The transformative experience of grocery shopping

The other day, I discussed with a friend the difference between truly embracing life in a new place and simply remaining a visitor. This is, I suppose, not an unusual question to grapple with as an exchange student constantly at risk of falling victim to the familiar, globalized conveniences of Uber, Airbnb and fast-food chains. My friend and I agreed that there is something deeply satisfying and even virtuous about temporarily assimilating and becoming part of the place you’re staying. I confessed to him that I have found grocery shopping to be among the best ways of doing so.

We all know that grocery shopping is an activity best done on a full stomach. A hungry and thus indecisive shopper will all too often go to the store hoping for an epiphany about what to cook, only to end up running frantically around like a headless chicken trying to find its chopped-off head. But the shopper who goes with a full belly and lifted spirits will see a grocery store as a new frontier with endless aisles of new staples waiting to be discovered. 

Even more so, if you are in a new place where grocery shopping will allow you to blend in with the locals amid their everyday lives. In fact, it can be nothing short of a transformative experience. Whoever you think you are, at this moment, walking around and scouting produce on a Greek island. You are just another person buying exotic juice, someone in a local store near the Sicilian Coast who realized you needed more pasta or, in my case, a Berkeleyan, buying green onions at Berkeley Bowl for tonight’s Bolognese. When you leave the store with a bag full of finds, you will realize you’ve made it. Local customs did not expose you as a foreigner in disguise, nor did you give in to the impulse of nervously revealing it yourself. Instead, you have managed to become just another stranger. For a brief moment, you could be anybody.

More than just indulging your imagination, I honestly believe grocery shopping is good for the soul. Every person has, I think, a series of kitchen staples. The most basic of my own would be coffee, milk, eggs, some sort of toast bread, tomatoes, avocadoes, microwave popcorn, spaghetti, canned tomatoes and salami. Why these? Sheer force of habit. But when you go to the grocery store as the best version of yourself, you’ll look at something and think: Why do I never have this? Suddenly, your list will have changed, and, once again, you will be a slightly changed person. 

My love for grocery shopping has (like all things, I suppose) a lot to do with my mother, who has, for as long as I can remember, put an immense emphasis on the healthiness and quality of the products I consume. Except for the fact that I was always served green tea from some health food store and that my shampoo smelled like a hiking trail, I don’t think I realized this as a child until she started taking pride in my ability to taste whether or not a cucumber is organic.

I believe all this has led me to consider quality groceries as a luxury of its own — a small indulgence. I have, for instance, spent a considerable amount of time trying all the different brands of orange juice simply to figure out which was best. Grocery shopping like this is an intrinsically valuable, rather innocent form of self-care. I will always consider those eggs from that particular local farm, that can of crushed tomatoes in sleek packaging I was always too cheap to buy or any of a hundred other supermarket items a treat. To me, it’s like stress shopping but without the guilt.

So, in these days of dopamine addiction, doom scrolling, impulse buys and dating apps: Treat yourself. Get lost in the stream of people in the grocery store aisles. You deserve it.