Wading Through Aisles of
Expired Food in Prague
If you're just passing
through Prague, you won't notice them. They're harmless looking
grocery stores that you would easily pass in favor of supermarket
chains like Albert, Tesco, Kaufland, or Lidl. You would be correct
in your passing. But I'm here to tell you how the other half lives.
Welcome to the wonderful
world of the levne potraviny, aka 'cheap groceries.' These
places are just chock full of expired goods and bads from rich
Western countries. And people shop there. And more of these stores
open every year. People are too poor to care, so they shop, they buy,
and they suck down more old sausages than a train station hooker.
Top 10 Least Successful
Food Chains
I'll never forget one of
Letterman's Top 10 Lists, which featured names of the least
successful food chains. But I could only remember 'Food Crypt' and
'Risky's.' So I Googled the motherhumper:
Top 10 Least Popular
Supermarket Chains - May 3, 1990
10. Pick 'n' Lick
9. Larva Town
8. Food Crypt
7. Risky's
6. Price Hiker
5. Rex Reed's Grocery
Rodeo
4. The Expiration Date
Grab Bag
3. I'm-Not-Wearing Pantry
2. Hitler's
1. Bag This!
Since Germany and Austria
border Czechia, it's probably too soon to open a Hitler's. But The
Expiration Date Grab Bag is open for business, and it's turning a
brisk trade.
Prague Suburbs: Industrial
Wastelands and Soviet Housing Blocks
It wasn't always this way.
In Commie Times, Czechs huddled in their cozy concrete high rise
flats with fizzling sparks of socialist joy warming their cold
hearts. There were exactly two shops: the one where they bought all
of the usual Czech sludge: goulash, dumplings and cabbage, and the
one where they stood in line for hours to get oranges, bananas, or
any other fruits from warm countries outside of the frozen Eastern
Bloc.
I've lived in a few panelaky, or gray, Commie housing blocks. They crush the soul,
truly they do. Now I live in an old 1900s, pre-Soviet building in an
industrial suburb, as usual, not because I can't afford to live in
the tourist-besieged Prague center, but because I like cheap rent.
And quiet nights. I live in
Praha-Liben, a downtrodden neighborhood
that is slowly looking up. My Libenese neighbors are mostly poor
working class folks living in a few old, crumbling buildings.
The sprawling O2 Arena and
mall complex are at the end of our street, and in between us and mass
consumerism are some newfangled apartments for a mish-mash of various
nouveau-riche slobs from Slobovia, One street over, there's a few
ubytovna buildings, or dorm housing for Ukie laborers. And there's
your garden variety poor Czechs who pine away for the good old days
of Communism in their absinthe dementia.
The Expiration Date Grab
Bag
Czechia has long been a
dumping ground for inferior goods from richer countries. What's
worse, the exact same German brand of juice you buy in Germany for 1
EUR is 2 EUR here. And it's worse quality. And Czechs make half what
the Germans make. But one thing is certain: they don't throw away
their food here like in Western countries. They just drop the prices.
So we go to the Food Crypt
or the Risky's. There are at least three in our neighborhood, which
tells you all you need to know. I buy expired food and I'm not
ashamed. It's radically reduced in price, and mostly familiar
Western brands. So what if the box of Kellogg's Special K breakfast
bars are a few months after the sell-by date? There are enough
preservatives in those little chocolate bastards to embalm an
elephant. And they cost a quarter per box, rather than 1 EUR. Now
THAT's economy. I save money on both food and embalming.
Not all foods are expired.
Some are past their 'best by' date, and some poor products are just
victims of bad marketing or differences in consumer tastes. Central
Europeans hate spicy things, so there is a dearth of spicy sauces,
Cajun whatsits, South American marinades, and exotic BBQ sauces at
discount prices. I buy them all. My wife thinks I'm mad. But no two
BBQ sessions taste the same, I tell ya.
Shopping With Various
Slobs From Slobovia
The Food Crypt is full of
a fine cast of characters. We don't have Walmart. We have the Food
Crypt. I can show up in my worst clothes, unwashed, hair sticking
up, tartar sauce on the crotch of my trousers, and nobody bats an
eye. The other day I entered the Crypt. A hunched homunculus with a
walrus mustache, coke bottle glasses, greasy ball cap, and a fake
gold chain crossed my path. He was wearing a faded t-shirt with
English lettering (a perennial favorite here): Czech Made Man. It
was almost like the cover of that Fat Boy Slim album. He and the
usual assortment of gypsies, tramps and thieves were wandering the
aisles. I don't know which of those categories I fall into, but I'm
leaning toward the tramp.
Sucking Down More Klobasa
Than a Train Station Hooker
I pick up a box of my
favorite expired breakfast embalming bars, skip over the expired
chips and dips, and head to the meat section. There is always a
human clog in the meat section at all times. Not just because Czechs
are big meat eaters (heh), but because there is an actual law the
prevents the selling of expired meats in the EU. So there I head,
looking for discount salamis thrown over from Germany. My favorite
brand of smoked salami is Houdek, a
Czech-sounding-yet-made-in-Germany brand. They're extra smokey and
delicious. And the meat is of a higher quality than the usual tubes
of lips and assholes you buy in Czechia.
Score! There, wedged in
between the slab of greasy bacon and the hunk of unidentified meat!
Houdek kabanos, with cheese! My favorite! Whoa, mama, I could hardly
find these babies in Germany, they were so popular. There they were
2 EUR for a pack of two. Here they are only 75 cents per package.
So I bought almost ALL OF THEM. Why not? They don't expire til the
end of November, and I have a big freezer.
So I swaggered out of the
Food Crypt with an armload of German salami and a 3-liter box of
Italian wine. All for less than a tenner. I don't plan to live on
this diet for too long. And if it keeps up, I probably won't. But I
am a Wide Body Jetsetter living LARGE in Post-Communist Czechia. And
a Czigga's gotta eat.
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