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When I moved from the US to South Africa, I didn’t expect the grocery stores to be so different.
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In South Africa, I weigh my own produce before I get to the register and buy unrefrigerated eggs.
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I can also buy game meat, like ostrich and impala, in most South African grocery stores.
When I moved from the US to South Africa, I didn’t expect there to be so many differences between the countries’ grocery stores.
Like many Americans from small towns, I’ve shopped at the same grocery store since I was small enough to sit in my mother’s cart. I know the aisles so well that I could probably do my weekly food run blindfolded.
When I moved to Cape Town in 2020, I expected the South African supermarkets to be the same as the stores in New Jersey. However, I learned that a new grocery-shopping routine was one of the many adjustments I had to make after moving to a new country.
Here are some of the most surprising differences between grocery stores in the US and South Africa.
In South Africa, the international sections are smaller and lack a lot of the foods I used to buy in New Jersey.
When I lived in New Jersey, I loved cooking empanadas and tostones with my friends from Colombia, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The ingredients were easy to find in stores like ShopRite and Weis Markets.
That’s not the case in South African grocery stores. Ingredients for Latin or Mexican foods occupy just a couple of shelves in the international section. Forget trying to make empanadas, tostones, or arepas. If I’m lucky, I can find half a shelf of stale taco shells.
Because South Africa has one of the largest Indian populations outside of India, its grocery stores have a much larger selection of Indian foods than the stores did in New Jersey. For example, I can buy curries from Durban, a city that’s home to South Africa’s largest Indian population.
The stores also carry a wide variety of African foods and beverages — such as samp, which are dried corn kernels; mealie pap, a breakfast food made of milled white corn; and Stoney, a spicy ginger ale.
Signs in South African grocery stores have words in both English and Afrikaans.
In many South African grocery stores, the signs hanging above the aisles are in both English and Afrikaans, one of the country’s 11 official languages.
Usually, the side facing the front of the store is in English, and the side facing the back is in Afrikaans.
Eggs aren’t refrigerated in South African supermarkets.
Grocery stores in the US store eggs in the refrigerated section, but supermarkets in South Africa keep them at room temperature, as do many countries in Asia and Europe.
Egg processing in the US — which involves removing the egg’s protective layer by washing and drying it — makes the egg more prone to infection from salmonella. So, US food processing regulations require that eggs are refrigerated to avoid infection.
In countries that don’t refrigerate eggs, the processes are different, and they have their own methods of avoiding contamination or infection.
The names that South Africans use for fruits and vegetables are very different.
The first time I paged through a South African cookbook, I saw a recipe that called for 250 grams of beetroot and wondered how many beets I needed to buy to get 250 grams of their roots. Little did I know, beetroot is just the term South Africans use for beets.
A lot of the names that South Africans use for fruit and vegetables come from British English and Afrikaans. For example, rocket means arugula, aubergine means eggplant, and courgette means zucchini.
When I first asked my South African partner to define naartjies, he very helpfully told me, “They’re naartjies.” I later surmised that naartjie is the Afrikaans word for tangerine.
And a South African family I stayed with once asked if I wanted any “spanspek,” I had no idea what they were talking about. When they finally showed me the fruit, I shouted: “That’s cantaloupe!”
Customers in South African grocery stores weigh their own produce before bringing it to the register.
In South Africa, customers weigh their own produce themselves before checking out.
I was used to cashiers weighing my produce in the US, so the first time I bought fresh fruit and vegetables in South Africa, I confidently arrived to the register without weighing my items ahead of time.
You can imagine the confusion on the cashier’s face. After having a good laugh, they sent me back to weigh my produce.
Grocery delivery is cheaper in South Africa than it is in the US.
Most weeks, I get my groceries delivered to my house in Cape Town instead of practicing my shopping skills.
I order groceries from the Checkers grocery app and they arrive in an hour. The delivery fee only costs 35 rand, or just over $2. For comparison, the fee for one-hour grocery delivery in the US can typically cost between $4.99 and $9.99.
This affordable, convenient option saves me a lot of time and helps me feel more comfortable during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Open-air markets are more common in South Africa.
When I lived in my rural New Jersey hometown, I bought a lot of my fresh produce at roadside stalls. I could get sweet corn and Jersey tomatoes that were grown on local farms.
In South Africa, there are similar stalls outside of major cities, like Cape Town and Johannesburg. Plus, there are a lot of open-air markets, which are great places to shop for spices and other specific ingredients.
My partner’s parents live in an area with a large Indian community, and they get the ingredients for their Indian recipes at both the local grocery store and the nearby open-air markets.
They prefer to shop for spices and poultry at open-air markets since many of them carry a wider variety of options.
Grocery stores in South Africa sell game meat next to beef, pork, poultry, and lamb.
I could buy ostrich meat in New Jersey, but it was considered to be more of a specialty food item. So I was surprised to find ostrich meat right next to chicken, beef, and pork in the grocery store when I got to South Africa.
The grocery stores here carry a wide range of ostrich meat and venison — game meat including impala, kudu, eland, gemsbok, springbok, blesbok, and wild boar. I can eat like a lion or a leopard just by shopping at my local grocery store.
Many brand names are inspired by the South African bush.
One of the most popular chip brands in South Africa is called Simba, and each bag has a photo of a lion on the front.
The brand name and the chip flavors — including Mrs. Balls Chutney, Chakalaka, Chili Biltong, and Braai Wors — are inspired by the bush, or the South African wilderness.
Customers can buy wine at the local South African grocery store, but not beer or liquor.
In South Africa, shoppers can pick up a bottle of wine at the same time as they buy their food and beverages. However, grocery stores aren’t permitted to sell beer or liquor.
In the US, laws on selling alcohol in grocery stores vary by state. Grocery stores in some states sell a wide range of liquor, beer, and wine, but supermarkets in other states don’t sell any alcohol at all.
The ShopRite location where I got my groceries in New Jersey didn’t carry any alcohol. Many US supermarkets have a separate liquor store next door.
Grocery stores’ biltong and braai offerings prove how much South Africans love their meats.
Biltong — cured meat that, in my opinion, tastes similar to American jerky — is so popular in South Africa that some grocery stores have entire stations dedicated to it.
At a Pick n Pay near my home, shoppers can select their own biltong. I can’t imagine a grocery store in New Jersey having an entire section devoted to jerky.
The grocery stores here also reflect South Africans’ love for a braai, which is a feast of barbecued meat cooked over wood. Most supermarkets have pre-packaged meats, such as marinated pork chops or marinated chicken kebabs, prepared specifically for a braai.
Grocery stores in the US sell some barbecue items and marinated meats. However, South Africans takes their meat-cooking more seriously, and it shows in the amount of braai-ready meat their grocery stores sell.
Read the original article on Insider