Grocery Shopping in Israel

We made our last grocery shopping trip today. Just for fun, I'm posting specifically about grocery shopping in Israel because it's quite different from shopping in the States. Here goes:

Step 1: Put a 5-shekel deposit into a shopping cart in order to unlock it from the rest of the shopping carts.

Step 2: Attempt to maneuver the shopping cart around the store (both front and back wheels swivel, which makes it difficult to push a full cart)!

Step 3: Shop. Notice prices are about double what we pay in the States. A quart of milk costs about $1.50. We buy milk in 1-quart bags here.

Cheese costs about 32 shekels (close to $10) for a small bag of shredded cheese or a box of about 10-15 sandwich slices. We haven't found American or Cheddar cheese here yet. :)

Currently, real butter is unavailable in Israel.

Eggs are stored unrefrigerated. They are individually stamped with an expiration date (cool, huh?), and they often have little chicken feathers stuck to them.

We can't find any pork, bacon, pepperoni, or ham here! (Not kosher - it's all from a pig.) We eat a lot of pastrami on our sandwiches, and salami on pizza.

I've learned how to ask in Hebrew for 1 kilo of schnitzel at the meat counter.

There's an entire refrigerated case that sells only humus - a zillion different brands and flavors.

The cooking oil/olive oil section is huge, too. (I forgot to get a picture of this.)

The bread is sold in unpackaged loaves. They do also sell bagged loaves, which we also buy.

"Hamburger" patties have mostly been veal.

Vanilla flavoring is different. Sugars are more coarse here. Therefore, baked goods turn out to have a different taste and texture.

They sell pomegranate-just-about-anything, including baby rice cereal!

Step 4: Go to the checkout. Hand cashier my discount shopping card (just like we have in the States). Bag my own groceries. (Yes, really!) I will truly appreciate my grocery baggers when I return to the States!

Throughout most of the semester, I went grocery-shopping with my friend Laura on Tuesday nights, which was a huge blessing. Often we have another one or two friends with us, since Laura is the only one with a car. We've decided that we should start a trend in the U.S. where friends go grocery shopping together. :) It makes it much less of a burden - and even a little bit fun!

It's hard to believe we have only a little more than a week left before we head home. We've been so busy with traveling that we haven't posted much. We spent much of last week in Galilee and a couple of days prior to that in Eilat. More on that later! Happy New Year!