Amerikansk mat (American food)

As someone who loves food, of nearly all kinds, I started to get a little annoyed that every time my Swedish instructor would talk about an American having food it was always going to the hamburger restaurant.  I imagine that had I been my Japanese classmate I probably would have also been annoyed that everyone assumed I ate nothing but sushi. 

Anyway, I just returned from a quick trip to a big grocery store in the city and stumbled upon the American section as I made my way from the bakery to the produce section.  Lining the walls I saw this:

Okay, so let's do a quick inventory.  French's mustard, Hershey's chocolate syrup, fluff, pancake syrup (read: NOT maple syrup), Goldfish crackers, Betty Crocker frosting, Starbucks coffee, some candy, jello, canned cranberry sauce, graham cracker pie crusts, coke, Stovetop stuffing, beef jerky, cake mix, canned pumpkin, baked beans...well, my favorite are these (sorry it's blurry):
and this:

I'm not sure why it cracks me up so much, but the fact that neither Pop Tarts nor Fruit Loops made it here but their knockoffs did, well, it makes me giggle a little.  Oh, and the Scrunchy Fruity Floats cost more than two boxes of other cereal.  Imports are imports, I guess.

But here's the thing I realized just about five seconds ago as I was inserting the image above, this is pretty accurate.  I mean, what do you see when you walk into any gas station mini-mart or 7-11 in the US with a little food section?  You see beef jerky, cereal, frosting, cake mix, candy, soda, StoveTop stuffing, jello...you see all this stuff and more.  Hmmm...

Comments

[rachel]

That looks strikingly like the American food section of the grocery store in Hanoi. I wonder if there is a global quik-e-mart supplier...? It is really funny that there are knock-off pop tarts - I actually think in Vietnam they had the real ones!

[Julia]

The other interesting thing is that there are plenty of other American goods that aren't kept here. For instance every place has Philadephia cream cheese and Special K, but they weren't in this section (or even nearby).

[Earmaster keygen]

Beautiful, I was actually sent to your article from a friend. She suggested it since we were having a chat about this topic the other night.