Old-Fashioned Grocery Stores

Tan Lucy Pez at http://tanlucypez.blogspot.com/ wrote recently about full-service grocery stores and how she misses them. I do too.

When I was young, my mom went to the butcher shop for meats, bones for the dog and suet with which to cook French fries. She went to the greengrocer for vegetables and fruits and a market for other necessary items, such as spices, canned goods and paper products. There was no such thing as frozen foods or convenience food or pre-packaged foods. She could charge her purchases and pay for them at the end of the month. She could request delivery and the foods would come to our home so we didn't have to walk and carry them if Daddy had our car that day. Nowadays, you can charge it, but with a national credit card - not an in-store program. You can get delivery, but it isn't free anymore. They may say it is free, but we all know it is built into the cost of the foods.

There is a certain beauty in the convenience of a modern supermarket, where you can buy almost everything you need in one place, including medications, birthday cards and lawn supplies. But to my mind, there is only one thing that makes them better than the stores of old and that is the deli (assuming it is a good one), where we can buy already prepared meals if we are too busy or uninclined to cook for ourselves. Oddities we might never make at home, such as hummus, tabouli, egg rolls and piroshki abound and tease our tastebuds with promises of exotic flavors. Good old-fashioned egg, chicken, tuna and potato salads in great supply; roasted chickens, turkey breasts, lasagnas and creamed spinach all ready at the drop of a hat (or a few dollars), homemade pimiento cheese to die for, and small toasted rounds of French baguettes to spread it on. Let us not forget tomato and basil or split-pea soup, and ready made Caesar salad!

This is the way my mind works lately; all I can think about is food: comfort food, snack food, dessert food, ad infinitum. This post was meant to be a paeon to the specialty grocery stores of old - and it has evolved into a song of praise for convenience foods. No wonder I have gained 10 pounds!

P.S. I know that to some of you, hummus, tabouli, egg rolls and piroshki are not oddities, so don't get your undies in a wad. I just meant they are things I would not make at home.