Shoppingu: What's It Like to Grocery Shop in Japan?

This post is not comprehensive, because I was getting even more stares than usual as I went round snapping photos in the supermarket. The camera, if possible, compounded the gaijin effect for rubbernecking. At any rate, hopefully these images give you an idea of what a mundane grocery shopping experience is like in Honjo!

On a related note, I would like to mention how surprised I was that I was surprised at all by Japanese grocery stores. After all, I consider myself a pretty well-versed diner with a broad palate - I like Asian food, I eat it often in the States, I’ve gone shopping at Uwajimaya, I’m a worldly sort of person, right? Wrong. Twenty seconds in a Japanese supermarket in Akita was a wonderful education. It demonstrated to me in short order just exactly how ethnic a diet I actually eat - and the notion that I eat ethnic, friends, is a far cry from my vision of myself as an internationally savvy diner with a broad palate.

As it turns out, I eat an American ethnic diet. What, you might say, is so American about your diet, Amanda? You frequently eat Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, etc, etc ad nauseum. You’re from a Pacific Rim state; fusion cuisine is what you’re all about.

Yah that’s what I thought too.

…

On my first shopping trip, one of my senpais (a returning JET assigned basically to assist the n00bies; senpai in Japanese means upperclassman, a relationship that in Japanese school culture usually denotes an older student who acts as a mentor and guide for underclassmen) took me to the Takayanagi. Happily I picked up my basket and began shopping.

I thought I had this on lock.

Well, I did successfully acquire spaghetti noodles, some sort of pasta sauce (probably Japanified and therefore wrong, but functional), salt, pepper, eggs, etc. with no difficulties. Then I turned to my senpai.

“Where’s the cereal?” I asked innocently.

He laughed.

Welcome to Japan, kids. The list of foods that are unavailable here is long, but the ones that most surprised me are as follows:

• Breakfast cereal. It is ridiculously expensive, and usually the only options are plain, frosted or chocolate frosted cornflakes sold in tiny bags. Forget about your Cheerios, Dorothy, we’re no longer in Kansas.
• Bread. The only bread here is THICK, FLUFFY, and WHITER THAN WONDERBREAD. What they make it out of, I do not know. But if you were expecting a choice of wheat or white, never mind oat, twelve grain or rye, good luck.
• Deli meat. Ham is the ONLY option. And it’s processed ham, not the sort of sandwich meat I prefer. Moreover, as it turns out, turkey is exceedingly rare in Japan (85% of the Japanese population has never eaten turkey), and beef is too expensive to waste on sandwich meat. So I hope you like ham sandwiches, because turkey or roast beef ain’t a happenin’ thing here.
• Salads. In the US, I am a huge fan of those Fresh Express! salad baggies they sell in the grocery store. They do not exist here. Nor, so far as I am aware, do croutons or any sort of standard salad dressing. You can buy pre-made salads in the convenience food section of the store, but they usually consist of 90% cabbage (ick), 5% shredded carrot, cucumber and lettuce crumbs, and 5% something like baby tomatoes, corn, or tuna. And usually they don’t come with dressing. Not exactly your classic Caesar.
• Cheese. This one wasn’t really a surprise, but it is weird how easy it is to find “Japanified” cheese - sort of like a white, mild version of American cheese - and how impossible it is to find anything that actually deserves the title of cheese. The French would probably have an aneurysm if they knew. You can buy string cheese, but it only comes in packs of two, they are huge, they are often flavored (think things like “pepper” or “smokey”) and they’re not really like American string cheese.
• Potato chips. A whole new spin on you say potato, if you will. Potato chips in Japan taste NOTHING like American potato chips. I have managed to find Pringles, but most of them are in weird flavors like “Beef Kebab”, “Rich Consomme”, and (WTF) “Night Cheese”. As a result, though I was not overly fond of them in the US, the relatively normal-tasting Sour Cream and Onion Pringles (which are available) have become my standby.
• Honey roasted peanuts. These are very uncommon here. One store near me sells them, but who knows how long that will last - stocking here seems very erratic. I can never figure out why one day is Canadian Bacon Day, with big slabs of Canadian-style bacon/ham sitting in the meat case, and the next day nothing but tofu skins.

Other Japanese grocery store surprises included:

• The price of fruit. Really, this is kind of appalling. Most fruit is sold by the piece, and the prices are pretty steep. For some melons, you can expect to pay as much as 2,000 yen; for peaches, more in the range of 300-500 yen is normal.
• The variety of things which I had no IDEA what they were. I thought I was pretty savvy about Asian food, including numerous Uwajimaya shopping trips. Yah, well so much for that one too. Japan specializes in destroying my self-image and my delusions about my own worldliness. I routinely wander past the shelves or coolers full of slimy-looking god-knows-what and remember just how much I don’t belong here.
• How CHEAP the fish was! Really, if you like fish, Japan is a good place to be. It makes sense I suppose, though I live in a fruit and vegetable growing area and produce is expensive as all get out, so who knows. I will never understand Japanese pricing or supply chain procedures.
• The availability and affordability of “conbini” (convenience) food. It’s not always the healthiest stuff, often being short of protein, vegetables, etc, but onigiri, sandwiches, fried chicken, croquettes, yakitori, and bento sets of sushi, tonkatsu and so on are easily available at any conbini (convenience store) or grocery store for a very affordable price.
• Markdown pricing! In Japan, expiration dates come up very quickly because the government is very uptight about preservative use in foods. So, fresh foods are rarely resold the next day. If you go to the supermarket an hour or two before closing, you’ll get some great deals on meat and produce. Since they won’t be resold the next day, they’ll be marked down by 20-50%.
• Bagging your own groceries! Most stores in Japan do not bag your items for you. They will ring you up, then return your shopping basket to you with an appropriate number of bags for your items. You will then proceed to the Bagging Station and bag your things yourself. This is true for general merchandise, like filing boxes, dishes and wrenches, as well as for grocery trips.

In short, don’t get too confident about how international you are as a person. Sometimes, 30 seconds in a supermarket is all it takes to realize that you’re just as bound to your own nationality as the next person - and that you can’t escape the tendencies and habits of where you come from.