My
weekend trip to
Wuhan included a stop at Carrefour,
the French supermarket giant that just opened its 51st store in China. Wuhan is
home to a huge plant belonging to the French automaker Citroen, so there are
plenty of foreigners jonesing for a taste of home.
Though the store carries many of the usual suspects of Chinese markets (tofu, endless aisles of ginseng products), its selection thankfully included Western staples such as cheese!!! Between my fellow teacher and I, we bought four kinds of cheese.
I never thought I'd be so excited about buying a cheese labeled "TASTY". But there's no cheese available in Jiujiang, so this New Zealand import was the best I could do. I had it with the bread this morning, and it was decent -- kinda like Cracker Barrel in the U.S. The bread itself was soft and spongy, but dry. But I'll take it. At least it doesn't taste like eggs, sugar and rice flour.
The wine is a huge score, too. It's a Jacob's Creek 2001 Shiraz Cabernet. In my city, they only sell Chinese wine, which is dry, watery and very non-alcoholic. One of my Chinese colleagues told me she doesn't like wine -- she prefers to mix it with lemon juice and sugar to make it "taste good." Oh, the horrors!
I also bought a Dove chocolate bar and some oreos.
Posted by Astrid at September 26, 2004 11:34 PM