, which seems to me is pre-cooked and then just heated up, as it pops out just about a minute after you push the button. A new friend recommends the regular bread products out of this machine, to be consumed fairly immediately.

L: fruit juice  R: smoked ham cubes for Easter casserole

Edeka is another chain store that has nice mixed vegetables (also available at other stores). The European touch is that there can be a mild cream sauce in the package, resulting in tasty cauliflower/broccoli/carrots (not like the thicker American “cheese” in some frozen veggies).

Cafe in Kaiserslautern

Lidl is also in our new town, and is a discount store. All that means to the consumer is that lower-priced groceries are still on their cardboard palates, which is no hardship to me when buying a box of pasta. They have vegetarian meatballs, which are great…alongside meat meatballs, also tasty!

Kaufland translates into "shopping world", and that it is. They sell clocks, batteries, and boom boxes, along with just about everything else. My favorite items there are prepared “salads”, in this case, cucumber salad in a dill vinegar dressing, shrimp salad (too much mayo, but I mix it with their bulgur and chic pea “salad”), herring in sour cream, and potato salad. There is also “meat salad”, which I haven’t bought yet, but have had in the past: looks like bologna lunch meat cut into strips, in mayo, of course!

There are several more, but I haven’t spent a great deal of time in the others, so I’ll post on interesting finds there later.