Grocery Shopping

Here are the Chilean food groups: mayonnaise, pasta, bread, and hotdogs. Everything else is just extra.

 

For all you Walmart haters, fear even more: Walmart has even worked it's way to Chile. Actually, it's called Lider, but it is owned by the same company and even has a few Great Value brands. We buy all our groceries at Lider, usually in Melipilla because we have to go there for church events during the week sometimes. However, the Lider in San Antonio is MUCH nicer so we shop there sometimes too. Both towns are about 45 minutes away (in opposite directions).

 

 

Lest you see these pictures and think shopping here is the same as at home, know that this is not typical of Lider. I took these pictures on the ONLY day I've seen the shelves fully stocked and the store not packed with people. Also, in a decent sized town like Melipilla there are 1 or 2 nicer grocery stores, but people frequently buy things from smaller shops that are within walking distance. These shops are smaller and older and sell only specific things, like bread or produce or meat. So just to clarify: These pictures aren't typical of Lider and Lider isn't typical of Chilean shopping.

 

So enough talk, let's say it's Friday night and you are going to Melipilla for Young Men (Mando's a counselor) and to practice the hymns for Sunday's sacrament meeting on an only partially functioning keyboard (I TRY to play for Sacrament meeting, I'm also the Primary Music leader). We park under the ground and walk up a ramp to the store - there's a few clothes, shoes, and baby supplies in the front and a small electronics, toy, household section to the right.  Then we get to the food. I took a picture of most aisles so you can see what Lider typically carries.

 

Aisle 1. Left: oil, vinegar, & lemon juice. But mostly oil. They love it here.

Right: Dry beans and few other dried foods, including tons of instant potatoes. There are no canned beans of any sort here. Or canned tomatoes or vegetables (besides mushy peas and palm hearts).

Aisle 2. Left: tomato sauce and rice and my oldest son who is currently reading Harry Potter 4. This picture is deceiving. It looks like there are tons of sauces to choose from. But there is really only one. It comes in a few different brands and occasionally in jars, but mostly it's in those Capri Sun looking pouches. It has a different flavor so we don't eat it much.
Right: PASTA, PASTA & more PASTA. Chileans LOVE pasta, which confuses me because they have very little sauce to eat with it. You can see that we take up quite a bit of room when we go shopping.



Aisle 3. Left: peaches and palm hearts. Flour? It's at the end of this row or the sauce one.
Right: Mayonnaise. There are a few other condiments but Chileans love mayonnaise. They dump it on everything from corn to pasta to sandwiches. I think spices and baking stuff is at the end.



Aisle 4: Left: Powdered milk in a variety of brands and flavors. This whole aisle is powdered milk and milk flavoring.
Right: Coffee and sugar - no pic.


 Aisle 5. Left: Cereal (no pic). They have about 1/4 of the selection we have at home but we're not big cereal eaters so it's okay. No pancakes or fruit snacks or pop tarts. They have a few granola bars and you can find syrup in the American section sometimes.
Right: Boxed milk. They don't sell cold milk, just this stuff. It tastes like canned milk. At first I was grossed out by it, but we've gotten used to it and as long as it's cold my kids don't mind it.

Aisle 6. Left: cookies, Right: candy. They are mostly Chilean brands. There's a few familiar things like oreos and snickers, but they are ridiculously overpriced. We've found a few cookies we like, but we typically don't go down this aisle.


Aisle 7 & 8. Wine. We live in wine country. There are vineyards and drunks everywhere. Lider has 4 rows of wine and more in the back. You can see part of the sign behind the wine that says pescados and mariscos (fish and seafood). It stinks so bad that we just don't go to that section.

 Aisle 9. Left: Chips, mostly in Chilean brands. There are tortilla chips and Doritos (different flavor).
Right: Soda. They had cans on the shelf that day, but they don't always have them and they're very expensive. The soda is sweeter here and there isn't much to choose from. Adults have Coke, Coke lite (no Diet Coke *sniff*), Pepsi (no Dr. Pepper). The kids have Fanta, Pina, Papaya, some sort of Lemon Lime. You have to be careful because some of the sodas are used bottles that have been refilled. I'm sure they're sanitized, but I just can't do it... I think it's funny that there's only like 6 aisles of food and a whole aisle of just chips and soda.

The produce is amazing here. We don't have the same selection we had at home but it's mostly good and very cheap. Notice the large pig leg in the foreground.

Check out those nice juicy hunks of meat. The beef in Chile is grass fed and no good, but they also sell beef imported from Brazil, Australia, Argentina, etc. The cuts are different and I never know what to buy so I just get something with some marbling and cook it all day and it usually turns out good.

You have to take a ticket and wait in line to get chicken or pork from the butcher section. They have a limited selection of frozen chicken and pork if you don't want to wait in line but it's not as good.

There is also a deli with lunch meat and cheese you have to have a ticket for, as well as a small refrigerated section with prepackaged lunch meat and cheese and another Chilean favorite, hot dogs. They come if every size and flavor. There is only white cheese here. The have some gouda (good but expensive) and mozerella (different), but mostly they sell queso montescusa which is pretty disgusting.

They have a small freezer section up front with some icecream, frozen corn (no other vegetables), hamburgers, and a few chicken nuggets. It is about the size of one side of an aisle at home. They also have like 3 kinds of hard white bread and unrefrigerated eggs.

Fresh bread. It's all crusty and hard, so we never buy it. This section is usually packed and entirely empty.

Dairy aisle in front: left yogurt, right butter and margarine. There is a ton of yogurt compared to the limited selection of other foods, but it's different here. It is way sweeter and more like a drink. My kids all love it, especially Joseph. Butter comes in grams instead of cups. It makes baking a little tricky, but butter is butter and I love it everywhere.

 This is the entire makeup section. It's behind a locked case so it won't be stolen. In general, people don't wear makeup and blow dry their hair here. It's very liberating to not have to paint my face to go out. I wish home was more like that.

 

 This is a little icecream stand at the front of the Lider in San Antonio. The kids love it. The Melipilla Lider (the rest of the pictures) doesn't have one.

We go to this little fruit and vegetable stand at least once a week to get fresh produce. It's less than 5 minutes from our house and much less crowded than the ferias.

 This guy knows us now and is very helpful. Doesn't Mando look thin in this picture?

A few things we don't have here:
Cheddar cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, shredded cheese in any flavor
Canned soup, canned sauces, canned beans, canned pumpkin, or canned anything
Pizza or pepperoni or cheese or sauce to make pizza
Instant foods like macaroni & cheese or frozen stuff (I miss Costco...)
BACON!!! Or breakfast sausage
Corn Tortillas
Spices, seasonings (we brought a few with us)
Tender cuts of meat

And yet we're somehow still alive! We've had to adjust how we eat, but we're loving all the fresh produce!