Dried fish and chicken feet — to go please
To the editor:
Convenience stores are evolving here in China. You find lots of snack and drink offerings just as you do in the states. Seven Eleven has made major efforts to expand in the Chinese environment as has Circle K. What you will not find is the coffee station. In some 7-11’s there is a coffee machine, but China is only slowly beginning to adopt a coffee habit. Usually what you find is an assortment of powdered coffee blends, tea, and the hot water for instant noodles.
There are potato chips though the variety is limited. A popular flavor offering is a tomato flavored variety. There are no jalapeno or sour cream and onion. The fake chips like Stax or Pringles are available. When I say available, you will probably find three or four cans on display and of some different sizes. But the majority of nibbles pales when compared to a convenience store in America. It is very rare that you will find corn chips or Doritos. In the time I have spent here in Guangzhou, I have found only one 7-11 that sold Doritos.
What you will find for nibbles are salted and dried fish; chicken feet in a variety of flavor packs; some dried beef and pork items; and a variety of dried fruits. The salted and dried fish are very salty, picture a salt cube with a sliver of trout. Shredded pork can be found and a very small amount of dried beef items similar to our Slim Jims. Most of the meat items are heavy on the salt and low on the sugar scales.
Snack cakes abound. The Chinese love these treats. You can easily get a small angel food cake breakfast sack that also has a box of milk and a candy. Chocolate, blueberry jam and strawberry jam cake sandwiches are fairly common. These are not always present because the flavors follow a seasonal availability that U.S. stores do not observe. Food preservation is not at the level it is in the U.S. So now is the time to get strawberry and some blueberry flavored cakes. During the late summer and fall you will find plenty of peach and apricot varieties.
Drinks are a shock. You will find a few bottles of Coke and Pepsi. But you will also find lots of soy milk, milk, and Chinese sodas competing for shelf space. One big difference is the wider variety of drinks when you compare what the typical convenience store offers in the U.S. Sizes are all over the board. The largest you will find is a 600 ml bottle of water. The smallest is about 100 ml.
Here the Chinese are more flexible than their U.S. counterparts in providing a variety of drinks. In the tiny closet 7-11 I frequent at the subway station there are fifteen different types of beverages: Coke, two rows in the cooler, Pepsi, one row. green teas, cold and hot six rows and three different varieties. Seven rows of soy milk products, a couple of rows of drinkable yogurt; and about seven different fruit juices. You will also find a few bottles of Gatorade, vitamin drinks, and waters.
Six packs are not common. Most of the time you buy the drinks in single serve containers. If you do try to buy in bulk, you end up buying large boxes of 24 and 30 bottles. Not easy to carry when you are wandering around the city. Not every store has the same variety and so often part of the adventure is exploring the flavors that the typical neighborhood convenience store offers.
Orpheus Allison
Guangzhou, China
orpheusallison@mac.com
