Saturday, April 11th--I haven't been to every grocery store in Tokyo, but it seems to me that Japanese grocery stores tend to be very different from American grocery stores. Trying to buy groceries in Japan for our large family and then feed that large family food that they will actually eat has been quite an experience. We have changed what and how we eat in huge ways!
Here is the grocery store that is the closest to our house. It is a little bit of a walk here, I think it may be close to two kilometers. It isn't a very large grocery store by American standards. It's maybe 1/4 of the size of Laramie's Albertson's. I have been told that it is an average sized grocery store for Tokyo.
I have brought each of the kids grocery shopping with me one at a time, so that they could experience grocery shopping in a foreign country for themselves and also so that I could spend a little one-on-one time with each child. Today was Logan's day to go shopping with me.
Here is our grocery cart. That's right. Behind Logan is one that is parked. You get a cart and put two plastic crates on it and you're ready to shop.
Most people in Tokyo do not shop for a couple of weeks like most of the families in America that we know do. It is common to shop for the day or even a couple of days. Therefore, there isn't a need for a big cart. Because we have nine people to feed and this store is not super close to our home, we tend to go back to our American roots and buy a lot of food and try to make it last for a couple of weeks. Given the size of this cart and how much food I try to cram into it, we tend to get a lot of strange looks as we shop.
This grocery store is very Japanese--not American in any way. Yet, I love going to this store because they play American music--really good songs, too. The classics. It is refreshing to hear English and enjoy a little bit of American culture as we walk down the aisles. I have been known to dance (just a little bit) and sing to the music too, which doesn't make my kids very happy. They get embarrassed or something.
Here is the produce section. I forgot to take a picture of a watermelon--they are so small and the average price is 2000 yen/$20. Most vegetables are fairly cheap...at least compared to the fruit. Fruit is really expensive here in Japan, but much more flavorful than what we have in America. Apples are simply amazing here!
The produce staples that I buy in Japan are different than what my produce staples were in America. Here, the produce that I always have on hand in the fridge are: cabbage, eggplant, green onion, cucumbers, 2-3 different varieties of mushrooms, sprouts, sweet potatoes, onions, and carrots.
We don't buy a lot of fruit at this store, just bananas. I have found a small produce stand near the church that is better priced for fruit. About once a week, I will buy oranges or apples there.
Meat is different here, too. Japanese people prefer to eat the "fatty" meat. Chicken thighs and drumsticks are the most expensive cuts, while the breasts are so cheap. That has had me very happy, since we prefer to eat chicken breasts! Pork is mid-priced, and beef is super expensive. We haven't eaten a lot of beef since we've been here. A lady at our church went back to America and gave me some of her food when she moved. In her boxes, we found some frozen hamburger. I also bought beef for Raymond's and Christopher's birthdays. That's all beef we have had. It's just too expensive. We are pretty much only eating chicken breasts and seafood.
We don't normally eat a lot of pork, and while we've eaten more than we do in America, we still don't eat it much. Caitlin has always had a hard time with pork, it literally makes her sick. They process the pork differently here, though, and she hasn't had any problems when she has eaten pork during our stay here. Now, we know that her problem is with how pork is produced in America and not with pork itself.
There is one aisle full of dried Japanese noodles: udon and ramen noodles. These are good and cook faster than regular dried pasta in America. They do have some of the dried pasta that we have in America, but it is more expensive than the Japanese stuff. We have tended to mostly just buy the udon and ramen noodles.
This picture shows an entire aisle. To the right of Logan are some large bottles of oil, and the aisle ends just after the bottle of oil that is cut off in the picture. The aisles are not very long at all, which is something very different from the American grocery stores.
This aisle is where we get flour (Logan is standing next to the flour), but it comes in small 1 kg. packages. I'm used to buying flour in 25 or 50 lb. bags. We normally do a lot of baking and make just about everything from scratch--muffins, biscuits, pizza dough, tortillas, pancakes, cakes, brownies, cookies, etc. Hence, we go through A LOT of flour. However, the flour is different here and more expensive, so we have curbed our baking quite a bit. We still make biscuits and pancakes regularly, but that's about it.
Here's the cereal aisle. There are just seven different cereal boxes to choose from. The rest of this aisle contains different kinds of tea. We haven't eaten a lot of cereal here, either. You can't find oatmeal, farina, or any other type of quick breakfast food. Japanese people eat fish, vegetables, and rice for breakfast. Or miso soup. We have had a lot of miso soup for breakfast....so much that the kids are really sick of miso soup.
You know how in America there is the "baking aisle"? That aisle where you can get salt, flour, sugar, spices, baking powder/soda, mixes, and just about any other staple for someone who regularly cooks? Doesn't really exist in Japan. The flour is on one aisle, sugar is on a completely different aisle. Salt is on a different aisle, and the spices are next to the curry. I was able to find just about everything I needed pretty quickly, however, with the exception of baking soda. It took me about 3-4 trips to the grocery store before I was able to discover where it was. It didn't have baking soda written on it in English like some food items. I only guessed it was baking soda because it had pictures on the front showing cooking pots AND a fridge. Baking soda is used for cooking and making our fridges smell good, right? This had to be it. I bought it and took it home...sure enough it was baking soda. It was on the shelf right next to the dried fish. Of course! Why didn't I think to look there instead of near the flour, or the sugar, or the spices? Silly me.
