Weird Things in GERMAN SUPERMARKETS! 🛒 🇩🇪 New Zealander reacts

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel and if you're new here it is so great to have you. I'm Antoinette, a New Zealander living in Germany. So over the past few months I have seen several videos about German culture pop up in my YouTube recommendations and they've looked interesting to me so I've clicked on them only to find that these were actually videos of people reacting to my videos, videos that I had made about German Of course I was curious to hear other people's opinions on my videos and my views on German culture. They were actually pretty funny and entertaining and I thought, do you know what, I'm gonna do some reaction videos too. Why not try something like this? So that's what I'm gonna do in this video today. So I stumbled on a YouTube video titled 20 Weird Things in German Supermarkets which sounds quite a lot like the type of videos I make but this one was by Deanna and Phil. I'm pretty sure a lot of you have already heard of them. I love their channel, I've been subscribed to their channel for years and I think they make amazing content. My laptop's right here, I'm gonna be looking down at their video and I'm gonna be just reacting to what they have to say. So I am going to link their original video in my description below so make sure you check that out and I'm sure you guys will love their channel. If you like the content I make, you will love the content from Deanna and Phil. So anyway, let's get into it guys. I'm really excited about this. One of the questions I often get since moving to Germany is, how do you get to the grocery store without a car? In most cities in Germany, there are many supermarkets within a few hundred meters of residential areas. There are several large supermarket chains throughout Germany and also small local grocers or kiosks. That is true. I'm gonna stop when I want to comment. So yeah, that is definitely true. Even in my small town, there are three supermarkets within walking distance. So there are so many supermarkets in Germany and they're never very far away. You can actually go without a car. Bike life! And then the next question is, what are grocery stores like? And that is what we're gonna do today. We're gonna go to a couple of supermarkets and we're gonna show them. I just want to say, I think Phil and Deanna are the cutest couple and I think they make an amazing team on YouTube. I wish my husband would agree to make videos with me, but it's just not really his thing. So let's keep watching. But also check out some weird items that are super normal in Germany, but maybe not in your country. Our first stop is a local Lidl, which is a German supermarket that has many locations. Good old Lidl. One thing that you'll usually find in Germany is a Pfund or deposit machine to return your cans, cases and bottles. All right, first things first when you're in a supermarket in Germany, the Pfund. You return your bottles because they are just rented. That's part of it. I never thought about it like that. They'll rent the bottles, but that's so true. Yeah, I found this really weird when I first came to Germany, that you have to keep your bottles and you return them, you put them through this machine and then you get a refund or you get your deposit back and you can use that deposit at that supermarket or you can donate it to, I think it's like the food bank. So yeah, I think it's a really, really cool system. The only thing is that we always have so many empty bottles at home and it's just hard to find a place to put them all and they pile up really, really quickly. But apart from that, I think it's a really amazing system. One of the first things that might be also uncommon, you need to put a coin in your cart. Yes. That's right. You have to get that Euro back. This was definitely weird to me that you have to pay for your shopping cart. I think it's great because they don't go missing and, you know, I think it's a great way to keep all of the carts from getting stolen because you will often see people stealing shopping carts or trolleys, as we call them in New Zealand. The only thing is I will often forget a coin, like I can't find a coin and sometimes we'll have to like drive back home and get a coin so we can actually grab our shopping cart. So that can be a little bit annoying. But, you know, it's not a big deal. In a German supermarket, you'll find the standard items like flour, eggs, rice and water, although a lot of sparkling water if you're into that sort of stuff. Yeah. Curry ketchup. You can't have currywurst without curry ketchup or curry sauce. Curry ketchup is just such a German thing. I'd never heard of it before I came to Germany and it's actually pretty good. I prefer regular ketchup but curry ketchup is pretty good once in a while and of course with currywurst, you have to have the curry ketchup. Also very delicious on fries. Yes, that's true. They sell it in these huge bottles everywhere. Paprika chips. If you like chips, I hope you like paprika flavor. It is probably the most popular chip flavor offered here in Germany. Definitely the most popular chip flavor in Germany. Germans love their paprika chips. I like paprika chips too, I just wish there was a wider variety of chip flavors in Germany. And it's pretty good. It is pretty good. And while we're here, there are also peanut flavored puffs that have the texture of Cheetos but the flavor of peanut butter. Yes, peanut flips are really, really good. I like them a lot. They're a little bit like twisties in New Zealand but they are peanut flavored. So yeah, a really, really yummy snack. It's interesting. Quark. This is a dairy product that can be used as a spread or a dip. It has a mild flavor and it's creamy and the Germans love it on their bread slices in the morning. Good explanation is actually really hard to explain what quark is. I personally would describe quark as a mix between Greek yogurt and cream cheese and apparently it's super, super healthy and I quite enjoy it. I will eat it just kind of like yogurt. I'll mix a little bit of honey with it and I find it really good. It's quite sour but it's really good and you can buy also like different fruit flavored quarks which my kids really enjoy. While we're in the dairy aisle, Stinker Käse is a unique one. Oh, the stinky cheese. This stuff smells so bad that every time you open your fridge, you will know there's some Stinker Käse inside. Oh, the stinky cheese, the stinky cheese. My husband loves the stinky cheese but I won't let him get it. As Phil said, it completely stinks out your whole fridge and I just, it puts me off. I can't even try it because it stinks so badly but apparently it tastes really good. One thing you'll notice is that the milk is often not refrigerated like in the US and they are usually in these cuboid cartons instead of a jug of milk. It will also be measured in liters and not gallons and that's very true. You have a lot of the long hold, like long shelf life milk in Germany and this was very new to me when I first came. I thought it was pretty unusual to have, you know, milk that just sat out of the refrigerator that lasted for so long but we buy it quite often here. It's really great because you can just stock up on it and