The South: Kroger asile one
My mother works for a non-profit international exchange student company, AYUSA. She is in charge of the central states region, which encompasses the Dakotas to Oklahoma, north-south, and Idaho to Nebraska, west-east. Sometimes she goes on international trips, sometimes domestic, but she always tries to bring something edible back for her workers.
She was nearing the end of her stay here in Arkansas, and still was coming up empty-handed. She really wanted to find some sort of barbecue sauce, or hot sauce to send. I told her I’d start a company called “Arkansauce” to meet her needs alone. What do you know? It exists!
But we were looking in the local supermarkets, not online.
This is where I’d like to highlight some of the differences between grocery stores in The South, and grocery stores other places. I’ve seen a sign like this in so many stores!
Somewhere in Little Rock, I saw a chalkboard with “CANNED” written in to the place where “can” once was. It was in reference to green beans, I believe. Locals probably read that and think “damn yankees”. Otherwise they only sell can peas, can corn, can green beans, and can gravy down here!
Also, next to the oatmeal are boxes and boxes of grits in designer flavors like “butter” and “three cheese”.
In the end my mother ended up finding some fry bread from Oklahoma and some hush puppy mix from Arkansas to send to her crew. It was a bunch of fun checking out where all the new sorts of food originated. It was funny to see that most of the “soul food” selections were actually boxed in New York City (cue salsa commercial cowboys). Some of my friends have recently been interested in doing a 100-mile-diet during the summer where you can only eat things from a 100 mile radius. I think that would work great down here, where tomato season is already in full swing. Places like Nebraska and upstate New York fare tougher because of the shorter growing season and you really realize you are paying more for the winter heating and health insurance of everyone that touched your produce.