Yes, Wegman’s is annoying (I have a love-hate relationship with that store, actually), but it’s the closest, just down the road, and I was in a hurry. I’m making this cake, and I needed to pick up a few ingredients.
Wegman’s is a very pinkie-up, yuppie store. They carry a lot of nice stuff, but they cater to idiots yuppies. For example, in the mac-n-cheese-in-a-box aisle, they have the classic blue-box Kraft for $0.39 a box (or something like that). Just beneath it, they carry Annie’s free range organic mac-n-cheese-in-a-box, for $4. Same size box. Fake cheese in a pouch. But it’s free-range, organic fake cheese product, so they charge seven-and-a-half times the price. And the clincher is the idiots people who shop there buy it. The lady in front of me in the line had 10 boxes of it — and was digging for coupons for something else.
Or in the British food aisle in the International section, they sell Coleman’s mustard, a 4.4 oz (100 g) jar with a Union Jack on it for $5.99. But you can go to the condiments aisle, where the mustard is, and buy the same Coleman’s mustard in an 8 oz jar for $3.99. Of course, it doesn’t have a Union Jack on it. And idiots people buy it–the Union Jack jar. You gotta wonder what their retirement is going to be like, after buying all that free-range organic fake food and paying through the nose for a Union Jack on the label.
Anyway, I was at Wegman’s looking for a couple of things, and not very successfully. I was about ready to give up, but I thought, “There’s a probability of about 0.0003% that it’s with the jams and jellies,” so I headed for the jam and jelly aisle. As I was looking, I saw (and I’m not making this up) organic apple butter from Sonoma. Seriously. We’re just north of Lancaster County, and Wegman’s is selling chi-chi apple butter from freaking California. You just can’t make this stuff up.
When I was a kid, every Saturday the Amish would set up stands around the courthouse at the county seat and we’d go buy things. One of those things is one of my most precious memories from childhood, this intense apple-y almost hot with cinnamon and cloves and allspice made-on-the-Amish-farm apple butter. I just can’t tell you how good it was. Course, there was no label on it, and it had been home canned — and that’s probably illegal these days, isn’t it?
After I left for college, I tried for the first time in my life Musselman’s and Smucker’s and all the other big jelly name apple butters, and found them bland and boring. Still, the sight of “apple butter” on a label will bring back those memories.
As I was searching in vain for what I needed, I happened upon a jar of Wos-Wit Apple Butter, made at Grouse Hunt Farms (don’t tell PETA), Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. I stopped and remembered. Being the cynic I am, as I looked at “Pennsylvania Dutch” on the label, I thought, “Yeah, right,” as I put it in the cart.
It doesn’t say anything about organic, sustainable, free trade, or free range on the label. The ingredients listed are fresh apples, sugar, apple cider, and spices. That’s it. So they probably could mark it up and sell it in some chi-chi section. Let’s hope they don’t.
I got back home, tossed an English muffin in the toaster, and slathered it with apple butter. I don’t often shill for products, but if you can get your hands on this, buy it. Incredibly good stuff. It takes everything I have not to get a spoon and just eat it out of the jar.
And I think I’ll have some more. On another English muffin, of course.
Mitch H. says:
There’s a farmer’s market outside the Bellefonte library Saturday mornings, although since it’s all out of the back of truckbeds, I don’t think there are any Amish involved. For that matter, isn’t there some sort of market in downtown State College on Frazier Street? There used to be… I don’t know, I’ve bought cider from the one in Bellefonte, but the one time I bought blackberries, they almost instantaneously sprouted a nasty-looking fungus in my fridge. Good thing I never keep anything other than bottled liquids in there…
July 3, 2007, 1:43 pmJeffrey Quick says:
I bought Mrs. Miller’s spelt noodles at an Amish bulk store for something like $2/lb and then found them at the health food place for over $3. There’s your location markup. And the Cleveland Food Co-op sells Stutzman Farm spelt graham crackers (seriously damn good) for over $3 a small pack when Arlie Stutzman sells ‘em at the Shaker farmer’s market for $1.25.
July 3, 2007, 2:13 pmrightwingprof says:
I haven’t been to the one in Bellefonte — I don’t much care if there are Amish or not, particularly when the tomatoes get ripe. There’s the one here, which is pretty small compared to the Bloomington farmers market (somebody was telling me that was because they won’t let anybody from outside the county or something in–the farmers market in Bloomington has farmers from four counties). And I just recently noticed that none of the supermarkets sell cider. Apple juice, but no cider. Maybe I’ll head to Bellefonte this Saturday.
Oh, and berries don’t keep. They mold real fast.
July 3, 2007, 4:36 pmrightwingprof says:
Yeah, Wegman’s sells Little Barn noodles (very good, btw) for 2.99 a pound. Wal-Mart doesn’t sell them, but they sell Country Pasta, better than the slimy things you get in the pasta section, for a lot cheaper. Even in Bloomington, which isn’t really in Amish country (though there are Amish in the adjacent counties) at any store you can buy Amish noodles, and they’re not 2.99 a freaking pound. I can make my own, and do, but sometimes, I don’t want to, and kluski, which I prefer with chicken, are a pain in the ass to make.
July 3, 2007, 4:42 pmMitch H. says:
I think cider is seasonal - I notice it in the fall. Weis usually has gallons & half-gallons in the fresh fruit section.
July 4, 2007, 8:20 amDarren says:
What is “spelt”?
Every fall, the area just east of Placerville known as Apple Hill goes into high gear. It doesn’t get better than that if you’re looking for apple butter, fresh apple pies, apple fritters, apple turnovers, apple ice cream–you get the idea.
Unfortunately, no Amish though.
July 5, 2007, 10:45 pmrory @ parentalcation says:
Please address the Marmite question… and while you are talking about international food, please pick up and try maggi wurze if you ever see it.
http://www.germandeli.com/magwsrze125g.html
July 6, 2007, 1:37 am