Everywhere has a signature food: New York pizza, Wisconsin cheese curds, Kentucky fried chicken. When traveling, we imagine taking advantage of the famous restaurants, and schedule time to sample Chicago deep dish from Giordanos or sourdough bread from a San Fransisco bakery. But though locals may go to these kinds of restaurants on occasion, even more closely tied to the identity of a place are the more casual places people visit more frequently.
For the true local experience, it’s important to check out the smaller, more regular stops. Kids in rural areas across the country spend time hanging out at Walmarts and Targets, treating it not just as a grocery store but also a place to grab a coffee or snack and spend time with friends, browsing the latest additions to the shelves. Though Wisconsinites swear by Kwik Trip (a convenience store with a great selection of everything from bakery items to tons and tons of cheese), it would never make its way onto a travel itinerary for Milwaukee. And somehow Buc-ee’s has managed to become a tourist attraction in itself, an incredible feat for a place functioning primarily as a large gas station and convenience store. These places are a part of our every day lives, and so have become a large part of our local culture. And if that’s true in the US, it’s unsurprising that it would be the same in other places.
What was surprising to me was that the prominent convenience store in Copenhagen, Denmark was somewhere I was familiar with: Seven-Eleven. I didn’t realize there were locations outside of the US, but in Copenhagen, they seemed to be on every corner; the airport alone has over one hundred 7-Eleven/7-Eleven GO’s. I remember how hard it was to find a 7/11 close to my home in the US last summer when I wanted to get my free July 11 Slurpee, so seeing what I have always imagined to be a very US convenience store on every corner of a city across the world took me by surprise. However, it was an easy meal or snack option during our trip, quick and convenient without being too pricy.
In the UK, grocery store meals were everybody’s friends. The Tesco meal deal for $5.01 (or Sansbury meal deal for $4.81) comes with a main, side, and drink for a price that can’t be beat. The main can be anything from sandwiches, salads, or pasta to sausage rolls, sushi or wraps. Sides include fruit, veggies, chips, candy, yogurt, and more. Sodas, water, and coffee are just some of the drink options. It’s quick, easy, and cheap for anyone who doesn’t want to spend money going out for food every day but also lacks the time or means of cooking at home. The Tesco meal deal is a component of life that nearly everyone takes advantage of at some point, and is loved by locals and tourists alike.
However, my favorite place I tried the entire summer was the Minipreço, a small grocery store in Lisbon, Portugal. Though I had lots of good food across multiple countries—sampling bakeries, street vendors, restaurants, and markets—what I miss most are the breakfast items in the bakery case of one Portuguese grocery store. There were meat pastries, rolls, muffins, sandwiches, sweets—so many options, and at a price that meant you could try them all (breakfast for four totaled under $14!). It was a fun experience to pick what looked good without of trying to use translation apps to figure out what everything was. It lent more creativity to what we tried—some of my favorites that I googled later weren’t anything I would have chosen based on its name (I never would have guessed that Bolo de Arroz, translating to rice muffin, would be one of my favorite foods from the trip). Though a bakery with nice patio seating and fancy decor can be fun, buying food from a place that doesn’t cater to tourists and eating it picnic-style on a city bench is a more fun, authentic experience that also saves money and time to spend enjoying the rest of the city.
