Groceries

My lack of knowledge of the metric system has once again led to a surprise with food. This morning, my online grocery order was delivered. I noticed right away that the package of flour and the package of brown sugar were both very small – about the size of my hand. When I originally ordered those products, I thought 500 grams sounded like a sizable package. Wrong again. I now know that 500 grams are equivalent to about one pound. What I wanted was the equivalent of five of those 500-gram-packages of flour.

As I was putting the food away in the cabinets and in the refrigerator, I noticed that most of the packages of food were smaller than the typical packaging we see in the U.S. supermarkets. Even the meat and produce seemed smaller. The half of a leg of lamb that I ordered looked like an extra-thick lamb chop. The asparagus spears were the size of green beans, and the green beans were half that size. I felt that British discipline and reserve was being thrust upon us with these smaller portion sizes. The message was, “You will not be an over-consuming American. You are in England now.” Okay.