Thinking Basic Food Needs

The thousand or so permanent residents of the Point have one notable advantage over most tiny U.S. towns: we have a very large supermarket, The International Market. It has free range chicken and artichokes and fresh basil and peaches from Chile and strawberries from Mexico and cheese from hither and yon, as well as 6 or 7 brands of yogurt, from the frivolous to the highly organic. Everything we need is in even more ample supply just across the border, of course. But, just across the border, prices for some foods are very high (eggs, milk, all dairy products, poultry). It is convenient and economical for Canadians to shop down here for such goods when they make the trip across to buy gasoline (today, $3.72/gallon US...still something of a bargain for Canadians with the U.S. dollar almost the equal of a Canadian dollar) or a little alcohol, or to pick up their packages at the post office. So the International Market serves both countries, which justifies its name. At checkout, you can pay in either currency and the cash registers are set up so that they will even tell you how to pay partly in each currency. (This is for the shopper who comes in, buys $35 worth of goods, and finds in his wallet only a US$20 and a CA$20.) The checkers are, so to speak, fluent in two currencies.

In the bad/good days (depending on what kind of currency you were holding), U.S. food prices were very high for Canadians because the dollar was so strong, and in those years we feared The International Market might close because the number of shoppers was truly small. Often, I’d be the only person in the market at 3 in the afternoon. Now, though, with the weak dollar, there are lines and even multiple checkers.

Independent of the currency issue, what wouldn’t you buy here in Point Roberts? That is, what would you make the effort to cross the border to purchase at their grocery stores. In Canada, you can buy Demerara sugar. I suppose it originally came from Demerara, where the rum comes from. I suspect it may now come from Cuba because it is an absolutely ordinary shelf-product in Canada, the Canadians have a sensible relationship with Cuba, and I have never seen it in an American market. It is dark brown, with big, soft crystals, and moves when you put a cup full on a plate as the crystals find their way to achieving stasis. And it tastes deep and dark and tropical and brown sugary. It is to U.S. brown sugar as real maple syrup is to the stuff they sell as pancake syrup. You use it just as you would brown sugar, although you are tempted to consider just eating a bowlful with a spoon, which temptation has never presented itself to me with respect to ordinary brown sugar.

Raisins are another surprising treat in Canadian markets. That is because, in the U.S., shoppers have on offer only raisins made from Thompson seedless grapes. They’re okay; I ate them all my life. But for Canadians, the raisin on offer--your basic raisin for all purposes--is a Sultana: a fruit that is much more flavorful, maybe sweeter, and slightly moist/sticky. So much better than those wizened, dried-up Thompson’s. Take some home with you next time you visit!

And the last ‘Canadian Must Buy’ is wheat flour. The great wheat fields of Canada grow lots of durum wheat and the ordinary Canadian supermarket flour is a much better flour, especially if you want to make bread. It comes composed solely of wheat whereas, as far as I can tell, all American flour is now adulterated with barley flour and also has a lower protein level (because they use more soft than hard wheat to make it), to boot. That kind of flour is how you get to Wonder Bread. I don’t think they could make Wonder Bread with Canadian flour, even if they tried. Raisins, Demerara sugar, and hard flour: I think there’s something to be made with that.