This whole section is full of fresh noodles. We get soba noodles here and use them for all kinds of things, usually yakisoba. I made yakisoba in America, but we used spaghetti noodles. Soba noodles are SO much better, I'm not sure we can go back to spaghetti noodles for that dish. It just won't be the same.
There is an aisle completely dedicated to seaweed. We use these for sushi rolls and onigiris.
A package of dried fish...whole, dried fish, that is. We don't eat this. Nope.
The seafood section is larger than the chicken, pork, and beef sections combined. This section has been the most fun for the kids to explore when they have come to the grocery store with me. There are so many different things in this section that we never saw in the states. Things like salmon roe, sea cucumber and fish heads. There are packages of smelt and shirasu fish. These fish are teeny tiny and are eaten whole. There are also things in this section that are unrecognizable to us.
You can buy an entire fish....
...octopus, (which come whole or like these packages which contain only the legs).....
...squid...
...different kinds of snails and clams, along with shrimp.
Some of these clams and snails are still alive in the package. The shells will be open a little bit and some of the muscle will be out. The kids touch the shell and it will quickly suck itself in and closes the shell completely. The kids get a big kick out of this and look through each of the packages for shells that are slightly open or snails that are out.
Near the seafood section are the dried fish flakes. We use these a lot for okonomiyaki, some recipes, or just to sprinkle on top of rice for lunch or a snack.
I took this picture while standing in the back corner of the store. You can look across the whole back of the store to see how small the store is. Look at how narrow the aisles are! This is another reason why I don't bring more than one kid with me at a time to grocery shop. The aisles are like many of the roads here--narrow.
This refrigerated section is full of different sizes and brands of tofu. We enjoy tofu and use it a little bit. I haven't really found a lot of uses for it, unfortunately. It's so good for you, I would like to use it in our cooking more. This is going to take more education on my part.
There is a large area for rice, of course. Japanese people eat rice for just about every meal. The kids were not too excited about this when we first came to Japan, but they love it. There are packages of toppings that you can buy to sprinkle on top of your rice if you get bored with plain rice. The ladies who work at the law firm where Ray is doing his internship (who we call the "Awesome Ladies at Work") introduced us to these. The toppings are boullion mixed with seaweed, seeds, and dried vegetables. There are different flavors and we really like trying them out.
This is the entire milk section. No gallons to be found. This is the cheapest place to buy milk, it's about 100 yen a quart. I don't get to this store regularly, however, so we usually buy milk at a smaller grocery store very close to our house. A quart of milk there costs 165 yen for a quart of 2% and 265 yen for a quart of whole milk for Kirstin. We are spending a lot on milk while we are here!
Other than milk, we have pretty much quit eating dairy. Cheese is super expensive and I have only bought it for birthdays when pizza was requested. Butter--I have bought one 1 lb. package of butter in the entire time we have been here. It cost 970 yen! Because it was so expensive, I have hoarded that butter and only used it when absolutely necessary. We used butter for just about everything in America, but have resorted to canola oil here. I can't believe the amount of oil we have used while in Japan! Because we are eating more Japanese food, we are consuming a lot of oil.
This is the place where one can buy bread. In America, there is a huge selection of breads, but not here. In place of bread loaves, you can buy packages of bread that contain 6 slices or 8 slices. We don't buy bread here in Japan, and if we do, it is a baguette loaf. Bread is a huge treat for our family while we are here.
In America, a clerk rings up your groceries while a bagger bags it all for you. Not in Japan. The clerk rings everything up, and then puts your groceries back in the plastic cart and tucks several grocery bags in with your food. After you pay, you bring your cart over to this counter under the window. You bag your groceries yourself.
In America, I fill up the van or the back of the Excursion with groceries. We don't have a car here, so we bring the stroller and fill it up with groceries, along with the large bag we use for a diaper bag. This is how we get the groceries home.
After we had been here for almost three months, I found out that this grocery store delivers! We needed to give the store our address in kanji, however, so the Awesome Ladies at Work helped us out with that so that I could use this service.
We haven't used the delivery service when I take the kids with me, because I think it's a good experience for the kids to work hard to get the groceries home without a car. We have to push the heavy stroller full of groceries through the crowded sidewalks back to our home. I think this is beneficial for the kids because it helps them learn to appreciate the effort that is made to get food home, as well as how blessed we are in America to have cars.
Before we came to America, The Picky One (Nathan) lived off of bread, peanut butter, cheese, and milk. He didn't hardly eat anything because he didn't like anything. He has really changed his ways since coming to Japan--he loves just about all Japanese food and eats way more than he ever did in America! This has been a very surprising and exciting change!
Just about everything in regards to food is more expensive than what it costs in America. I have tried to stay on a budget, and so it has been hard to come up with food that will satisfy my growing children and stay within budget. When we came here, we also agreed that we wanted to eat as much Japanese food as we could to enhance our experience here. It has been a huge change for us, and in the beginning the kids felt like they were starving. Japanese food is not as heavy on the tummy as American food so even though they were eating a lot, because it wasn't heavy, they thought they were starving. Over time, our bodies adjusted and now we really enjoy Japanese food! The kids want me to keep making a lot of the food that we have regularly eaten here once we get back to America. I think some of the ingredients may be hard to find, but hopefully I can find a good Asian market and we can continue to enjoy some of the food that we came to love during our time here.