you never run out of milk. I must say it doesn't taste quite as good as the fresh milk but it's pretty close and yeah, I actually really like the long shelf life milk. And over the past few years, there has been an exponential growth in plant-based milk. Yeah, that's actually true. I remember when I first moved to Germany, I hardly saw any plant-based milk and now you just see it everywhere, even in the discounters. Bread slicing machines. One thing that's in many supermarkets in Germany is a bread slicer so you can slice your fresh bread. They're usually fresh bread. Oh, I love this machine. We're probably not going to get one today since we're holding off on the bread a little bit but we've definitely done it before and it's delicious. How cool is this bread slicing machine? My kids just love watching this and it's like a highlight when they go to the supermarket. They just, they love that machine. We couldn't let Lidl have all the fun so we visited a few other nearby supermarkets to see what they had. Show me your favorite item. This eye poker. You can poke your eggs. Eye pick. This is a machine. Poke a hole in your egg before you boil it. I always see that little gadget when I go to Etika and I never knew what it was until now so I've learned something today. Eggs that are not refrigerated. This might be strange to anyone from the U.S. where eggs are required to be refrigerated but not to worry, the eggs on shelves in Germany are safe to eat. There are just regulations throughout Europe that prioritize egg production opposed to post-egg washing. Also you'll notice that eggs are commonly in packs of 10 and not a dozen. I just want to say something about the eggs. I heard the reason why you need to refrigerate eggs in the U.S. is because they have this protective coat that is washed off so they look really nice. In the U.S. they wash off the protective coat and in Germany they keep it on which means they can be left outside of the fridge and sometimes you'll see on the German eggs they're a little bit kind of dirty, they're not like polished or anything but that's because that coat hasn't been washed off so that's what I heard a little fun fact. Asparagus in jars. For 25 years I thought this is the only way to have asparagus. It is ready to eat right from the jar. White asparagus or weißer Spargel is seasonal and quite delicious but these you can get all year round. I have to say I have tried the white asparagus in the jar and I just don't think they taste as good. I would much rather wait till spring and buy the fresh white asparagus but if you are a huge asparagus fan and you can't wait then I guess they're okay. The jarred ones are okay but definitely not as good as the fresh. You can even order white asparagus on pizza. No that's not really my thing. Baking packets. If you bake you'll notice that there are packets for baking powder, yeast, vanilla, creams and so much more. The German recipes will even list out one packet of backpulver or baking powder as a required amount. Very true that it's so German to have these tiny little packets. We don't have them in New Zealand so very German. Baking individual bottles. Yeah this is actually very common in the German supermarkets you just rip the packages open and take single bottles and that's why it looks like this. That's so German. I found that a bit weird when I first saw it people just ripping open the plastic in the supermarket and grabbing their bottle. I thought you know you would have had to buy the six pack already in the plastic but no you can grab a single bottle. And also you have the apple schorle, the apple which is the sparkling water mix or the apple rhubarb. It's like the Germans favorite summer drink. These drinks are a German classic and they are amazing. And for other drinks you can get alcohol in supermarkets here. Beer, wine, even spirits it's all in one place. You don't have to go to another store to get your favorite beer or whiskey. Regular supermarket and then here's the harder liquor stuff. Some Greek bouzo, no problem. Alcohol in Germany is so cheap compared to New Zealand. I could not believe this when I first came to Germany. Gin. Jagerte. And that's the vodka down there. Premium vodka. $8.79 the whole bottle. Also we found this daft beer and I just had to buy it. Fish in jars is also a thing. You might be used to canned tuna but take a delicious fish roll that's slightly pickled right from the jar and put it on a bread. No no no. This is a very very German thing but I cannot stand these pickled herrings I think you call them. I made a video where I tasted German food that I had been avoiding and this I almost vomited on camera. I do not like these. I do not like them. My husband loves them and I won't go anywhere near him when he's eating them and I make him like finish the jar because I don't want them in my fridge but that's just me personally. I know a lot of Germans love these. I don't like them. I like a lot of German food but this is a big no from me. Yummy. All you can get is all the German snacks and candy. The latest and the greatest. Peanut butter knoppers. I really like these rice crispy things. I like these too. No name Dickmann's. Those are also here. A lot of good stuff. It's dangerous. Definitely German chocolate and candy is so good. Our packaged meats. You will find an assortment of blood sausage, wurst, meat and something else called Wurstsalat. This sausage salad is a chopped mortadella type of meat in some type of cream or mayonnaise and pickles. Pretty weird. Yeah there are a lot of very interesting cuts of meat, processed meat and different salads and things like that which yeah very German. The meat salad that is something I have only ever seen in Germany and it actually tastes pretty good surprisingly. So yeah and the blood sausage I also tried that in a video I made quite a while ago where I was trying German foods I've been avoiding and honestly I struggled because I knew that it was made from blood but it actually tasted pretty good. So if you can get past the whole blood thing it's actually a really really yummy sausage. That was actually really fun and most of these items like all of these items basically are so normal to me now I've been living in Germany for many years but it took me right back to when I first came to Germany and I went to the supermarket for the first time and I spotted all of these crazy weird items. That was a bit of a blast from the past like a trip down memory lane so it was really fun watching that video and reacting to it. So anyway guys I really hope you enjoyed this reaction video I just wanted to try something new and this is very different to my usual content but I had fun making this video and I'd like to do more reactions so if any of you have any videos you would like me to react to then let me know in the comment section below. Thank you so much for watching guys if you enjoyed this video then don't forget to give it a big thumbs up it really helps out my channel. I would love you to consider subscribing if you haven't already I know that so many of you who watch my videos are not actually subscribed so if you would consider subscribing that would mean so much to me. Feel free to connect with me on Instagram and I will see you again really soon. Bye!