5 ms·

I'm sure supermarkets now are better than what you grew up with in Montana but I have the opposite experience. I'm in SF, we supposedly have good produce, farme

I'm sure supermarkets now are better than what you grew up with in Montana but I have the opposite experience. I'm in SF, we supposedly have good produce, farmer's markets, and big supermarkets with lots of selection. But they pale in comparison to what I'm used to from Japan and France. The bread here in SF is horrid and that includes that massively over rated Tartine, not to mention how bad the baked products are at most supermarkets. They're shovelware baked goods. The produce selection is 1/3rd what it is in France and much of it is tasteless compared to the good stuff you'd find in Japan or France. There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. !/10th the selection of pâté. But hey, we get fresh tortillas so you win some you lose some. Even the milk here is off. Our beer selection is 1/50th of Belgium and zero of the sweet ones. Our cider selection is 1/5th of the UK's. It's all relative. If you were at a 1 and entered a 5 then it seems like a huge step up. But if you then experienced a 10, that 5 no longer seems so great.

iancmceachern 4y ago
Me too. I grew up in Colorado and have spent a lot of time shopping at farmers markets in Sacramento before moving to the bay area. The supermarkets here have great variety, but lousy fresh vegetables amd fruits. Real lousy.
tomjakubowski 4y ago
Pints of heavy whipping cream, even the fancy organic kind, at my local Whole Foods in Los Angeles don't exceed $6.50, which is already more than I'd like to pay. $15 seems insane. What's the brand?
philwelch 4y ago
Have you ever bought groceries anywhere in the US other than SF? I’ve noticed a lot of variation even within the US.
jandrewrogers 4y ago
I don't think this generalizes, it really depends on where you live in the US. I work in Europe and know many US expats there, so this is something we talk about. The consensus has been that the quality and diversity of fresh foods in the US these days is frequently superior in many categories at the median, though notably worse in others. The paucity of good produce is noticeable everywhere, for example, a fraction of what is available in (my case) Seattle. Meat quality in the US has always been relatively excellent, though depending on what part of the US you live not always diverse. European butter is superior on average, but cheese shops have a similar range in big cities. Seafood in Europe is excellent along the coast, better than the US outside of a handful of fishery adjacent cities, but often poorer than the US once you move inland. The bread is indistinguishable for the most part. Processed and cured meat products is still an area where available European products are unambiguously ahead of what is commonly available in the US. The US has improved a lot in this regard but it hasn't caught up yet. Some of these are arguable of course. The one consistent thing everyone notices is the limited diversity and availability of fresh vegetables in Europe, and beef quality, but that is a pretty natural consequence of geography. All of which should be separated from the cuisine produced with said fresh ingredients.
- wikibob 4y ago
  Strongly strongly disagree. The average produce, meat, cured meat, and seafood in the western EU is vastly superior to the average available in the USA. Bread is especially disgusting in the US compared to EU.
  - jandrewrogers 4y ago
    That "average available in the USA" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The USA is larger than Europe, but no one would credibly say that these things are all good across Europe. You can find plenty of terrible bread, meat, and seafood in Europe. To call it "vastly superior" is indefensible on its face. Hence why I referenced the median. It wouldn't make sense to cherry-pick a US city like Seattle, which has amazing ingredient quality and diversity that few cities can compete with, and generalize it to the entire US. I've lived a lot of places and recognize the variance. The ingredient quality isn't even consistent within single European countries, having surprisingly high variance over -- by American standards -- relatively small geographic areas. If you compare blue collar city against blue collar city, the US is definitely competitive in my experience. I think many people have an outdated view of the food available in flyover country. I split my time between Western Europe and the US, and get around both. I am having a difficult time finding these "vastly superior" ingredients in Europe that you speak of.
    - maccard 4y ago
      I agree that the diversity is higher in the median, but disagree that the quality is higher. I live in the UK, but have spent time in the US, and for day to day shopping in the 3 cities I've spent lots of time in (SF, LA and Raleigh NC) the quality at the highest end is good but everything else is a crapshoot. Even at that most of the actual high end ingredients are European ingredients (cheese and butter, cured meats, olives) and cost 4-5x what they do in Europe. Not only that, I don't actually trust when I'm buying DOP parmesan from a us grocery store, but I know what I'm buying here. The quality of supermarket meat in your average Tesco, or Asda ranges from acceptable to good. The quality in a Target or Walmart ranges from very very poor to good in my experience. As a textbook example the fabled wooded chicken breast is for the most part not a problem here, but was something I experienced on more than one occasion during my last month long trip to SF.
davidgay 4y ago
> The produce selection is 1/3rd You clearly haven't been to Berkeley Bowl (not very far from SF...). Or Monterey Market (also in Berkeley). > There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. Strangely, also in Berkeley, https://cheeseboardcollective.coop/bakery-cheese/cheese-shop/ https://cheeseboardcollective.coop/bakery-cheese/cheese-shop... - it's been Covided alas, but the photo there should give you an idea. But some of your items, especially the pâté are definitely in the category of "Why isn't this just like at home?", which you really shouldn't use as a measure of quality.

