For fun - what did I just buy?? Interesting grocery store purchases

no mistakes, but I understand the app Lens translates as well as ID's mystery plants in the garden (the way I use it).
I do like to grocery shop, and some times it is harder than others, but man, it was no mistake when I bought the pineapple coconut jam in the Bahamas. It was memorable good.

Thrice told stories.....https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/i-m-afraid-of-my-romanian-toothpaste

I loved being able to buy fresh yeast when we lived in Poland. You can still get it here, but it's harder to find. And I must say the dried yeast is more convenient. I buy it in bulk and keep it in the freezer. But in my heart I don't really believe it's as good as the fresh cubes.

In a Scottish bakery, I pointed to what I thought was a fruit-filled pastry. The lady behind the counter said something like "you know that's (unintelligible, but probably in English)" I said yes that's fine. She said it again "you want (unintelligible)" and I said yes again, not wanting to admit I didn't understand her. Well whatever the heck that greenish mess of slimy vegetables was in the filling, it was awful, and a humbling learning experience.

We were in Fussen, Germany and we were going to have a picnic. We went to the supermarket, got sandwiches and a few items, no problem. I added some small packets to the counter at the last minute. when i opened it and went to put on my hard-boiled egg and realized it was mustard. Ugh. Just dissapointed. Thought it would be mayo.

My "oops" was at the movie theater after I first moved to England. I bought popcorn and went to take that first salty bite and nearly sprayed popcorn across the theater when I tasted sugary popcorn. I had no idea that "sweet" was their "default" preparation, unless you requested "salty." Now, I make it with both at home all the time - sweet and salty!

We tried to buy diarrhea remedy in Poland but got heartburn relief tablets by mistake. It was a bit "unrefined" going back and trying to explain our symptoms with hand gestures, as they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Polish.

Stan - I feel like I did this before - actually last year hubs somehow ordered the wrong pizza when we were in Nice - I don't know if he pointed to the wrong menu item but partway thru the cooking the employee said something to the extent of there is usually honey on this pizza, is that OK? And we said 'oui' but were wondering what was going on. So the pizza came out - white sauce, goat cheese (never had before) mushrooms and drizzled with honey instead of what we ordered- tomato sauce and ham. It was actually really great. I know a few times I've just said uh huh to something after not wanting to ask someone to repeat themselves for the 3rd time. We went to a 'fancy-ish' restaurant in Maine and everything was $$ so we just decided to order an app and get out of there (we should've just left). Ordered potstickers as that seemed to be the only thing we might like - nope, but we forced ourselves to eat most of them before giving up. Afterwards I said to hubs - should've just ordered dessert and tea/coffee.

CW - I'm sure at some point I heard they do sweet popcorn over in the UK (well, my sis prob told me since she lives there) but I know a few times I was expecting something sweet and got salty - actually, the first time I ever had Bugles I was expecting sweet for some reason and it's amazing what your body does when you get salty instead! But I learned to love them.

Andrea - I'm trying to picture miming 'I have the runs' at a pharmacy and am chuckling.

I had the Word Lens app then after a long time read a story that it had been shut down months before and when I checked the app it would no longer open. The was prob last year I realized that. I'm sure there are other apps similar...

The opposite experience actually. Years after we got home, we found some of our favorite Italian grocery store purchases available in the US!

Using Google Translate in Budapest I found the word for "cheese" -- the other word on the label next to cheese was something that looked like cheddar. Note to self -- translate ALL words on label. Cheese went straight to the trash.

Pictures on little packages of corn nuts look a lot like pictures on little packages of peanuts. After one purchase I learned to pay attention to the weight of the package.

Not a grocery store but a kebab spot in Lyon.

Notice: French "tacos" are not tacos. At least, not tacos that 99.99999999999% of North Americans would recognize.

The one my wife ordered had thinly shaved kebab meat (they actually use what looks like an electric shaver to cut it from the vertical rotisserie), french fries, mayonnaise (I think), ketchup, some kind of cheese, and "salade" (lettuce, tomatoes, and onion), all rolled into a giant tortilla (I think it's what Turks call a durum) and browned on a griddle before wrapping it in foil. Probably weighed a kilogram.

It was fine as far as its taste goes, but not if you want the kind of taco most folks would recognize. And putting the fries inside the sandwich? A bit odd.

This was probably a couple of weeks after we moved to France, and we were still making multiple mistakes daily.

Our first visit to Venice (97) I had read that a favorite local appetizer was a bacalao spread. Thinking it would last like our smoked mullet I was adventurous and ordered it - in spite of the waiter asking me 2 or 3 times if I really was certain. Hubby, mom & uncle still have large laughs at my expense. Oh well - at least it had no hot peppers to add to the injured pride (not to mention tastebuds).

Nicole. Google Lens translates - and does a pretty good job identifying plants in the garden too. I just downloaded it last week and translated something to French.

Not the grocery store....but...

