The Grocery Store PR Style

Food poses a unique challenge for me. I have multiple allergies and sensitivities, so cooking in Puerto Rico is a must. Our first week here I did not have a kitchen and had to survive on drive thru burgers and fries. I will admit that in Dallas I identified a handful of restaurants that were safe and just ate at those all the time and did very little cooking. Also Tex-Mex is my all time favorite food on the planet, and Dallas has about a million fabulous restaurants.

To be fair, Puerto Rico is also known for fabulous food, I unfortunately can't eat most of it. In our few weeks here, we have already found restaurants that have great food and can accommodate all of my issues. More on those later.

For those of you looking for grocery prices, here are some common items from my latest grocery receipt:

loaf of wheat bread $2.50

Tostitos corn chips $3.29

bag of Kraft shredded cheese $2.00

box cake mix $1.67

almond milk $2.79

can refried beans $1.79

can tomato puree $1.39

large onions $0.98/lb

8 10 oz cans ginger ale $4.49

chicken breast $3.39/lb

ground beef $3.46/lb

Many of these items would've been much cheaper had I bought 2 or 3 - I just have a small kitchen and don't have room to buy in bulk.

The overall theme of shopping in Puerto Rico (compared to Dallas) is limited selection. This goes for food, sundries, furniture, everything. And if you're into all natural, organic, safe for the environment products, good luck with that.

The most shocking part of grocery shopping here is the produce section. The first two stores we visited didn't have spinach, carrots, celery, mushrooms - things I consider really basic. Everything was brown - coconuts, yucca, and lots of things we couldn't identify. When we walked into the third store I almost cried I was so happy - 3 kinds of apples, sweet potatoes, red onions and all of those basics I listed above. I won't starve here! Also worth mentioning is that produce is ugly. Bananas are split open and beat up, onions are filthy - nothing like the pristine produce I was used to in Dallas. No big deal, it still tastes good!

I'm still missing greens - no green leaf lettuce, no kale, and I have to go to Wal-Mart for spinach (it's not even a super Wal-Mart, but does have some food - so weird). The thing I'm missing most? Avocados! And they grow here! I'll keep hunting.

Other observations - there is an entire aisle at the grocery store dedicated to cooking oil. And not multiple brands, maybe 3 brands to choose from. People take fried food very seriously here. Same goes for flour and corn meal. An entire aisle. Frying is everything. Well, frying and sugar.

Sugar! OMG there's a bakery on every corner. I'll explain bakeries in another post, but damn do they love sugar around here! The cereal aisle is full of sugar cereal, but no healthy cereal. No Grape Nuts, no shredded wheat (except the kind covered in frosting), no organic granola. One more example - we bought a loaf of freshly baked French bread and it had vanilla in it. What!?

Another adventure at the grocery store was finding sour cream. There's cream cheese and yogurt, where the hell is the sour cream? Five trips to three stores and I finally found it. It does not come packaged in the cute little tub with a lid that we're used to. It comes in a squeeze bottle like ketchup. Whatever I squealed with glee when I found it. I'm already without guacamole I have to have some sour cream!

Do you love octopus? Great news! It's everywhere! I was looking for frozen veggies (since fresh produce is so limited) and what I found was a giant freezer case full of octopus. Apparently there is a Puerto Rican octopus salad that is amazing, but that's on the list of things I can't eat. Maybe Jason will report back for us.

It's no surprise that most items are imported to the island. However, Puerto Rico may have gone a little overboard here. Jason got a bottle of mango juice at a coffee shop and it was imported from Egypt. Mangos are everywhere here! At the grocery store I bought a bag of croissants imported from Canada. You couldn't get croissants from one of the 8,000 bakeries in town? So strange.

Here's a tip. If you are really in need of your special organic fancy beef jerky, check out Walgreens. It's the only place in town we've found our favorite snacks, like Cheese-Its, Wheat Thins, Ben&Jerry's, and real sugar Coke. Go for the sunscreen, stay for the gourmet cuisine.

After two weeks of exploring, I feel confident we've tackled my food challenges. I have wonderful friends and family back in Texas who will ship me things I can't find in PR, like almond butter, Jiffy cornbread mix, and chili. I cook all the time, including Tex-Mex, and I no longer have to survive on drive thru cheeseburgers. Buen Provecho!