Monday, January 18, 2010

Where is Kauf anyway?

Csik/Ciuc has a new large, ultra-modern supermarket (in case the title doesn't tell you, it's Kaufland). It's dead fancy, but no doubt many of the more interesting things that are available will soon disappear when the owners realise that nobody in Csikszereda has a clue what they are and therefore won't buy them. Already the fresh basil that was available for the first week or so has vanished, which is a great shame, and I fear for the continued availability of fennel. (I have discovered through the sudden availability of this exotic vegetable that it has a Hungarian name, which is édeskömény (or "sweet cumin" in my direct translation)

It's an odd experience finding oneself in such a place here in this dusty and isolated one-horse town. Before Christmas I was in there and they were blasting out Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody over the speakers, which was a real moment of familiarity/fear that one day the EU will reduce everywhere to some carbon copy of the UK.

Anyway, I recently heard a (possibly libellous, so I'm not repeating it on here) very disturbing story about how Kaufland obtained planning permission for this particular branch, so I'm hanging back from returning.

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