The lure of the supermarket

It is tough for our children to understand. They have grown up in the aisles of supermarkets, pushing trolleys and shopping carts, maybe sitting in one placidly while their parents stocked up on the monthly list of groceries, making major food decisions that were often dictated by the flavours favoured by those same toddlers.

Not so for us. As youngsters, we had the friendly neighbourhood grocer whose stocks built the tastes of his customers — not the other way around. Sometimes we would accompany mother and father to the grocer and stand silently as the list was handed over and the items placed on the counter, one by one. We peered beyond the shopkeeper and wished we could explore those mysterious nooks and crannies that he guarded so stolidly. But getting our hands on anything in a shop was out of the question. We had no choices then — but somehow what we ended up with was choice stuff!

Since we were a family of big eaters, sacks of everything found their way home. Whole wheat that had to be cleaned and taken to the mill to be ground, rice that had to be checked for stones before cooking — and we were given these jobs because we had “good eyes.”

For us, therefore, the arrival of the supermarket, with cleaned and sorted grains and pulses and ready-ground wheat flour was a revolution — and a relief. What a treat it was to visit that four-storeyed building with entire sections devoted to grains and fruit and vegetable and so on. There was always something new to discover on the shelves, something none of us had heard about or seen, but were willing to try if the price was reasonable.

It was father who made those trips to the supermarket an expedition for us. He was ready to take his time, scrutinise labels, weigh possibilities ... Mother, on the other hand, had no desire to experiment with strange new ingredients. She believed in the tried and tested and got the day’s meals cooked with the minimum fuss. However, with his latent hunter-gatherer instincts, father took it upon himself to be the super supermarket scout — a trait not appreciated by mother, who had moved up the evolutionary ladder and did not want to make an all-day manufacturing process out of whatever was dumped on the kitchen table on his return.

“Why don’t you go along and pick and choose?” we urged, trying to keep the peace. “Then you’ll know what you don’t mind working with.” Of course, our interventions did not have any effect and to the end of her days, mother made do with father’s choices.

Not so for us. We learnt our lessons well and now a trip to the supermarket is an end in itself. We make a day of it. We treat it as an expedition into the unknown. And very often, it is, especially in foreign lands.

Along with the arts and crafts, pottery barns, sidewalk cafes and roadside kiosks, it is the supermarket that gives me the feel of a place. I browse through shelves of soup cubes and spice pastes, breakfast cereals and instant puddings and the thrill of helping myself, reading contents of jars and thinking up possibilities does not fade. Sometimes, thanks to language barriers, I have no clue what entire sections contain and have to go by the pictures on the packets, making it even more of a voyage of discovery into uncharted territory.

For our now adult children, we are seriously ‘uncool’ to enjoy such a pastime — until we unearth something that does wonders for their taste buds — and then they don’t mind accompanying us, even pushing the trolleys now that they are no longer sitting in them ...

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.