as i was looking out the window of a taxi my first day here i noticed that many streets had at least one store advertising "frutos secos," often in the store's very name. i thought, "spain is awesome!" because i'm rather fond of waterless fruit. since then i've had it in the back of my mind that dried fruit would be a really great snack for between lunch and dinner. well, today i finally went looking for one of these dried fruit stores, my spirits high. only, as it turns out, "frutos secos" cues spaniards that a store by that name is a small market owned by asians, full of chips, candy, and rice. there is no assurance that the place will actually sell dried fruit. in fact, not one of the half dozen "frutos secos" stores i visited had so much as a stray apricot lying on a windowsill.
it's pretty common in spain for a place to take its name from just one of the items it sells (polleria = chicken but also other meats, cerveceria = beer but other beverages/ food as well, tabaco = tobacco but also metro passes, snack food, etc.), except that it's generally expected that the store will deliver on the one product it takes pains to announce. dried fruit stores? no.
irritating. i'm going to look into whether spain has truth-in-labeling laws, if so i will take legal action. in the meantime i bought some still-wet peaches and their sweetness has consoled me.
any other dissatisfied consumers out there? i'll forget my troubles soon. tonight there's a gigantic, city-wide festival of the arts that lasts until dawn.
3 comments:
i found your blog. i am sorry about your lack of dried fruits. how will you ever get your fiber?
ps - i hope 38 calle de cervantes is your mailing address, because my family sent you a package. not dried fruit, unfortunately, but something you might still like.
you suck, todd, if this is the worst thing about spain. i saw an old lady lying in the grass the other day, and i didn't know if that was normal or not. Also, people in Russia are not allowed to have dirt on their shoes, while at the same time living in a city with the worst sidewalk/drainage system since the Babylonians.
ps i also love dried fruits.
i think you should go start a revolution!
and if you do have a blog yourself, let me know the url so i can read it and i'll put a link to it on this blog too
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