Knowing your fruits and veggies

[s'kat]

Two recent encounters with grocery store workers over the weekend.

#1: I asked an employee, "Excuse me, do you have any passion fruit available?"

(worker goes off to find someone who actually works in produce section.)

Produce guy arrives, and counters with a question. "What exactly do you mean by 'passion fruit'?" He looked a bit unnerved.

#2: As I was having all of my groceries checked out, the cashier held up a small, bright green fruit, looking at it curiously. "Is this a lime?", she finally asked.

It just amazes me sometimes.

[Pan]

I presume the small green fruit was a kiwi fruit?

[KateW]

The way I read it is that it actually was a lime.

The passionfruit I'm less surprised about.

[fresco]

Produce clerks are so poorly paid in most places that it's probably a bit of a stretch to expect them to arrive knowledgeable or to stick around long enough to become that way.

[Jake]

I can relate. Quick run out to the grocery store the other day as the SO had forgotten to pick up cilantro.

In produce section, produce person putting lettuce out.

"Excuse me, do you have any fresh cilantro?"

"Umm, yeah, sure, hang on." Proceeds to other end of aisle and points out green and yellow beans!!!!

"Errr, no, cilantro is an herb, usually with the parsley...."

"Try the baked goods section then"

Left and went to small (expensive) market -- that had cilantro!

[s'kat]

Pan- sorry if I wasn't clear. Indeed, it was a lime.

fresco, I could almost agree with you (and I too, wasn't as shocked by the passionfruit questions), but how could you not know what a freakin' lime is??

Jake, I feel for ya. Grow your own.

[JennotJenn]

I know. I didn't even work produce at my first job (checkout girl at 15---'cause the cashiers were always, only women, and the guys got the better paying, cushier jobs---at the local, rural Food Lion), and I knew more about produce than the produce guys.

Not only was I the only person that could identify the whopping 2 varieties of peppers we carried, but I knew their checkout codes. My coworkers thought I was Einstein.

[ellencho]

Sometimes it works to your advantage.

I recently got a bunch of ramps for 50 cents because the cashier thought they were scallions.

[NeroW]

Sometimes it works to your advantage.

I recently got a bunch of ramps for 50 cents because the cashier thought they were scallions.

That happens to me a lot.

I never know if I should say anything, or keep my mouth shut.

I've even started a thread on it here before, but I can't find it.

[HungryChris]

I'm sure part of it is where I live, but when I put some endive or a tomatillo or two in front of the cashier, I pretty much know I'm going to have to be ready to spell it too. The way I see it, it 's a step in the right direction that I can find them here at all, so I don't mind.

[Al_Dente]

Sometimes it works to your advantage.

I recently got a bunch of ramps for 50 cents because the cashier thought they were scallions.

This past weekend, for the second time in a month, I bought fresh porcinis at portobella prices.

[mongo_jones]

#1: I asked an employee, "Excuse me, do you have any passion fruit available?"

(worker goes off to find someone who actually works in produce section.)

Produce guy arrives, and counters with a question. "What exactly do you mean by 'passion fruit'?" He looked a bit unnerved.

perhaps the guy is passionate about bananas?

[hjshorter]

I'll say this for Whole Foods (at least the one I shop) the produce folks know their veggies. They're all very knowledgable. And the cashiers don't seem to have a problem identifying anything either.

Edited May 4, 2004 by hjshorter (log)

[adoxograph]

I've gotten shitaakes for a steal at the chains who entered them as white mushrooms, but the two produce markets I shop at regularly impress the hell out of me - the Valli Produce near me has produce I don't recognize (I'm tempted to take pictures and post them here under the heading WTF?) and yet the cashiers don't even blink at whatever weird offering I can muster from the aisles. Flat leaf parsley and cilantro entered correctly without checking any labels. I sometimes wonder what sort of training they must get....

[chickenlady]

When I lived in California, the cashiers and produce people all had to know the produce and the codes for each item. You actually had to pass a test proving you knew them in order to be promoted to cashier. Here (Upstate NY), no one knows any produce that isn't labeled. Checking out takes forever because each and every item has to be looked up in the code book. Produce is frequently incorrectly labeled. For the last 2 months, habanero peppers have been labeled as anaheims. When I pointed it out to the cashier, he said, "Oh well." Apparently he wasn't swayed by my argument that someone who didn't know better could be in for quite a shock. Even the produce manager hasn't changed the signs although I tell him whenever I see him.

On the plus side, I get some awesome deals on exotic mushrooms, endive, radicchio...

[bleudauvergne]

Here in France they've got a person in produce who identifies, weighs it, and marks it in the produce section. I once got in a tiff with one of these people who insisted that I put one apple into a plastic bag to be sealed instead of tagging the apple directly, to avoid me transferring the tag to a more expensive fruit. What kind of criminal did he think I was? The produce workers are sooo paranoid about people trying to get away with porcinis for portabella. It's crazy.

[jetsie]

One day I was charged $12 for a bunch of three daikon.

"Gee," I thought, "That's pretty steep, even for Whole Foods."

Then I noticed they'd been rung up as parsnips. I didn't mean to embarrass the cashier, (after all, um, daikon do look somewhat like parsnips on massive steroids), but I couldn't help burst out laughing.

