Grocery shopping in Nova Scotia

Wherever I've been in the world, one of the fascinating things to do has always been to go to a grocery store or supermarket and just look at what's there, what's NOT there, what people buy, what seems to be treated as commonplace and what's thought of as exotic.

Now this is a very small (not to mention friendly) town. The dot on my map puts it at below 1000 people, and that's as small as dots come so it's probably only a few hundred. It's also an odd shape; about two miles long and one house thick, I like to say, though that's just what it feels like. There's a little plaza where most of the shopping seems to get done. Yes, there are other places; one off stores and businesses scattered along the road, a few hairdressers, restaurants, insurance and real estate agents, a graphic design shop, but most of the SERIOUS shopping seems to get done either elsewhere entirely, in larger, neighbouring metropoli, or in the plaza.

Over the next few days, I'll put some observations on my shopping experiences. Not to criticize or praise, you understand, just to note the things that strike me.

Today, No.1. SuperSave.
This is the local supermarket and is therefore the best indication of what people eat at home. Mostly, it's what you'd expect but there a few oddities.

1a. Seafood.
Nicest, I would say, is the little shelf of fresh local seafood. No great surprise this close to the ocean, I suppose, but to be able to buy scallops (World Famous Digby Scallops*, no less) covered in cellophane on a wee styrofoam tray, as if they were so many pork chops, is quite a treat. Remember, this is no downtown Loblaws or Tescos with its real fishmonger section. They just sit there, with the mussels and haddock fillets, next to the chicken pieces and sausages. We tried the scallops last week. I had no clue what to do with them. The internet was full of wonderful recipes calling for raspberry sauces, honey glazes and the like, but I was already home with them and NOT going out again for all that stuff. The lady at the check-out, when I asked her for the easy way to do them, said to coat them in breadcrumbs. Everybody, internet and real, says the big thing is not to overcook them. They go rubbery, all agree. My tactic was to quick fry them with a little lemon juice, just for a few minutes. I certainly didn't overcook them. "Underdone"doesn't quite say it. The term my wife came up with, and I think it fits the facts, was "raw". So, back in the pan, fry them some more and they were lovely, and only slightly more expensive than their former neighbours, the pork chops.

1b. Tobacco.
I've never really adapted to the whole "federal" thing. I expect countries to behave like countries. That is, to agree, with some minor variations like how often the garbage is picked up and what colour the buses are, on how life is regulated, wherever in the country you may be. Since my first days in Canada when I got my first eye-openers on federalism at work while living briefly on the Ontario/Quebec border, I have remained almost constantly in Ontario, so I have not had much exposure to the differences between the Canadian provinces in the way they do things. Here, it's true, I am not aware of the differences most of the time. Sure, the license plates are nicer ("Canada's Ocean Playground" is MUCH more inviting than "Yours To Discover" and I never quite grasped "Je Me Souviens" at all), things have different initials, usually putting "NS" at the beginning where I would expect to see an "O" at the end, but most of the changes seem to be cultural and environmental rather legislative.

I am also aware that, just about everywhere, governments are coming up with new and diverse ways to control the sale and use of tobacco. I had heard in Ontario, some time back, plans to prevent tobacco retailers from having displays advertizing the various brands or promoting discounts and so on and had wondered casually what such a store would look like; a bit "soviet", I presumed.

Well now I know. I first noticed something was odd in the local gas station a few days ago. There were signs everywhere about the evils of tobacco, how dire the penalties were for selling/giving cigarettes to minors (which, for this purpose, as in Ontario, means 19) but NO CIGARETTES! My first guess was that this place had decided not to sell them because they had read all the notices. That wasn't why I was there. though, so I paid for my gas and thought no more about it. Then yesterday, I discovered that, to buy cigarettes at the supermarket, you have to go in a DIFFERENT DOOR to everybody else. When you're in there, you still can't see anything for sale except a few lighters. There's just some locked cabinets and a cash register. A staff member comes through a door from the store-proper and serves, from the locked drawers. Most odd.

I now know that something similar is happening at the gas station. The smokes are in the closed cupboard behind the counter.

1c. Christmas.
I know it's December and Christmas has started everywhere but, here, it's in full swing. On my first day in Nova Scotia (it was mid November and I wasn't even home yet), driving on the piece of toll highway that leads South from New Brunswick, I stopped to pay the $4 toll. The man in the booth, the first Nova Scotian I had seen face to face since July, gave me change and wished me a Happy Christmas. That was November 18th and I guess he's still doing it. If he does that about 6 times a minute, eight hours a day, 5 days a week, for OVER SIX WEEKS, that's 86,400 Happy Christmases and he hasn't even been to the supermarket yet (read on)! Gotta really love Christmas.

It does seem to be the thing here though. Supersave (to get back to the point) is awash with people wishing each other a Merry Christmas. Nothing wrong with that, I hear you cry, and I agree. It just seems a little odd that here, where people meet each other far more often than in larger places, they start this so early. In Toronto, for instance, if I met someone on the street or in a store in early December, there would often be a real chance that I would not see them again this year. Happy Christmas, we'd both say, figuring we might not get another chance. Here, though, the same folks seem to greet the same folks the same way, several times a day in some cases.
At this stage, I have to put it down to the fact that these are just lovely folks who like to have something to celebrate and share.

As with all the foregoing, and what will follow, I am quite prepared to admit that the "oddity" is in me, nowhere else. But that's what this is all about, isn't it?

* World Famous Digby Scallops are from Digby, Nova Scotia. They are truly wonderful but NOT, I can say with confidence, World Famous. I've BEEN to the world and I'd never heard of them until I came here for the first time last year. I'm glad they're not. I like the idea of living somewhere that has a kind of food that SHOULD be World Famous. The world would only spoil them and that kind of thing doesn't travel well anyway so they'd only disappoint elsewhere.