Groceries in Germany
Every so often, readers ask me to describe how our life differs in Germany and the US. While it’s impossible to say which is better, I do want to try to share the experiences. For more scenes of life in Germany, you might enjoy A Typical Sunday in Berlin (when everything is closed), Making Sense of German Recycling (for all 10 piles we have to create!), and Setting Up a New Filing System (no more manilla folders?). We’re drooling over today’s topic…
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Our favorite grocery store is probably a ten minute bike ride away. It’s stocked with so many delicious foods that I love to unload the grocery bags right onto our counter so I can just stare at how much I got (for so little money!). Martin looks over everything I have picked, licking his lips even at the sight of tomatoes. Who licks their lips over tomatoes?! Both of us in Berlin.
We went from living in the Rocky Mountains where we had to drive half an hour just to get to the grocery store to having little grocery shops, fruit markets, and organic grocery stores everywhere we look. Living in such a huge community means high turnover, so our food is always incredibly fresh. Our grocery store in the US did everything it could just to maintain a selection of food without everything spoiling.
Today as Martin helped me hang my bike back up in our “double garage” in the apartment and eyed what I picked, he cheered. He also groaned; I accidentally bought garlic and herb cream cheese. Germans love garlic and onions in their cheeses. But they also really like a lot of other delicious combinations of hard and soft cheeses – the sorts of things that you’d have to special order and pay half a fortune for in the United States.
Lunch becomes a simple thing at our house when we’re both home. We don’t cook. We cut up a plate full of vegetables like peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, fresh rye bread from the bakery, cheese, and pesto or hummus. Everything is fresh, uncomplicated, and so unlike anything we experience in the countryside. I couldn’t resist picking out this cheese today:
It’s called “Halloweenkaese”. It’s flavored with ginger and pumpkin. Like I said – Germans like weird things in their cheese. But oh my gosh – it tastes amazing. This hunk, which is now a third consumed!, only cost two bucks.
I think I understand why Germans have such tiny fridges now. Our fridge is the same size as the one I had in my college dorm room in the US! We stocked up on fruits and vegetables in the United States and needed a huge fridge. Here the food tastes so amazing right when you get it from the grocery store that, at least at our house, the frequent bike rides are well worth the added taste.
Keep it green and simple with 2 more ideas:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:20 am
yes, you posted on the healthier offerings of the German grocery stores. today I posted on the chocolate offerings of the German grocery stores. hee hee! Love these German grocery stores! =)
October 7th, 2009 at 7:21 am
I want to try out that cheese! I will look for it next time I go shopping! I have yet to really check out the specialty cheese and meat counters because I know I will have to use German to ask for things and I don’t yet have enough language skills to really ask for what I want. I guess I have to start trying sometime…
Katie
October 7th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Healthy food that’s affordable? I never knew it existed!
October 7th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Germany sounds so appealing…..much like the kind of life I’d like to live!
October 7th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I’m so heading to the grocery store in search of that cheese!!! Wish me luck!
October 7th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Oooh good luck, Antiques Diva! It’s well worth it if you spot some.
Oh and Juliette, a slice of chocolate was totally the little dessert to finish off. We’ll see how long the rest lasts in our house.
Katie
October 7th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I’m pretty sure my 4-year-old would give her eye teeth for ‘Halloween Cheese’. She’s a sucker for anything holiday themed.
(And I am very jealous of your fresh food.)
October 8th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Hi there!
I can totally relate to affordable fresh food. Don’t get me wrong…groceries and supermarket staff are more expensive here in Greece than in Germany (or any other european country, for that matter…*sigh*)
But…I’ve found out which things are best bought organic and which I could buy conventionally.
That said, I also minimized the amounts of groceries and maximized the visits per week to the grocery store. That trick alone has saved me tons of money and allowed me to spend it on awsome organic food.
Nowadays, I always carry a reusable grocery bag in my purse and buy only what fits in there. It suffices our small familly of three for at least 2 days (in the summer, I’d say just one day because we seem to eat fruit all day long)
Have fun!
October 8th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Hmmmm… I will have to keep my eyes open for that lovely cheese. The combination of ginger and pumpkin sounds quite interesting.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:10 am
I’m going to the market this afternoon and will have to look for Halloween Kase! Sounds yummy. Our favorite German cheese is butterkase, which costs almost nothing over here, but a small fortune in the US. I too love the fresh seasonal produce available. It’s so much better than the waxed stuff you find in large super markets. And the bread! Oh, the bread! I could wax poetic about the bread.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I love German cheeses but I have a problem with the tomatoes too watery and most I have seen are hothouse grown in the Netherlands.
The breads are great and most places have organic products that I like.
I like the Turkish markets.
Lambs lettuce was new to me and the whole celery root.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Canadian here, I think that the American ways of life are about to be greatly modified by the Asian fact, oil prices rising, and failure of Factory Farms, as capital flees to Asian markets. Even the “Merry Oldsmobile” is no longer a part of the American scene, and McMansions are all foreclosed, or soon on the block. The convulsive paradigm shifts Americans are facing are driven by a falling dollar too. Here’s hoping the German example can help them find their way. My wife and I suffered a massive down-sizing ten years ago, and have managed to do well in a re-vamped lifestyle, away from the American Dream style, here in Canada and live much as the Germans in your account do! We laugh at friends still stuck with huge two door ice-making fridges, as our apartment size fridge takes little in power and serves us just as well. We eat fresh from daily walks and bike rides in summer months, to the market-place, and eat seasonal for economy’s sake as well. As my Wife often says, “Darling there is so life after the American Dream dies!”
November 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Just for your information: if there is no grocery market around, it’s possible to order a “grüne kiste” (green box) at a eco-farm around the area you life, which will reach you once a week. It costs about 15€ a month and it offers you a great variety of vegetables which are growing in Germany next to the place you life. It’s so great to create various meals with that stuff – okay, there is no cheese coming with it, but you won’t miss it, because all these vegetables are so great and fresh…