Buying Food in a Small Middle Eastern Town

Ever wonder what it’s like to live in a small town in the Middle East?

Buying food in our small Middle Eastern town is very different from walking into an American grocery store where everything is available in one place. In today’s post, we will give you a little glimpse of what it’s like for us to get our fruit, veggies, and meat.

Fruits and Vegetables

The grocery stores do not have fresh produce. To buy fruit and vegetables, we must go to veggie stands. Smaller towns usually have several of these produce shops. Here are some things to know about visiting these veggie stands:

• Prices are often not labeled. If the prices are labeled, it will be in Arabic. It has helped us to know our Arabic numbers and to learn basic phrases like, “How much does this cost?” Since prices are often unlabeled, it is not considered rude to yell out a question about pricing.

• Vegetable stands typically get new stock every few days. Trucks from other parts of the country deliver produce to the smaller towns. If the stock is low, employees may tell us when they are getting their next shipment. The afternoons tend to be when the veggie stands have the most stock, but afternoons also are the busiest time to go.

• Almost every type of fruit and vegetable is weighed in kilograms. A few items are sold per piece. To check out, the cashier weighs everything on a scale. Sometimes the scales are not very modernized, and the cashier tallies the cost on paper and uses a calculator for the total. Sometimes the scale has an internal calculating system and will print a receipt—such an amazing modern feature!

• Produce is often bagged by an employee, but they tend to put little care into being gentle with our produce, so we prefer to bag ourselves whenever we can.

• Payments are cash only.

• A decent selection and variety is available at these smaller veggie shops.

• Colored plastic bags are scattered around the veggie stands to bag the produce.

• The veggie stands in the smaller towns do not refrigerate their products. Often produce is going bad and rotting. The shops do not rotate fruit properly, and they do not always remove damaged or rotting pieces. We are careful when we select our produce.

• Sometimes the veggie stands have a few local products. Our veggie stand carries honey and apple cider vinegar—both produced in the area.

Buying Meat

Most of the small towns have at least one main grocery store. To an American or a Westerner, these shops would be considered “convenience stores.” Some of these stores have a small freezer section where we can buy frozen chicken and lamb.

If we want to purchase fresh beef or lamb, we have to visit one of the butcher shops. This is a shop where the goats that are slaughtered are waiting in a pen outside the front door.

These goats sit on the back of a pickup truck. They will be slaughtered soon for meat and sold to customers that same day.

Some things about visiting these butcher shops:

• These shops slaughter the goats inside in view of all customers. The animals seem to be slaughtered humanely. Sometimes we witness or hear a slaughtering, and we often see entire carcasses hanging—head and all.

• The butcher shops are not cleaned according to the standards of most Westernized countries.

• The meat is not always refrigerated properly. As buyers we pay attention to the color and even feel the meat to see if it feels cold.

• Beef is delivered to these shops and is ordered by the kilogram. They weigh our order on a scale. We can have our meat ground in two different sizes. Many customers bring fresh herbs to the butcher to be ground in with their meat.

• Occasionally, people purchase whole sheep and goats for a discounted price. It is tradition to share whole animals with family and friends.

For fresh chicken, we must shop at a place that butchers only chicken. The chicken shops are recognized by the orange crates outside the shop. Chickens are delivered in these crates. One shop in our area hangs an orange crate in a tree in lieu of a sign.

Often these plastic crates are hung from trees or are stacked up in front of the butchery stores that sell and process chickens.

Things to know about buying fresh chickens:

• The chickens are kept in cages in the shop. They are typically crowded and do not seem to be treated with respect.

• The bird cages are very unsanitary. However, they are cleaned out with butane fire occasionally. The floors and counters are often cleaned with bleach and water.

• Live birds are weighed on a scale. The price per kilogram is posted in the shops. The cost of chicken fluctuates, but all the chicken butchers in town hold to the same price.

• The chickens are handled in a way that is stressful for them. This is coming from a family who used to raise chickens (for both eggs and meat) and cares about their treatment.

• Once the meat is cleaned well, it tastes amazingly fresh.

Live chickens are awaiting a customer to buy. Chickens are slaughtered and processed at the time of purchase.