So, I've posted a lot about the supermarket here and for the most part I've tried to illustrate how they are more or less like American supermarkets, especially in design and general atmosphere.
However, the one really appreciable difference in a supermarket here is the seafood department. The smell of a Japanese supermarket seafood section is really unique. And not in a good way. Most of the time all I can stand to do is take a deep breath, hold it, run in and grab some frozen shrimp, and run back out again. I really have to concentrate on not making a nasty face when I'm in there.
The unusual smells, of course, come from the unusual items on display....
 |
"What're you lookin' at?"
(these are whole squid, if you can't tell) |
 |
| wonder if there are any pearls in there |
 |
| "Let us ouuuuutttttt!" |
This is just a sampling of what you might see on any given day. I have seen many, many sea creatures laid out on slabs, heads still on, unwrapped, like they just flopped up out of the ocean. And we're in a pretty land-locked part of the country, it's not like this is dockside or anything. These photos were taken at Aeon, which is a really modern supermarket so you can find plenty of de-headed, filleted, shrink-wrapped fish that is more like what you see in the US. At the small local supermarkets it's pretty much all this kind of stuff---I can't even imagine how you go about wrestling these things home. I realize that to many people this is a positive indicator that this is really, really fresh seafood but, alas, I am not one of those people.
I even hesitated in putting the label "food" on this post. A bit of a stretch, if you ask me. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment