A friend asked me to write about all the foods I was enjoying now that I am back home. I love this topic. Often when a friend is traveling back to their home country I always ask, "What will you eat first?" But I told this friend, I couldn't write about food yet because I was still overwhelmed by the excess in the U.S. Going to the grocery store was a challenge for me. Just seeing all the choices made my brain hurt. I had expected the unnecessary amount of choices of cereal- a whole aisle just for a box of sugar, wheat and food color? But I had not expected the excess of choices for things like peanut butter.
Things get fuzzy when you are away. In the U.S., I function on auto-pilot a lot of the times. I buy the same brands I have bought for years- sometimes not because I have made that conscious choice myself, but perhaps because my mom bought that brand. So when I went to the store to buy peanut butter I thought it would be easy. Go in, pick a smooth variety and come out. The names JIF and Skippy were ringing in my ears, but I couldn't recall if I bought either of those brands. I thought I would see the label and the container, no problem.
In India, I was lucky to find peanut butter in the store. I had bought it at Easy Day and then the next time I went I couldn't find it. I looked in the places I thought it should be, but it was not there. I asked and tried to describe it to the staff, but they couldn't find it. In the end I gave up and only went to Loyal World if I needed peanut butter. And even at Loyal World, you couldn't count on a certain brand. I had to be flexible and get what ever brand of smooth they happened to have (if they happened to have it).
So back to Kroger. Back to me standing in the enormous aisle with bright lights and a huge shopping cart. Back to me, trying to block out all the conversations going on around me in American English, a language I know so deep in my heart I can ease drop and not even know I am doing it. That never happened in Kannada or even in Indian English. In India, I could turn people's chatter into background noise and get lost in my own thoughts. I stood in front of the peanut butter section waiting for the light bulb to go off in my head that let me know I had found my jar of peanut butter. I looked.
I saw reduced fat peanut butter.
I saw simply peanut butter.
I saw natural peanut butter.
I saw Omega-3 peanut butter.
I saw extra crunchy peanut butter.
I saw crunchy peanut butter.
I saw low salt peanut butter.
I saw no stir peanut butter.
I saw peanut butter with honey.
I spent at least 5 minutes with my eyes wandering the shelves until finally they began to hurt and I was brought back to reality by Star asking to buy some ridiculously overpriced, overcolorful, plastic item hanging on the end cap. I just grabbed a jar and went. In the end, it didn't really matter what jar I bought.We are more than half-way through it and I will soon have to repeat this process all over again.
Things get fuzzy when you are away. In the U.S., I function on auto-pilot a lot of the times. I buy the same brands I have bought for years- sometimes not because I have made that conscious choice myself, but perhaps because my mom bought that brand. So when I went to the store to buy peanut butter I thought it would be easy. Go in, pick a smooth variety and come out. The names JIF and Skippy were ringing in my ears, but I couldn't recall if I bought either of those brands. I thought I would see the label and the container, no problem.
In India, I was lucky to find peanut butter in the store. I had bought it at Easy Day and then the next time I went I couldn't find it. I looked in the places I thought it should be, but it was not there. I asked and tried to describe it to the staff, but they couldn't find it. In the end I gave up and only went to Loyal World if I needed peanut butter. And even at Loyal World, you couldn't count on a certain brand. I had to be flexible and get what ever brand of smooth they happened to have (if they happened to have it).
So back to Kroger. Back to me standing in the enormous aisle with bright lights and a huge shopping cart. Back to me, trying to block out all the conversations going on around me in American English, a language I know so deep in my heart I can ease drop and not even know I am doing it. That never happened in Kannada or even in Indian English. In India, I could turn people's chatter into background noise and get lost in my own thoughts. I stood in front of the peanut butter section waiting for the light bulb to go off in my head that let me know I had found my jar of peanut butter. I looked.
I saw reduced fat peanut butter.
I saw simply peanut butter.
I saw natural peanut butter.
I saw Omega-3 peanut butter.
I saw extra crunchy peanut butter.
I saw crunchy peanut butter.
I saw low salt peanut butter.
I saw no stir peanut butter.
I saw peanut butter with honey.
I spent at least 5 minutes with my eyes wandering the shelves until finally they began to hurt and I was brought back to reality by Star asking to buy some ridiculously overpriced, overcolorful, plastic item hanging on the end cap. I just grabbed a jar and went. In the end, it didn't really matter what jar I bought.We are more than half-way through it and I will soon have to repeat this process all over again.
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