Italian Food for People Who Don't Know How to Make Italian Food but Also Don't Have Time for Restaurants

So yeah, shopping.  Now, of course you have those classic fresh Italian ingredients that you can buy from the local market - on Via Ugo Bassi there's a pretty big one with fish stalls and butchers in addition to fruit and vegetable vendors - but if you need large corporations to do your cooking more or less for you, like I do, there are also some American style supermarkets in Italy.  In fact, we were the country that introduced them to the peninsula just after World War II, as I learned from this article that I read sophomore year.

Of course, things didn't go smoothly at first, because Italians thought carrying shopping bags made them look poor, but eventually they learned American ways, and now have their own spin on the beloved institution.

This is an advertisement for Italy's oldest supermarket - clearly they've taken things too far

Here in Bologna, there are a few different supermarkets.  Probably the best known is Coop - there are a bunch of them in the city.  There's also a pretty large Pam supermarket across the city from where I live which is the only one open on Sunday afternoons, and some Carrefour Express mini-supermarkets scattered around.  Esselunga is also pretty famous, but they seem to be mostly in the suburbs.

Now, before we begin, let's try not to judge them for being different.  Sometimes different is good! Here is a far from exhaustive list of what is different:

1) Eggs are not located next to the milk as they are in the U.S., and are instead unrefrigerated on their own space of shelf.  This confuses me every single time.  After 5 minutes of looking confusedly a different kinds of cheese, I give up and ask someone

2) The largest milk container available is 1 L (as far as I've seen).  As someone who consumes an ungodly amount of milk, this saddens me, because I have to buy a new bottle every two days instead of working on a gallon for a few days. For reference, here is the largest container of milk available, next to a normal sized glass:

NOT ENOUGH!!!

3) You can buy mayonnaise in a tube:

"That's one small step for man..."

4) As I've noted previously, they only have two kinds of soda, but make up for that by having blood orange juice alongside regular orange juice - I would have taken a photo, but going on my own to a store and taking a photo of their produce seems like a weird thing to do

Now, here's are some random things I've bought at the supermarket:

1) This flan (pannacotta) that comes in a pudding cup that you open upside down so that it stays on the cover:

Also, that mark on the table is where the caramel dripped off because I opened it badly

2) This soppressata that is so, so tasty

Stop being immature

3) These whoopee pies that are peach on the outside and chocolate on the inside - they are as weird as they sound

Photographic evidence

Of course, there are a lot of other minor differences, but those were some of the ones that I noticed and felt like taking a picture of

So good.  Gets me every time

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