In the all-consuming and never ending quest for burritos and Mexican dishes across the board; the burritoboys North-American chapter has chosen to reminisce of his time on the British isles and his maverick like nosh purchasing reconnaissance in the British grocery world. Enjoy.
As a sprouting boy in need of nourishing fuel, my family grocer of choice was always ‘Waitrose’; reliable, well-located, tasty and rational. Even though we would cheat on our usual marketplace with ‘Marks and Spencer’, ‘Waitrose’ was our bread and butter. The crisp smell of the cathedral sized food emporium was overwhelming as a boy, once so much so that I pulled the fire alarm just to scamper off in my school uniform knickerbockers and hide under my mothers shopping cart, precarious little scamp that I was. Of course our culinary shopping wasn’t limited to the four, all be it large, walls of ‘Waitrose’, we also indulged in the posh boutique-grocers of Knightsbridge and South Kensington, desperate for a taste of the highlife. It was only when mistakenly stumbling into a ‘Morrison’s’ and an ‘Iceland’ that we realized how good we had it. The lies spread by the sun-kissed Alan Hansen and the overtly big-titted Kerry Katona respectively aren’t enough to mask the deep overwhelming sense of depression that fills every shopping isle, with the garish clashing colour combinations and the £1 deals screaming at you from flimsy pieces of neon card, one feels more like they are spending their dole money in a Turkish corner store in the 1990’s than casually shopping in a nationwide supermarket chain. This rude awakening served mainly to show us how good we had it in the first place, the solid, strong British racing green seen in the ‘Waitrose’ signage had never rung so true, a beacon of hope there after, and forever after that.
Looking back, one can hardly be held responsible for cheating on our grocer, M&S a British institution, “Go to the supermarket for the main haul, then Marks and Sparks for your bits”, that’s the mantra I believe. So when picking up your various burrito accoutrement don’t be ashamed if you stray from your old-faithful.
M.G.H.
