When we first moved to France 15 years ago sourcing affordable peanut butter was challenging. The supermarkets only stocked one brand, Skippy (which is American), and you found it in the 'weird foreign foods' section. If I remember correctly it was nearly €6 for a 340 g jar, and only came in smooth. French people in those days definitely didn't like peanut butter. The spread of choice, if you are French, is Nutella (or own brand knock off versions of chocolate hazelnut spread). We don't like Nutella, but luckily we have good Dutch friends who were very generous with their regular supply of crunchy pindakaas in big jars.
At my local SuperU.
Then we discovered Noz and to our joy, they frequently had all sorts of end of line, overstock and liquidation peanut butter, for perfectly reasonable prices. So nowadays our approach is to stock up at Noz every couple of weeks.
However, for various reasons, we haven't had the opportunity to shop at Noz for a while, so the peanut butter situation was getting desperate. The other day, on my regular supermarket run, I checked out the peanut butter. I was quite surprised to see, in a small provincial supermarket, four brands of peanut butter, two of which proudly proclaimed they were made in France (albeit from American peanuts)! And they were no longer in the 'weird foreign foods' section, but in the 'spreads and jam section'. They were all smooth though (except for the Skippy, which came in both smooth and crunchy).
2 comments:
Marmite is my "Where can I buy it for a reasonable price?" - and Lyles Golden Syrup is Graham's. We both loathe each others favourites. Opposites attract and all that. Luckily we have friends who know what to bring! Apparently, in Normandy, these things are easier to find... We even found gammon joints on a visit there once!
JGB: I should imagine Marmite is a whole lot easier to get than Vegemite. I'm fairly sure the supermarkets over my way stock it in the weird British foods end of aisle shelves.
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