Continental Supermarkets

[bornonvalentines]

Hi Gang

We're taking the car to Carcassonne this year, which opens up a lot of possibilities for hyper market shopping.

The accomodation is self catering, and I'll be cooking for 4 adults including a pescatarian.

My question is in two parts:

1. what do you love buying/cooking/eating from the hyper markets which you don't really get in the UK? I think Western Europe hyper markets are quite similar in Spain, Italy, France etc so doesn't have to be "French"

2. what do you LOVE bringing back, in terms of home wear, products, cooking products from the hyper markets? I'll start with Salad Dressings in a bottle. And French mayo

Merci a toutes x

Things I like to bring back,
Apericubes, especially the herb ones!
Unusual herbs & spices.
Dried mushrooms.
Aperitifs ~ especially Lillet, Byrrh and Suze.
Liéueurs ~ I look out for strawberry, raspberry or rose.
Eau de vie ~ apricot is my favourite.

Whilst there I love the hypermarket fish counters, particularly the wide range of shellfish, and the unusual pâtés, rabbit, boar etc. I usually get some calissons from a chocolate shop too.

Have a super hols, and enjoy your shopping!!

Bumping this for any more ideas. We're driving to Amsterdam and are possibly most excited by the supermarket possibilities along the way...

Mitosyl cream -

i always find the beans in french and Spanish supermarkets really good value i cannot think of the name for them but they look like cannelloni beans and come in big glass jars for 60cence
french supermarkets also seem to stock large tins of ratatouille which is so convenient with limited self catering facilities

Slightly surprised at people buying €1 wine in France - it might be cheap, but only because it is absolutely terrible. If you pay a bit more - €6 or €7 you will get something of a much better quality and at a much cheaper price than the equivalent in the UK. If you pay €10 you can get something really excellent.

Wine at a euro a bottle isn't necessarily terrible. We have friends who live in Spain and we were staying with them once and drunk some wine that his wine snob DF had bought and we all agreed it was very nice and expected that it would probably have been expensive due to being bought by the aforementioned wine snob DF.

So we went off to Mercadona to get some more and found that it was something ridiculous like sixty cents a bottle.

To answer the OPs question, I like to bring back chorizo, turron (almondy nougatty stuff) saffron and pinchito spice. We don't generally go to France.

In Netherlands:
Frittesaus. It’s mayo for chips. You really want that!
Mustard soup.
Chocomelk.
Hagelslag. (Puur is dark chocolate. The blue and pink one has aniseed).

Go to Hema, it’s heaven. Unisex tshirts for kids in bright colours for pennies. Their crockery is good and cheap. Birthday cards are lovely and cheap too.
Appeltaart, it’s the best in the world.
Kitchen scissors. Seriously. I get mine from Albert Heijn.
Bunting and decorations.
Tulip bulbs.
Cheese. Try the green one with cumin in.
Vla.

I buy bleach pastilles.

They come in plastic bottles, which is a shame, but I can drop one in the loo once a week and it dissolves there, and it lasts ages.

Strawberry juice. It is heavenly. And cheap.

Then bring it home and drink it with gin.

Ooooh I love a forrin supermarket!

From Spain:
Smoked paprika
Small tins of red peppers in brine (you can only buy big jars here)
Bandilleros (mixed pickles threaded onto a little sword)
Don Simon €/litre dry white wine
Tinto de verano
Massive squid cut into fingers, goes lovely on a bbq
Fig ham and manchego

France:
Wine and the crackers mentioned by pps
Spirit vinegar
Pineau de Charentes

Italy:
Porcini mushroom stock

I'm sure there's more

Wine, cheese and sirops mainly. Get most shopping away from the ports, ideally in a wine region, then get cheese near the port. There are lots of different sirop flavours. Violet and iced tea are favourites here.

Teissiere sirops.
Belin snacks
Crémant d’Alsace
Le petit marseillais soap and shower gels etc
Carte Noire coffee
Wine
Hoegaarden (rosé version)

From Spain
Turron
Paella spice mix
Jamon iberico
Flavoured salt

From Germany
Dumpling mix
Mustard
Mil always used to stock up on tights from C&A there as well

Sauce pomme frites! Best ever sauce with chips etc. I wish they sold it in UK supermarkets.

Also that mustard which comes in a glass jar with a red lid. Often has characters on the jar (I can't remember the name!). I think it's just bog standard mustard in France but it's so tasty.

Nobody has mentioned fig & nut boursin. It's amazing and I've never been able to find it in the UK.

Coffee is SO much cheaper in France than UK.

Tins of white tuna

Cornichons (small gherkins)

Le petit marseillais ati dandruff shampoo is amazing. It's called anti-pelliculaire (sp?).

Note pads with the French squared paper - makes your lists look SO efficient

My almost teenage dd goes nuts for Babou - a mashup of Primark and Home Bargains. Loads of cheap and cheerful fashion and stationery that's different to UK stuff. Their jingle is a terrible earworm though.

Tins of confit de canard
Tinned brown lentils (use these in loads of quick & easy meals)
La Petit Marseillaise shower gel
Clairette de Die Tradition (this is a sweeter style - avoid the Brut - makes a lovely apero)
Orangina
Lays crisps
CHEESE
Olives
Steak burgers

Going to France in 2 weeks and cannot wait....

Loving these, keep them coming. I'm super excited about tessiere, need to do some serious research on which flavours.

Fencing vla is kind of like custard, is that right?

Re the fig & nut Boursin, I had some last Xmas from Tesco! It came in a festive trio pack and my word it was amazing.

Frisella and biscotti from Italy. Instituto espanol moisturiser from Spain (obviously).

Lays paprika crisps
Calve mayonnaise

I live on the Swiss side of the Franco-Swiss border but do most food shopping on the French side. Things that are worth picking up IMO are;

• Rillettes; a kind of potted paté that comes in assorted varieties; wild boar (sanglier) is my favourite
• Saucisson (dry cured sausage), loads of varieties, the black pepper covered ones are particularly nice
• Tapenade
• Sirop; Moulin de Valdonne is the best brand available from the supermarket, according to my French DH
• Biodema eau micellaire
• Flat espadrilles; come in loads of colours and are cheap as chips