What's on your shopping list?

[Kerry Beal]

Liberated this from the area in the ER here in Manitoulin a few years ago were surplus stuff goes to wait out it's life (a shower stall that was never used). I use it to make lists, write down recipes ..,

 

[bonkboo]

After years of trips to the grocery store only to return to moans from my kids about not having any food or the wrong kinds, we added the OurGroceries app to all our iPhones.  Everyone has access to the grocery list at all times.  One daughter is (used to be?) semi diligent about entries.  My other daughter relies on telling me.  My son will be texting me and entering on the app real time while I'm at the store.  Additionally, you can add to it via Alexa (Amazon Echo.)  That being said, I still often print my Stop and Shop coupon list that's added to my account and have a written list.  

 

Oh, and I still come home to bitching and complaining about our food supply.  I should say I can't win, but since I do most of the food prep and menu planning, I get what I'm after, heh heh!

[MelissaH]

On 7/18/2017 at 5:34 AM, liuzhou said:

I did, most unusually, write a list this morning (in English) and set off shopping, with the list happily still sitting forgotten on my desk.

This is a question for @liuzhou and others of you who speak multiple languages well, or who live somewhere that the language spoken is not the first one you learned. When you make your shopping list, do you make them in your native language, in the language commonly spoken where you'll be doing the shopping, or does it vary day to day, list to list? I know that my aunt, who is an American but married to a Frenchman and a Paris resident for nearly 40 years now, still makes her shopping lists in English, except for a few specific items where the best way to describe it is with a specific French term. (Liuzhou, I'm particularly intrigued with the "toilet water" on your list, which you wrote as a transliterated version of the Chinese word.)

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, MelissaH said:

This is a question for @liuzhou and others of you who speak multiple languages well, or who live somewhere that the language spoken is not the first one you learned. When you make your shopping list, do you make them in your native language, in the language commonly spoken where you'll be doing the shopping, or does it vary day to day, list to list? I know that my aunt, who is an American but married to a Frenchman and a Paris resident for nearly 40 years now, still makes her shopping lists in English, except for a few specific items where the best way to describe it is with a specific French term. (Liuzhou, I'm particularly intrigued with the "toilet water" on your list, which you wrote as a transliterated version of the Chinese word.)

 

Interesting question.

As I  said, I seldom make shopping lists, but when I do they tend to be in a mix of languages. Stuff which is common to both Chinese and western cuisines, I will usually write in English, but items which we tend to think of as exclusively Chinese, I tend to use the Chinese, especially if typing. Things like bamboo shoot, wood ear fungus etc are almost always written in Chinese, for example. (There are also a few things for which I don't know the English, or even if there is an English name. They get written in Chinese, of course.)

 

Things like eggs, bananas and chicken get written in English, although there are exceptions. I tend to write 肉 rather than 'pork' or 大米 instead of rice. I think perhaps because the usage is different from English. 肉 literally means 'meat' but defaults to meaning 'pork' unless otherwise specified. 大米 refers to uncooked rice. Once I cook it, its name changes to 米饭. Of course, in English, the name remains the same.

 

The 'hua lu shui' or toilet water was an exception - I was being lazy. The Chinese character for lù is one of the more complicated ones - 露. In fact, when I wrote the transliterated version on the list, I was double lazy and didn't include the tone diacritics. It should be 'huā lù shuǐ', but it was only a reminder for myself.)

 

Curiously, I tend to count in my head in French! This I think is because I was raised bilingually and my French speaking mother taught me to count. I can count in English or Chinese perfectly well, but my default is French, but only for counting! So a Chinese market vendor tells me the price in Chinese and I count out the cash in French (in my head).

 

No wonder I'm confused!

 

 

[lindag]

Do you have the ability to type both English and Chinese characters on your computer?

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, lindag said:

Do you have the ability to type both English and Chinese characters on your computer?

 

Yes. 

Edited July 21, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[helenjp]

I was talking about that issue with one of my sons, who is back in Japan for summer - we were speaking English while standing in front of a supermarket cold cabinet when we suddenly both switched to Japanese for one particular food item. There has long been a theory that brains prefer shorter references, and I agree with Liuzhou that I would probably write the shortest name in my grocery list, regardless of language (トマト vs tomatoes). Which WORD is used depends more on context - and I think it might be more about which language I've HEARD more than which language I've USED to discuss something. So school things used to be all Japanese, but cooking is much more bilingual (whereas food names and restaurant talk is pretty much Japaneese in my mind).

Like any family, we have our own weird words too! In most families "ocha" is means whatever kind of "tea" is usually drunk. Since we drink both Japanese and Indian tea regularly, "ocha" is not specific enough. We jokingly say "wa-cha" (Japanese tea) instead of the more correct "Nihon-cha" (Japanese tea), just because it's shorter!

[cakewalk]

Sometimes the brand name for something is what sticks. I just asked friends of mine from Israel for a recipe they used to make a lot. They have not lived in Israel for over 25 years now, but when they sent the recipe one item was "1 Blueband." I had to laugh. Blueband was a brand of margarine (used much more frequently than butter in those days), and I knew that 1 Blueband meant 200 grams. (I used butter.) It was funny to see they still called it that. 

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, helenjp said:

I agree with Liuzhou that I would probably write the shortest name in my grocery list, regardless of language

 

Ah! But I didn't say that,  I don' use the shortest.

 

The Chinese name is nearly always shorter than the English (each character being one syllable), but I use English for ingredients etc which are commonly used in England irrespective of length.

 

The majority of ingredients in Chinese are only two or three characters long.

[helenjp]

Well, yes, in character count, but what about in stroke count?!! English would often win there

[liuzhou]

26 minutes ago, helenjp said:

Well, yes, in character count, but what about in stroke count?!! English would often win there

 

Well, English doesn't use strokes as such so you can't really compare that way. How many strokes are there in "eggs"?

 

[helenjp]

4, unless you are engraving, in which case 8!

[liuzhou]

14 minutes ago, helenjp said:

4, unless you are engraving, in which case 8!

 

There is no standard stroke count in English. But it is irrelevant. I just wanted to point that what you agreed with me saying, I never said (because it wouldn't be true).

 

When doing a list, I usually use the language in which I learned of the ingredients or became used to using the ingredients.

[suzilightning]

just be careful about abbreviating items...

years ago my mom sent my grandfather to the store.  On the list was:   gr. ch

Pop couldn't figure it out(this was back in the 1960s WELL before cell phones)

Finally he and Miss Adelaide who worked in the butcher area decided it meant green cheer - laundry detergent.

Turns out mom meant grated cheese - yes that stuff in the green container.

 

 

[IowaDee]

LOL, I would have come home with ground chuck.

[ChocoMom]

I just realized that I construct grocery lists by the actual dish I'm preparing...no wonder I end up wandering around the store so much! LOL! 

[Anna N]

38 minutes ago, ChocoMom said:

 

I just realized that I construct grocery lists by the actual dish I'm preparing...no wonder I end up wandering around the store so much! LOL! 

 

 I think this is very wise and I do try to do it sometimes.  At least then I can find a way to remind me of why I bought something    just go back and look at my list.