Long ago and far away...on my first trip to Europe in 1973 I was eating lunch in the Galeries Lafayette cafe. There were 4 of us girls, none spoke French and my menu French was awful. So..I just pointed to something going by - looked like Roast Beef and mashed potatoes and looked delish. Hmmm, it was beef but it was tongue. I'd never had tongue and according to my roommate who HAD had tongue this was not peeled so still had the taste buds on it. In any event the mashed potatoes were wonderful. Could not make myself eat more than a few bites of the tongue.

Years ago in Japan waiting for train. Saw people eating what looked like shoe-string potatoes from small packages. Hungry so purchased, opened and tried. Either last years rubbery squid or shredded used tennis shoe soles. Trashed, then 2 cola chaser.

Sammy - we ended up with something basically the same - our first time in Nice - this was 2012, so memory is a bit fuzzy. But whatever hubby thought he was ordering was not what we got. I think we may have just ended up with fries inside the pita bread, but I rem it being huge and we didn't even eat half. And my husband despises ketchup, so he was trying to get out the few fries that didn't have ketchup on it. I don't recall that there was meat on it - I feel like hubs was trying to order burger and fries

Quite a few years ago I worked in Germany for 3 months. After I had been there about 1 or 2 months I was in the local restaurant near hotel to have dinner. I had made of point of learning to speak "menu" and was a bit over confident. I do not remember what I thought I was ordering, but what I got was liver dumplings. Those were a bit hard to swallow. After that, I was more careful in ordering food.

Nicole, we made the same mistake with a bottle of juice concentrate in the Czech Republic!

In the Netherlands, hubby purchased what he thought was a 1 litre carton of chocolate milk. I burst out laughing when he came out of the store because I knew what it really was. Incidentally, “vla” accurately describes how you feel if you try to eat that much pudding.

We pretty much stick to wine, cheese, sausage, and bread. These are usually from the deli counter, or something of that same sort. The only difference is that sausages can occasionally have a lot more fat than we like. I remember eating lunch in Bratislava, and ordering in a famous tavern. My son ordered the "all the pork you can ever think of" platter. He is completely disgusted by fat. I had to eat it (my standards are much much lower). He ate my weiner schnitzel.

Another place which has food that I sometimes consider inedible is Britain. The sausages? It's a PTSD experience to think of those breakfasts.

. . . Another place which has food that I sometimes consider inedible is Britain. The sausages? It's a PTSD experience to think of those breakfasts. . .

I thought the bangers would be fine, if they actually cooked them instead of just waving them briefly over a toaster.

Once our Spanish learning son ordered his tea with coffee. The waiter corrected it to milk. Another time we bought dishwasher rinse agent instead of dishwasher soap. Not a big deal and the dishes looked clean.

I don't know where Stan and Paul are eating their sausages in the UK but it doesn't sound like the right place. Either that or they're too used to American sausages. All I've ever been able to find in US supermarkets are heavily processed sausages made from mechanically recovered 'meat' and the addition of sodium phosphate as a binding agent which lends a rubbery texture to the sausage. Many sausages in the US resemble the German styles such as bratwurst, nurnberg, frankfurter etc.

You can buy cheap sausages in the UK that comprise of low grade meat and too much rusk and unfortunately many cheaper B&B's, hotels etc provide these as part of breakfast however there is a whole wealth of excellent sausages made with all sorts of ingredients and many of the best pork ones are made withat least 90% pork. A British sausage should have a loose, crumbly texture as the meat is not emulsified as many other European ones are, the meat is given a coarser grind.

A cheap, mass catering sausage is an abomination but you get what you pay for. I've pretty much given up on traditional US breakfasts. I can't stand the crispy fat passed off as bacon, the sausages are as nasty as you would expect, I once encountered the bland, tasteless oddity that is biscuits and gravy and I won't even bother discussing grits. I once had a very good grass fed steak and eggs in Wyoming and an excellent corned beef hash in a Jewish restaurant in Dallas but typically I'll seek out a Mexican restaurant and opt for some combination of beans, eggs and salsa.

As for popcorn in the UK, it has always traditionally been sweet by default. Only in recent years has savoury popcorn become more widely available. Personally I can't stand the stuff and it's one of the reasons I don't go to the cinema, being surrounded by people rustling huge tubs of popcorn and munching away through half of the film is very off putting.

Maria - do you have 'google lens' or 'smart lens' or something else? I found both of those but neither is free and not sure they are worth the money.

JC, sorry I forgot to add the smiley face emoji 🙂 to my post. No doubt there are fine, well-cooked sausages in the UK, just as there are here. I just learned to not expect them at your basic B&B breakfast fry up.

I love going into local grocery stores as we travel to see not only the interesting items, but what the allotment space is on a shelf. American breakfast cereal space is like our peanut butter space on a shelf, but pasta or varieties of jams might be a huge allotment of space. I also like to see the local candies, veggies, types of fish, etc.

Our most interesting almost whoops was at our first town in Italy. We stopped at a shop in Verona to pick up a small box of laundry detergent, deodorant for my husband and some lunch items. He picked out a small box with a shirt on it. Luckily, I checked the other options on the shelf because he had placed a box of black dye in our basket!