What Did Ya'll Have For Dinner Tonight?

They're from Germany. Aldi just had a 'German week', where they get more German stuff in. They do it a couple times per year. That's about the only time I get soft pretzels for the house. I used to make them myself, but I haven't done it in forever. Sometimes I think "I should make some bread, pizza, pretzels, whatever myself". I'll buy all the ingredients, and the flour sits til it has bugs in it, the yeast dies, and I throw it all out never having made anything. Have a hard time getting up motivation for it. I used to really like baking. I toyed with making a career of it, but burned out on the commercial process. Sugar cookies were the worst. Thousands of dozens of awful cookies around Christmas time. So much work, and sugar cookies are terrible. It's like not having a cookie at all. They look good, and you have high expectations, but they taste like homemade tree decorations you made out of dough :^(
 
It's probably my favorite grocery store. It definitely is considering bang/buck. I like the limited selection, and the transient nature of a lot of the products. They'll get something good in, and it's gone in a week or two. Won't be back for months, or maybe ever. It's kind of disappointing, but it also makes the stuff you get more special. It isn't around long enough to get tired of it. Every week there's something new to see, and their quality is uniformly high.
 
Hmm, not sure if I know Aldi being that I am an Alaskan recluse after all.😁 I was talking about the street vendor pretzels...is that what you meant John?
 
Aldi's is a grocery store chain that is known for lower prices. Back in the day it was a poorer family store, now it's a hot new thing, probably because they have good quality at low prices now. I remember in high school going there to buy tons of food for canned food drives.
 
stikine said:
Is Aldi's a new version of A&P or equivalent?
Click to expand...
More like a Sav-A-Lot if you have those up there. The quality's better though. Stores are small in the context of an American supermarket. Most of what they sell is contract made for them under aldi's various labels. Sometimes you can figure out the major brand that's making things for them. Selection is very limited. You want ketchup?, they have exactly one kind under their house brand. You want a specific kind of green tea from Sri Lanka, you're SOL. They'll likely never have it, unless they get some kind of 'special buy' on it, and once that's sold, they may never get it back. This is how the inside of the store's setup...

5919248971a5a-image.jpg


Shipping boxes are put right on the shelf. There's zero effort given to display. Empty boxes are great to take your groceries home in, cause if you want a bag, you have to pay for it. I use my box to put recyclables out. Stores are very sparsely staffed, and everybody does everything. Nobody needs to be checked out, you're stocking shelves. Everything about aldi is saving pennies, and that gets passed on to the customer. BTW, on checkout, the clerks are lightning fast. Their speed is monitored, and they have to maintain standards. Never seen anything like it anywhere else.
 
A&P was the "Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co", back here in the east, and they were one of the biggest supermarket chains around. They were based in North NJ, and did have a rep or carrying some of the "finer things". They unfortunately lost out to other chains (Shop Rite, FoodTown, Aldi, Food Lion, etc...) on this coast, and eventually were absorbed by the Stop & Shop Company.
 
A&P was where we shopped when I was a kid. My uncle was a butcher in the local store. I especially like their house coffee, Eight O'Clock. You can still get it, but it isn't as common, the prices are higher, and the bags smaller.
 
Yeah, A&P seemed to be a east coast chain.

Fried up some fresh hooligan tonight. I'll need to do a thread on this fish at some point. Huge run goes up the Stikine river this time of year...birds, seals, and sealions congregate for the feast. We harvest with beach seins and cast nets.
 
Unfortunately Burnham these were once wide spread from California to Alaska but it seems the southern runs have diminished or disappeared altogether. Very little research has been done on them and they are an important forage species. I'm doing some time sensitive tile work at the moment so I will pick this up tomorrow with more detail my friend.👍
 
It is interesting that ALDI is held in such high regard in the US.
Here it is considered the lowest tier of German discount crap.
 
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German and crap doesn't compute. The worst quality I've gotten from Germany was "adequate". Most exceeds average. Might say more about the average American market than aldi. Aldi's stuff is at least equal to major American brands, with a sprinkling of premium content in the stores. Wegmans is better, but that's a couple tiers over aldi, and only on the north east coast.
 
Sounds like we're lucky not to have them.

Costco started a big warehouse not far from where I used to live in Sydney but I never went there.

Aldi here isn't much like that picture, nearly everything is unpacked and bigger shelves. I can get just about anything there, fruit & veg are fresh and prices are good.
 
A lidl opened up not terribly far from me, but too far for discount groceries, and a part of town I don't like. I'd like to check it out some time though.
 
So a bit more information on Hooligan, also known as Eulachon, Candlefish, or Oolichan. They are a small fish closely related to smelt and have been utilized here by the natives for thousands of years for food and trading the rendered grease from them to other tribes that didn't have access. Besides just pan frying them they are frequently dried and smoked and then eaten like a pepperoni stick. When dried and smoked they can get a bit strong flavored and not everyone likes more than a couple at a time (you burp up smoke flavor afterwards). :) The name candlefish comes from the fact that you can actually light a dried hooligan and burn it like a candle because of the high oil content.

The Hooligan grease was made by fermenting the raw fish in large vats and then cooking the grease and oil out of them. I've never done it myself and I believe there are several different methods of how it was traditionally used. The Wrangell Tlingit tribes would trade the grease, among other things, by travelling up the Stikine river and meeting the interior BC Tahltan tribe. The Tahltans had access to obsidian for spear and arrow points which is not common around here.

Here's a link to some additional information if anyone is interested:

www.adfg.alaska.gov

Eulachon Species Profile, Alaska Department of Fish and Game

General information about Eulachon in Alaska such as description, life history, range, habitat and more.
www.adfg.alaska.gov www.adfg.alaska.gov

And of course we need to throw in a few photos.
IMG_20180403_154321.jpg IMG_20180415_125105.jpg
 
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