Food Shopping in Sicily: Price & Product Comparison #gjwrisingstar #sicily

Buongiorno from our home in Sicily. We're going to go shopping. One of our favorite things to do. First we're going to go to the green grocer. Then we're going to go to two very distinct and different supermarkets that we also frequent at different times for different things and watch at how much the prices and the products differ. The first one is called Pacchi Poco, pay less or pay little. The second one is called Eurospin. The first is our neighborhood grocer which has your regularly nationally brand name products that you can buy. Not a big assortment but enough to satisfy yourself. The second one is a national, huge national company that has their own brand. So it's very difficult to find national names that you may be accustomed to. In the second supermarket. All right let's go start out with the green grocer then we'll go to Pacchi Poco and then we'll see you on the other end. Here we have one of our green grocers. Look at everything that's written down. So you can come in here and practice your Italian. You have olio, buono from Biancavilla, patata, avocado, everything. So let's see what the prices are. $2.99 a kilo. Then we have pomodoro picadillo. That's pretty good. Pepperoni. Cornetti. $3.50 a kilo. Your production? Yes. That's not bad. $4 a kilo. This guy is quite a character. That's not bad. This is $1.49 for the zucca which is pumpkin. Okay now we have the cauliflower. $3.50 for this entire piece. This guy's quite a character for you. All right let's see the spinach. Everything here is local. Three of them for $2.50. So that gives you a little bit of a feel. Just picked. Okay now this is $0.50 for one egg. So that's $0.22 per litre. Perfecto. $0.99 a kilo. Etna apples. And of course the oranges. I'm gonna do a quick sweep through the vegetable section and fruit section because we just went to the green grocer and we will go to another supermarket. So I just want to give you a quick peek at these prices and then we move on. Look at the size of this fennel. My gosh. This is what our deli looks like over here. I'm gonna walk through some of the items. You can see the prices. You can see it's a pretty good assortment. Of course over there we've got the salamis, prosciuttos and all types of cooled meats. And then here's the cheese selection. What you do here is you take a number and then when they call your name it's your turn or when your number comes up over there. Olive oil you're looking about paying between $10 bucks between $7 and $10 bucks for good olive oil. Obviously sunflower is far less. And then here's our vinegar. I usually get the apple cider, the balsamico. This is a great product right here. Biscotti, whole semolina, wheat, semolina, and extra virgin olive oil. This is what I'm going to get for my biscotti. Here are all the other biscottis. Tremari also does the panettone. Pretty good price for the nutella. And here are the jams. This is the kind we like to get. That's fat-free milk. Then there's the whole milk. There's the omega milk. But they're about 80 cents to about $1.55. All right let's see what the eggs are. Now I know in the states the price of the eggs is a little bit exaggerated in some places but this is what we're paying. Between $1.69, $1.79, $1.29, $1.59 for the bio. Six eggs. Look at this. This is so cute. You can bring your dog shopping with you. And here at the supermarket we've got this selection of foods. Everything you can imagine. Even buongiorno, the pizza. Scacciata, which is what Al's getting. Parmigiana, cauliflower, everything you can imagine. Continuing on the cereals, you've got these guys that have entered the Italian market a few years ago. The price is pretty much the same as the states, right? I think. Nusselt, that's what we like. This section is great because they've got all types of vegetables and either olive oil or some kind of vinegar. Here's the brodo. This is what I use to make the soup for the container over there. And then let's take a look at the tonno, which we get either in a bottle like this or in a can. And I gotta tell you this is so delicious. Good. Is there any here with the olive and let's see tonno al naturale right here. Here's the anchovies, Al. But I think we have plenty. It's a cool product. It's sweet. Taterino di Sicilia. I never saw that before. It's a yellow one. I like pronto. I'll show you what's pronto. The passata we use to make the sauce to make soup. I also use this, believe it or not, for my pizza. This is available in the United States. Yeah, but wait a sec. This is more the basilico. We like to get the plain one. Okay. Rustico. This stuff over here is already ready sauce with all types of flavors. Here's the one with tonno. There's a tonno one over here. Arrabbiata. That's the angry. Arrabbiata. Now here are the prices for the pasta, which are about 30% higher than they were before, but still pretty low. And of course, two aisles for the pasta. 