iancmceachern 4y ago

Me too. I grew up in Colorado and have spent a lot of time shopping at farmers markets in Sacramento before moving to the bay area. The supermarkets here have great variety, but lousy fresh vegetables amd fruits. Real lousy.

tomjakubowski 4y ago

Pints of heavy whipping cream, even the fancy organic kind, at my local Whole Foods in Los Angeles don't exceed $6.50, which is already more than I'd like to pay. $15 seems insane. What's the brand?

philwelch 4y ago

Have you ever bought groceries anywhere in the US other than SF? I’ve noticed a lot of variation even within the US.

jandrewrogers 4y ago

I don't think this generalizes, it really depends on where you live in the US. I work in Europe and know many US expats there, so this is something we talk about. The consensus has been that the quality and diversity of fresh foods in the US these days is frequently superior in many categories at the median, though notably worse in others. The paucity of good produce is noticeable everywhere, for example, a fraction of what is available in (my case) Seattle. Meat quality in the US has always been relatively excellent, though depending on what part of the US you live not always diverse. European butter is superior on average, but cheese shops have a similar range in big cities. Seafood in Europe is excellent along the coast, better than the US outside of a handful of fishery adjacent cities, but often poorer than the US once you move inland. The bread is indistinguishable for the most part. Processed and cured meat products is still an area where available European products are unambiguously ahead of what is commonly available in the US. The US has improved a lot in this regard but it hasn't caught up yet. Some of these are arguable of course. The one consistent thing everyone notices is the limited diversity and availability of fresh vegetables in Europe, and beef quality, but that is a pretty natural consequence of geography. All of which should be separated from the cuisine produced with said fresh ingredients.

wikibob 4y ago
Strongly strongly disagree. The average produce, meat, cured meat, and seafood in the western EU is vastly superior to the average available in the USA. Bread is especially disgusting in the US compared to EU.
- jandrewrogers 4y ago
  That "average available in the USA" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The USA is larger than Europe, but no one would credibly say that these things are all good across Europe. You can find plenty of terrible bread, meat, and seafood in Europe. To call it "vastly superior" is indefensible on its face. Hence why I referenced the median. It wouldn't make sense to cherry-pick a US city like Seattle, which has amazing ingredient quality and diversity that few cities can compete with, and generalize it to the entire US. I've lived a lot of places and recognize the variance. The ingredient quality isn't even consistent within single European countries, having surprisingly high variance over -- by American standards -- relatively small geographic areas. If you compare blue collar city against blue collar city, the US is definitely competitive in my experience. I think many people have an outdated view of the food available in flyover country. I split my time between Western Europe and the US, and get around both. I am having a difficult time finding these "vastly superior" ingredients in Europe that you speak of.
  - maccard 4y ago
    I agree that the diversity is higher in the median, but disagree that the quality is higher. I live in the UK, but have spent time in the US, and for day to day shopping in the 3 cities I've spent lots of time in (SF, LA and Raleigh NC) the quality at the highest end is good but everything else is a crapshoot. Even at that most of the actual high end ingredients are European ingredients (cheese and butter, cured meats, olives) and cost 4-5x what they do in Europe. Not only that, I don't actually trust when I'm buying DOP parmesan from a us grocery store, but I know what I'm buying here. The quality of supermarket meat in your average Tesco, or Asda ranges from acceptable to good. The quality in a Target or Walmart ranges from very very poor to good in my experience. As a textbook example the fabled wooded chicken breast is for the most part not a problem here, but was something I experienced on more than one occasion during my last month long trip to SF.

davidgay 4y ago

> The produce selection is 1/3rd You clearly haven't been to Berkeley Bowl (not very far from SF...). Or Monterey Market (also in Berkeley). > There's 1/6th the selection of cheese. Strangely, also in Berkeley, https://cheeseboardcollective.coop/bakery-cheese/cheese-shop/ https://cheeseboardcollective.coop/bakery-cheese/cheese-shop... - it's been Covided alas, but the photo there should give you an idea. But some of your items, especially the pâté are definitely in the category of "Why isn't this just like at home?", which you really shouldn't use as a measure of quality.