A Tale of Two Grocery Stores

A few weeks ago, I was waiting for my sister to finish an appointment in a town I rarely visit. While I waited, I stopped in at the only grocery store in town, an IGA. It was small, with narrow aisles and basic produce – no exotic fruit or trendy vegetables:  broccoli but no broccolini; strawberries, the red ones, not the fancy hybrid white ones. The fruits and vegetables were piled on tables and some shelves, not arranged like an art exhibit. Two shoppers, men, were chatting by the potatoes and onions. 

I was looking for ingredients to practice making biscuits. My recipe suggested two kinds of flour, soft flours that would yield tender biscuits. Many groceries don’t carry them, but this store had both. There was one brand of baking powder, not three or four. Plus there was lard on the shelf, and smoked turkey pieces for seasoning collards. When I paid for my groceries, one bag full, the cashier asked if I would like someone to take them out to my car. As I left, the two men in the produce section were still visiting. 

A week or so later, I went to another small grocery, this one part of a national chain. There were wide aisles but also little “islands” here and there, one with fancy cheeses, another with bubbly wine, another with nuts and snack mixes. There were probably six or seven kinds of canned tomatoes. And produce like bok choy, escarole, tropical fruits of all kinds, and ginger root and lemon grass – all beautifully displayed. The people shopping there were casually dressed but not in jeans and boots as at the IGA. A woman in an expensive-looking fleece was chatting with a man in the check-out line. Maybe they knew each other or not, but when he got his groceries, they ended the conversation and he went his way. I carried my own groceries out the car. 

The second store was lovely, and the shopping there was a pleasant experience. It was a modern store, with trendy food and lovely arrangements. Going to the IGA, though, was like stepping back in time. It was a place to see and catch up with your neighbors, chat with the person at the cash register, linger in the produce section. The basics were there, but the choices were not overwhelming. It had all the ingredients for old-fashioned southern country cooking. 

There aren’t many stores like that anymore. Consumers, myself included, want lots of variety and wide aisles and potted orchids. But something is lost in the fancy stores, a sense of community and good plain food and the simplicity of an easier time. I’ll keep going to the grocery stores with all the options, but I might try to find an IGA now and then, too.