159. That's pretty high. 109. That's a just price. Spaghetti, but that's a thousand grams. That's a kilo, which is two pounds of pasta. La pazza is the one we have for coffee to make our espresso. And let's see. Al these days have been drinking the Kimbo. So it's from Naples. All right. Italians make great coffee. Here's a little blink at the teas. And here we are at the stevia sweeteners and other sugars. The farina. We've got the integrale. No GMO preservatives in here. Nothing. Not in most of them. Sicilians, as you know, love their sweets. We got plenty of choices for all types of cookies, crackers. This is a pretty popular one. We need Bianco. And of course, we know all things kinder are always popular. We got turmeric, cumin, oregano. And what's the South? Well, in the States, we used to call this Zuzu. Gelatina. Gelatina. It's made with the gelatin. My brother Tommy would eat this whole chunk. My brother Tommy would eat this. Breaded chicken wings are $4.99. And breaded chicken over here, chicken cutlets are $8.49. Chicken pieces over here. Let's see. Pretty good prices over here, Al. Thighs. And then you've got chicken breasts like this, $6.99. They're humongous. Al, there are ribs here. Look at this, Al. Look at this salmon. And there's still some bacalao left over. That's what we have for fish. 21 a kilo. Not bad, Esther. Not bad. It's about 11 bucks. These are important things over here. Toilet paper. We like to use Foxy. All right, before we go to Eurospin, I want to say a couple of things. So that supermarket that we showed you is really great because it has a meat department, a fish department, a vegetable department. You saw all the other products. We didn't show you the cleaning supplies. So stuff really for every day. It's very quick, very easy. It's about three minutes from our home. And you know, we take our clients who come with us on tours, and they love it because it's a great selection of things. And the pricing is a lot different. Remember, in Europe, the commas and the periods are different. So in the United States, a dollar and 29 would be 1.29. Here you put the comma, so it'd be 1 comma 29. Okay, that's how they do it. And plus, mentally, just add on 5% to get the US prices. Because right now it's at 5% and it's okay. And finally, when she says kilo, wow, it's 12 euro. That means 12, now for a piece of cheese, that's 12 euro per kilo, 2.2 pounds, because everything is in pounds here. No, I mean, everything's in kilos. By the way, you notice that it says K-I-L-O. Actually, the true word kilogram is C-H-I-L-O-G-R-A-M. But you know, you can use it both ways, but the abbreviation is with a K. You know something, when she looked at the cereal, what did you notice? American brands. Okay, American brands, but there was no dyes in them, like red dye number seven or red dye number three. It's a lot different. Do they taste a little bit blander without, say, the excessive amount of sugar in the United States? In my view, some of them do, okay. But I think they're a lot healthier. But you know, the whole standard of foods, Al, is completely different in the European Union, so of course here in Italy. And I do want to say something about the quality of the foods, the vegetables, the breads, the everything here, you know, because I go back and forth twice a year, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that my body can tell the difference when I eat foods in the United States versus when I eat not just fruits, vegetables, but I can't eat bread there. There are certain things that just don't go well, including wine. Wine here, when I get the organic wine, I have just a completely different feeling than in the United States. It's a healthier food here. Healthier food here. All right, let's go to yours, Pat. Caciofi, 89 cents. Artichokes, they're quite small, and they were about three bucks a few weeks ago, so that's quite an improvement. There's the white and red cabbage, $1.49. Cauliflower, $1.99. Broccoli, $1.59. And then you have the green cauliflower, $1.79. This is so delicious with sausage or something like that. And then here are some other greens. Let's see, radicchio rosso, $3.49. Those are the big ones over there. Let's see, sedano, humongous celery. Look at this, $1.59. Lettuce, see how dirty it is because of the storm that we had a few days ago, $0.99. Tomatoes, $2.99. And then over here, you have some of the packaged olives, zucca, mushrooms. I have a major fascination with all types of mushrooms. And then you have all types of lettuces here, around $1.29, $1.99, $1.49. Nice mixed lettuce, $0.99. Look at that. Mango, $1.49 a piece, $1.49 a piece. Ananas, $1.39 each. They're quite small. And then, of course, the ginger, $4.99. For the past few years, I've been putting ginger actually in everything, not just my tea, but my soups. Eat it raw. And this is a period for arancia, oranges and lemons. And then this guy looks really exciting. Recently, they started having the mirtilli, which are the blueberries. And let's see, mirtilli, $4.99. That's a pretty good price. Limone, mirtilli, and boxes of pears. The supermarket really has everything. All types of bread as