Habit shifts, grocery edition

For obvious reasons, there’s lots of chatter among my US friends about moving abroad for, I dunno, say 3-4 years. If you make the leap, grocery shopping will be one of your biggest habit changes.

Nothing abroad compares to a US grocery store. Sure, you can find bigger grocery stores or even a Costco, but more likely than not, you’ll be shopping at much smaller places and at a much higher frequency.

Part of the reason is the smaller spaces. Behold our fridge in our London flat:

Just the essentials on move-in day 2017

The fridge in my college dorm was bigger. The freezer was the size of a tissue box. And yet, we lived in that flat with that fridge for four years and it didn’t stop us from cooking some incredible meals.

How? We just readjusted how we thought about shopping for food, and we haven’t really looked back.

In Europe, there’s a focus on quality, on finding the freshest, best version of whatever ingredients you need. And because of the smaller spaces, you typically shop for the next couple of days vs. the next two weeks. What you sacrifice in convenience, you definitely make up in quality.

Here’s a rundown of how I approach grocery shopping in Paris.

Grocery stores

Big grocery stores exist here, but there aren’t as many in the city so it’s not always possible to get to one. Monoprix is basically Target Junior, with a big grocery selection plus cosmetics, clothes, shoes, home goods, books, etc. And like Target, you won’t leave without spending 100€.

Most of the time you're shopping at smaller city grocery stores like Monop’, Franprix, or Carrefour City, which are the small stores offered by the bigger brands. The city shops actually have a decent selection for only having ±5 aisles.

You can find most things at the grocery stores here, whether it’s a big one or a city store, but there are a few differences. Your peanut butter will be in a small jar versus a tub. You have to weigh your own produce before bringing it to the counter. The hot sauce selection is very sad.

There are a few things I haven’t been able to find at a Parisian grocery store. I cannot find red pepper flakes or bottles of pure vanilla extract. And the baking powder is tricky to find—it’s called levure chimique and it comes in packets rather than a can.

These shops are good for basics and pantry staples, but it’s much more fun and tastier to go to the specialized shops.

Specialty shops

The butcher, the bakery, the cheese shop, the farm shop—these are staples of French grocery shopping. Yes, it means making multiple stops in one day (I think I went to 5 places yesterday to get ready for a friend’s visit), but it’s worth it because the quality is so good. The cost isn’t much more than the grocery store, and you can really tell the difference with the freshness and taste.

Beyond the standard boulangerie, boucherie, and fromagerie, there are other speciality shops like the Italian or Greek shops on our street, or the store that sells exclusively tinned fish. We also have two produce stands on the street; one has a huge selection of local and imported produce and the other focuses exclusively on French produce.

Boucherie Oberkampf, Conserverie la belle-iloise, and The French Bastards bakery

Bi-weekly markets

I like to do most of our shopping for fresh food at the outdoor markets when I can. There’s one at the bottom of our street every Tuesday and Friday, and the massive Bastille market on Thursday and Sunday is a 15 minute walk. There’s a huge selection of every type of vendor: produce, meat, fish, cheese, fresh cut flowers, bread, dips, olives, nuts, dried fruit, rotisserie chicken, prepared meals, oysters, wine.

I find the produce and bulk foods like nuts and dried fruit can be cheaper at the markets, the meat prices are comparable to the boucherie, and some things like hummus and dips can get expensive but are worth the price compared to grocery store options.

Picard

This is the one that confused me the most when I moved here.

Picard is a grocery store that offers exclusively frozen foods. The entire store is a looping pathway lined with deep freezers that ends at the checkout counters. You can get basics, like frozen meat, fish, veggies, and fruit, or more elaborate prepared items like soups, full meals, sauces, and desserts. The prepared items are a bit hit or miss, but the basics are so helpful to have stashed in the freezer.

Everything is priced well and has detailed instructions for how to cook things from frozen, so you can have oven baked salmon and veggies ready from freezer to table in 20 minutes.

Oh and they have a ton of bake your own French pastries—I keep the mini croissants on hand for the occasional special breakfast that makes the house smell like a bakery.

Each freezer is super specific - here's one full of pre-chopped herbs and another that's just different sauces.

What about Japan…

I should also mention that while I had to shop at multiple grocery stores every week in Tokyo, it wasn’t as much fun.

In Tokyo, each grocery store had limited options and there wasn’t one single grocery store near us that had everything I used regularly. Even the produce options changed by store. It typically took 3-4 strategic visits to get all the ingredients I wanted for the week.

An example. If we wanted to make the sweet potato black bean tacos that have been a staple in our house for a decade, I’d have to go to one grocery store for the black beans, one for the tortillas, and a third for the shredded cheese. Add in the fact that it’s 90 degrees and 90% humidity for a third of the year…and shopping was just a chore.

I’m sure people will think, “Why didn’t they just cook Japanese food?” And we did. We mostly ate Japanese food when we went out, too. But sometimes at home we just wanted to cook familiar favorites and comfort food. And in Japan, that was incredibly challenging.

That’s probably why I’m more comfortable with the lack of convenience shopping in Paris. I’ve gone through the struggle when it only resulted in mediocre ingredients. Now I get to shop at multiple places because of the wealth of amazing options. It feels like a treat, not a chore.