They suffer from chronic produce confusion at this particular branch.

[NulloModo]

The produce is all chronically mislabled at my local Acme. Cilantro sits under a sign saying 'Bok Choy', Bok Choy sits labled as Kale, Peppers of all varieties are assigned names of chiles seemingly pulled from a hat without care for what they might actually be.

I have found Idaho potatoes labled as Jicama, Jicama labled as turnips, Fennel always labled as Anise, and elephant garlic as shallots. Above the leafy greens they don't even try, there is just a strip of vegetable names up top, and a bunch of vegetables below, in no particular order.

Thankfully they have also installed a self checkout system, where you just scan you items, toss them in a bag, and in the case of produce, type in the name and it weighs and charges you.

[Pickles]

I've mentioned this (admitted this?) in another thread, but I was recently charged for "red cabbage" when what was in the bag was actually raddicchio. Didn't catch that until I saw the receipt at home. Not to sound like Saint Pickles of ShopRite ... but I usually catch the error and correct them. Sometimes it isn't even in my favor. I'll say "That's not spinach...it's swiss chard!" And then the swiss chard is a buck more a pound! The kids at the check-out have held up cabbages and asked me what kind of vegetable it is. And I have been charged for leeks when buying scallions, and usually get charged for vidalia onions when I am getting just plain ol' yellow onions. I know it's not ethical for me to keep the items for which I have been undercharged, but I have been overcharged for many items at ShopRite at times, too. I look at all those kids eating "free" donuts and cookies that their Moms get for them while shopping and never pay for, and I feel pretty snarky and smug when I eat my raddicchio salad. My justification for my "actions" is that these people should really know what they are selling, and it's not my fault if every so often I benefit because they don't.

[ms. victoria]

I have to say a nice thing in defense of our produce guy at Kroger. I couldn't find any cilantro. He went to look for it and found two very scraggly bunches and told me he would look in the back. Apparently the stuff in the back was even further gone and he wouldn't sell it to me and he took the two wilted bunches off the display.

[dumplin]

...and I felt annoyed because no one ever knew what collards or okra was...but CABBAGE!

At SuperTarget, I was charged the large lemon price for 4 small lemons that were 4/$1. We told the clerk who told us to go to guest services. If the lemons were any smaller, they would have been yellow kumquats. ...if you're not sure, ASK!

[foodie52]

  I sometimes wonder what sort of training they must get....

They don't get any sort of training except on the job. And the nature of grocery store is transient.

I work at a grocery store where new hires have to go through quite an extensive interview process, including product identification. But hey: when you're making only $7.50 an hour , there's not that much incentive to learn. Unless, of course, you are planning on moving up the ladder.

I believe it when you say that your cashier didn't know what a lime was. So many people eat out of boxes or at a box....the color green is mostly unknown to them.

[auntdot]

Totally agree with foodie 52.

Used to work in grocery stores many years ago, weekends, after school, summer 'vacations'.

Was paid minimum wage, except for overtime when I got less, but off the books.

Supermarkets were in those days wild places, where everyone was stealing from everyone else.

But that could be another topic.

The mark up at supermarkets is ridiculously small. Part of the reason is the workers are so poorly paid.

And those folk work hard for their wages, believe me.

It would be nice if they could tell you the names of the twelve different hot peppers they sell, or know what a tomatillo is and how to cook it, or tell the difference between iceberg lettuce and Boston.

But at $7.50 an hour, these people are bringing home a base pay of $15,000 per year.

Not a munificent sum.

If you want expert opinions, be prepared to pay for them.

Go to small grocers that charge much more than Safeway.

But if you look at the ads every week and decide where you want to purchase your food based on them, you get what you get.

Frankly, I find most supermarket employees friendly, helpful, and reasonably knowledgeable about their goods.

Sorry, just a pet peeve and needed to vent.

[bainesy]

I was surprised recently when, at one of the butchers at Borough Market in London, I asked for 'grean streaky bacon' the PBTC said 'smoked or unsmoked?' [Had I better explain here that, at least in Britain, 'green' traditionally means unsmoked?]. He continued 'all our bacon is green - it is organically bred'.

The (green) bacon was fantastic BTW - but I thought it was interesting that such a 'traditional' term was not in currency at a stall that seemed to pride itself on a traditional approach.

Language develops I suppose...

[kellycolorado]

In California this rarely happens to me, except I get my cilantro rung up as parsely a lot.

When I was living in Colorado in the vast suburban sprawl a couple years ago, I drove up to the Denver Whole Foods for my thanksgiving groceries- the array of vegetables was beautiful.

You were supposed to weigh and tag your own produce on the electronic scales to make checkout easier, kind of a pain IMHO. Well, I saw this well off looking 40 something guy with a bag of chanterelles, holding UP the scale while he weighed his $18.00/lb or so mushrooms! I must have shot daggers at him because his stopped and walked away. I told the checkout woman that they should look at the tags on expensive items because people were cheating bigtime. It's not like the guy was starving for food. grrr.

The last time I went they did produce weighing at the counter because the scales kept breaking down. I think it was also because of misweighing or mislabelling.

There are a lot of independent grocery stores here in the Bay Area and the cashiers really know their veggies (and codes) for the most part. I love it.