well, with cereal or grain. And then, of course, they have the ones with the olives and the sweets. Yes, doughnuts in Sicily. Let's see, parmigiano reggiano is $19.99. You have all these types of specialty cheeses, $15.99. This one has the black peppers. Again, here's a provola picante, which is hot, and $12.79. This stuff is great right here with the red pepper flakes. Oh, and this is definitely one of my favorites. It's a soft cheese with red pepper flakes, arugula, and olives. Let's see, burrata. There's burrata right there. This is the period for the ricotta of pecora sheeps, ricotta. And look at this massive piece of cheese, porvolone picante, $14.29. I have a little bit of a scratchy throat there. Let's see what they have at the meat department. Okay, here are the rolled meats. That's pork, usually rolled up with something inside, sometimes even cream cheese. Hot dogs. What is this? Oh my gosh, polo, hamburger of polo, of chicken. Here's the scontana. That's a good burger there for alfio, my alfio, $15.49. Pretty good sizes of meat. I think we tried this before. It was pretty good. Chicken breast over here. It's $7.49 a kilo, which means it's $7.49 euro for 2.2 pounds. Not bad. That's a pound of chicken, a little bit more, $4.33. Here's the turkey leg. How much is the turkey leg? $3.99. Here you have the thigh as well, $4.69. $4.99. 1.1 kilos, that means, wow, a little bit over than 2.2 pounds. All right, this is part of the refrigerated section. Gnocchi, gravioli, but also fresh pasta, tortellini, pasta made out of eggs, and then some of your veggie, veggie falafel, lots of veggie products. Let's see what we have here. As we said, this is one of the lower end supermarkets, meaning that things are perhaps not as good a quality, although they do have some good quality stuff, don't get me wrong, but they do have also some things that are on the cheaper side, so that everyday Sicilians can come here. All right, let's see here. Here we have the mozzarella, the buffa campagna, $3.89. Not bad. This stuff right here is like Philadelphia cream cheese, the butter, $4.99 for one of these big ones, last several months, and then we have our yogurt department, flavored yogurt, plain yogurt, yogurt with cereal, high protein yogurt, Greek yogurt, $3.99, pretty good, and it's a big one. And see, they keep things in boxes, so definitely makes it more affordable. And then they have, you know, the bigger selections. Wow, that's $2.79 for two pounds, wings, thighs, $3.69 a kilo. The pasta prices in here are definitely, definitely much lower than anywhere else. $0.65. I can't remember the last time other places had $0.65. They're about a euro, $1.25, but again, this is not a very high quality pasta maker, so we don't really get our pastas here, but just give you a little bit of an idea of what they have. Spaghetti, $0.95. Now let me tell you that we showed you two different supermarkets containing all types of things, really one-stop shopping, for sure. But the way many Sicilians do it here, and I do as well many times, is I'll go to my fruit and vegetable, the green grocer, then you go to a butcher to get your meats, you go to a place where they just sell fish, fish only, and then you go to a baker where you get your bread and other things. So you'll see many Sicilians spend half a day just going from one stop to another, but if you want a great place, one-stop shopping, these two supermarkets are definitely great. There are two other outstanding supermarkets that I can recommend, okay? But when I recommend stuff, you know, pick your shots. For example, I like Conad Superstore. It's big. The customer service there, for me anyways, is great. I like the takeaway food. They have a large variety of cleaning products that I'm always, we're always buying cleaning products, right? Well, first of all, Conad is in a warehouse. Yeah. It's much bigger. Right. It's also much pricier, and when I say much pricier, I'm looking at 30 to 50 percent more than in other places. Yes, and to be, to tell the truth, all of the guys in all the supermarkets are very friendly. That's because you're the mayor over here and everybody on the scene. Everyone's always friendly. The second supermarket is a supermarket called Deco, Deco Superstore. The reason we don't shop there is because it's about four or five miles away. It's out of the way. It's out of the way, so we do our shopping. One, Pachipoco. Two, Eurospin. Three, Conad. Those are the three. There's also Superconvenience. Yeah, Superconvenience is also another good one. There's also Lidl. Now, I'm going to remind you. Lidl's a good one, too. That Lidl is like five, six miles away, but for sure, we'll be lying and go there because they have some specialty products. Sometimes stuff that you can't find in other supermarkets. Sometimes international stuff that you can't find in other supermarkets, so those are basically our stops for when we go shopping. We take our time. We go all the way up to Lidl to buy, guess what? Pretzels. Large pretzels. Baked pretzels. The big ones. Hummus. Hummus, too. Okay. Lobster. Lobster. I