Do you love foreign supermarkets?

[SentToTheSynByn]

I never shop at home, just get a delivery. However I love browsing supermarkets abroad. I love the huge jars of chickpeas and lentils in France and Spain. I also love that you can buy remoulade in France. And picnic wine

I bought some lovely bottles of rose in holland with stopper, like a grolsch bottle. And the cheese . Everything in holland looks so effortlessly fresh and healthy.

I bought the most gorgeous oregano in Zante last year which is about to run out so thinking about booking a holiday only half joking and olive oil.

Can't think of anything else, so do you love a foreign supermarket, and what have been your best buys?

Ps I sometimes go to Lidl and pretend to be on holiday 😎

Love a good wander around French supermarkets, especially the patisserie section.
We used to spend rainy Sundays browsing in Carrefour when we were students - British supermarkets were nowhere close in the mid 90s. Oh and Fnac too although that's not a supermarket

Europeans holidaying in the UK thought our supermarkets were special and exciting - it's a good question.

I live in Europe, grew up elsewhere, lived in a fair few countries, and also studied for a few years in the UK in the past.

Answer is: yes, definitely! Golden syrup, different types of bread, crumpets (drool...), 'curiously strong mints', hot cross buns, suet, Fry's Turkish Delight, those violet flavoured sweets whose name just slipped my mind, Eccles cakes....

On other foreign supermarkets, the wonderful pickles in supermarkets in Japan. Particularly the kombu pickle with sesame seeds.

@SentToTheByn this one works for me and tastes just like Pierre Martinet!

I used to buy Nivea Diamond shampoo and conditioner in Northern European supermarkets and also had friends bring it back for me regularly. My hair has never looked so good. Sadly I think it’s been discontinued.

Me and ds loved the Albert Heijn in Amsterdam. I have a bag for life I need replacing - will have to go back :-)

Loonoon - yes to Nivea Shampoo and Conditioner, in fact all their products which you can't get in UK. Sadly haven't seen the shampoo for years. In Dubai you could get a Nivea raspberry yogurt body lotion which was fab - again sadly discontinued!

I have been a lover of French hypermarkets since the early 1980s (anyone remember those perforated vertical strips of fruit sweets they used to have hanging in bundles in the aisles?) and they are always the highlight of our camping trips... for me, at least. No one else in the family quite gets it, and sometimes they even choose to wait in the car . However, I came away from several Carrefours and Leclercs disappointed recently: all those bountiful cheese aisles, and not one pack of halloumi! (Was with veggie friend and we wanted it for the BBQ.)

To the pp who mentioned ready-made croques in French supermarkets... I was in our local Tesco the other day and saw the 'British' equivalent: a ready-made doner kebab. In a box. In the freezer section. I despaired.

Also, this summer's revelation: the joys of a Decathlon out-of-town superstore.

" anyone remember those perforated vertical strips of fruit sweets they used to have hanging in bundles in the aisles?"

yes!
the highlight of my childhood stay in France with my mother's friend was a trip to the 'Hipermarket' - we had nothing like it here in the UK back then. (old)

Love spanish Lidl’s for its selection of pork scratchings, fruit and veg, huge legs of hanging hams and churros in the frozen aisle which can be put in the oven

@Dontfuckingsaycheese what did you love about the Albert Heijn? I live here and am struggling to see it...!

I'll never forget the huge gated vodka isle in Carrefour (I think) in Poland! It was bigger than our local shop!

Artfulpus I am a vegetarian who has lived in France for 16 yrs and I have never seen halloumi here,I spotted hummus in Intermarche for the first time last week

@Angelil

Just the whole experience that felt so "foreign" and different. We loved their Lunetta Spritz - got a bit obsessed by them! My son made himself some freshly squeezed orange juice with their machine.

Also loved it that they were everywhere including the airport and that we found cans of Belvoir Farms elderflower presse which is just down the road from us :-) My ds found some grape flavour Fanta we don't have here.

@Dontfuckingsaycheese I don't drink fizzy drinks very much so wouldn't have noticed the Fanta! Sounds nice though :p
Those orange juicers are everywhere in European supermarkets so having lived abroad for 10 years (France for 9 years, NL for 1) I guess it just seems pretty normal to me now.

@enabledlurker Yes, I was going to say that it is not very common to find foreign cheeses in French supermarkets...only in quite cosmopolitan areas with a strong expat population usually.

Dublin doesn't really count as 'foreign' but I do like the way the supermarkets do hot soup and bread to take away...

Orange juicers and Havarti cheese slices. Bloody love havarti. Waitrose sometimes sell something labelled as havarti but it's rubbery and vile.

If Ireland counted as ‘foreign’ I’d be going crazy. McCambridge brown bread, Hunky Dory salt and vinegar crisps, HB choc ices, the Spar stores that sell hot cooked sausages......the list is endless

Hot cooked sausage is more or less Spar's very reason for existence! The one near my office is queued out the door at breakfast time for the £1 breakfast bap

I bloody love a European Supermarket. OH and I sing this as we go round:

Yes! My husband thinks I am a weirdo but I love foreign supermarkets. It’s probably my favourite thing about going abroad 😂

I found an online French supermarket called French click that has satisfied my need to browse and buy foreign food

Oh yes...I think you can get a good flavour of local life from the supermarkets.
Miss our trips to France, Florida and all other shopping Mecca’s.

I got some greT shoes from the supermarkets in Brittany on our regular trips.