Maybe I was just a niave Wisconsin girl when I moved down here, but I never knew some of the things that don’t need to be refrigerated!
The milk we buy here in Honduras is in a tetra pack, and therefor doesn’t need to be refrigerated. You can find it on the end of the aisles throughout the grocery store. It tastes a little funny which means I don’t drink it straight, but let’s be honest, I didn’t do that in the States either! The tetra packs make for extra space in the fridge if we buy a few extras. They don’t need to be refrigerated until they’re open, so it’s easy to store them in the cabinet until we need them.
Eggs are also unrefrigerated here in Honduras. They can be found on an end shelf near the freezer section. We also don’t have “extra large” or “jumbo” eggs like in the States, just the regular sized ones. I miss the half-dozens that can usually be purchased back home since buying 12 or even 18 (which is more common) seems like such a waste for how many eggs we actually eat. The ones here come packed in saran wrap on a cardboard egg tray. This always makes me nervous that they will break as we walk home!
The first time I saw margarine sitting on a random shelf in the middle of an aisle near the freezer section, it definitely caught me off guard. But my love for “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” meant I couldn’t be stopped from buying it anyway! Apparently it’s just fine that way since we are still alive and well:)
Finally, after seven months, I can usually find things on the first try in the grocery store! That being said, some things are still a crap-shoot. Items that are shipped from the U.S. oftentimes get stuck in customs. Bagels?…if you’re lucky! That means that when we see something we like we tend to stock up for fear that the store will be out the next time we’re there! For example…orange juice 3 gallons at a time? You betcha. Last week we checked two different grocery stores for black olives and came up empty, so this week when we found some we bought three cans! This week we also bought a ridiculous amount of root beer. Root beer is nearly impossible to find down here and is absolutely never on the menu at restaurants! When Alex found an entire shelf of A&W we thought we had died and gone to heaven! 16 cans on the conveyor belt led to some funny stares at the check-out, but it was definitely worth it! Root beer floats for dessert tonight?….
From Russia with Love 
I can really appreciate some of the experiences you are having when it comes to grocery shopping.In 1971, when we first moved to Sweden there was little in the way of food mixes and the like, therefore I learned to make many things from scratch which I am glad for now. They also didn’t have as many things refrigerated as we do here. Some of the spices I had to taste because I couldn’t read the packages and making a Swedish recipe took hours looking up words in the dictionary.By the way tetra pak is made in Sweden.I also stocked up on American things when I found them in the store and did so here when we first came back until i realized it wasn’t necessary. Sorry about the long comment.
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And what Grandma is leaving out is that that first shopping trip to “Abama” took about three hours and the pea soup she thought she was bringing home turned out to be mashed rutabaga. And we could only get peanut butter from the kind of fancy grocery store downtown and they never, ever, ever sold root beer. (Grandpa Hans thinks it tastes like medicine.)Just filling in details.Mom/Kathy
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Hi you know in many ways I find that the shopping in supermarkets, grocery stores and markets. It is a cultural learning experience. Everytime we have been in Mexico, Roberta needs to visit every single store, from Comercial Mexicana to Aurrera etc. We walk every single aisle and check every single product. Her favorite the dairy section and the lotions. Similar thing has been when we were in Portugal and Spain , and later in France. I can not wait to visit you guys and spend many hours walking in the supermarket aisles.It is kind of funny you mentioned about the milk without refrigeration, people in US do not believe it is possible that kind of milk exist. Well it exist and probably it is more popular than regular milk since most people do not have the luxuries of refrigeration around the world. The milk is super-pasteurized and that is the reason why can stay without refrigeration until open.Love you Thank you for sharing this as you can see from Lois comments it happens to all of us. well I can confirm the experience from Kathy’s posting while I was writing mine
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thanks so much for all you write and the pictures you share with us.It really gives us here at home a chance to be nearer you and take part in your adventures.
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