mean, so they're, and they have an international special every week featuring different countries. Japanese stuff, when they have the Japanese. Germany, Spain. Clean up. And by the way, one last thing I want to say, Esther, is the blueberries that you saw is a good example of cooperation between the European Union. Those, I looked at them several times. The bottom says they come from Spain. Yeah. They're terrific. They are absolutely delicious. That's a good point that you do have, even though we have great fruits and vegetables here in Sicily, there is a great cooperation between the countries and we do have access to other types of things. I want to move on. Go ahead. Move on. All right. I just want to brush over this topic, but we will, brush over, but we will bring it up again because Agrigento is the Italian cultural capital, wait, the cultural capital of Italy, which is a big, big thing. The last time it was Palermo in 2017, I believe, won that distinction. That is a huge honor, but with that honor comes a lot of pressure. And let me tell you that so far, not so great. You mean the authorities? The authorities. They're waiting for a big, big number of visitors, including, we just had the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, who's Sicilian, of course, and he was visiting and there were a bunch of scuffs, was that word I'm looking for? What? Like scuff-a-duffs, like mess-ups. Screw-ups. Screw-ups. For instance, welcome to the Valley of Temples, Valley of Temples, they misspelled it, they put D-E-I instead of D-E-I. And how many, how many signs did they have up littered all over the place? Many. Mega signs all over the place, misspelling the Valley of the Temples in Italian. In Italian, so that was really funny. How embarrassing. Then, then Pirandello Theater, which is one of the main theaters over there, had water leaking the week that he was coming and so they had to, you know, whatever, change the schedule or something. But the funniest thing for me. Sad, it's not funny, sad. Is that they were in such a rush to make sure that all the roads had clean asphalt that they went over the manholes. So now they have to go around with this some kind of a metal detector to figure out where the manholes are and pick them up. They asphalted over the roads with the manhole covers. You cannot make this stuff up. Cosi di pazze, cosi di pazze. Now let me tell you, we're gonna have much more about this because it is a very important thing. What happened to the guy? Did he get fired? No, no, he resigned. He resigned? But stop, but okay, so let's just hope that that is a false start because here we are in January so they still have time. Anyway, I'm looking forward to featuring a lot more in Agrigento. Maybe we'll have a future episode where I'm gonna go and feature all the towns we've been to in Agrigento. That's all I wanted to say. I have, I have one. Oh, I have one more thing. Wait a minute, I have one. I want to say, wait, I want one more thing that I want to say. I'm a gentleman today, I'm not going to interrupt. It's unbelievable. You know what, go ahead. I already have my, go ahead. All right, here's the great news, okay. The parliament, Italian parliament, has authorized the construction of not one but two garbage burning plants that, one in Palermo area, one in Catania area, that is not going to put the bad stuff in the air. It's going to be clean and all this other stuff and allegedly by 2028 the garbage in both necks of the woods will be handled. Now, allegedly, by 2028, construction is estimated to be complete, guess what, origin of the water. Plus, last month they allocated 60 million euro to refurbish desalinization plants in Agrigento, in the Catania area. Hopefully, that's going to fight the fires, the wildfires. So, the big problems of the drought and the big problems of the garbage, in my view. That's a good start out. It's a start, it's a start. Listen, that's pretty much all I have today. I have one more thing to say, if you have nothing else to say. Go ahead. You got to tell them about your tour that you're having in Tuscany or you're not going to tell them about any of our tours? We have tours. We do tours of Sicily and we do have some openings left at the end of June and beginning of July on East Coast. We are October tour on the East Coast and our Tuscany tour is wide open. So, hopefully, you guys will come join us. Our May tour is sold out, April is sold out, May is sold out, June is sold out. So, but anyway, we're doing some private tours here and there. So, that's been nice. It's been a good month, Esther. I mean, despite the fact that we both came down with a little bit of a head cold. Wait, wait, wait. The weather's been rotten. The house has been painted, dust everywhere. Oh, that's another story. Anyway, on that note, hope you guys have a great day. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. I have to show you this view. Say goodbye, so I can show them. Look at how lush and green our little front yard is. Thank you so much for watching.