Buying Bananas in Budapest

One of my favourite things to do when I travel is visit the local grocery stores where people do their shopping, and just look at what locals eat. Since arriving in Budapest, I've gone to a grocery store just about every day to pick up stuff for lunch or dinner, and I've been struck by the relatively limited variety of fresh produce available. I had read that Hungarians aren't big on fresh salads, and I'm beginning to understand why, if the only vegetables that are available Hungarian peppers, tomatoes, and the occasional cucumber. Perhaps the poor selection of fresh fruits and vegetables available in grocery stores is a telling reminder that though Budapest is a pretty vibrant and cosmopolitan European capital, Hungary really only started the transition to a market economy less than twenty years ago. Case in point, my Budapest couchsurfing host told me that before 1989, it wasn't possible to buy bananas in Hungary, because they simply weren't available. In a similar vein, when I was in Berlin, someone told me a story about how the day after the Wall came down, it was just about impossible to find bananas in West Berlin because all of the East Berliners who had crossed over had exhausted the city's supply and taken them back to East Berlin! I think that next time I do my grocery shopping at home, I will have a new appreciation for the sheer abundance of bananas available for 39 cents/lb year round.

In somewhat related news, until July of this year there were certain regulations in place in the European Union that restricted the sale of imperfect fresh produce. Apparently, until eight weeks ago, it was rough going for fruits and vegetables that were slightly small/mildly blemished/oddly shaped; otherwise said, ugly and funny looking fruits and vegetables weren't making it to the market, and into the discerning stomachs of Europeans. That being said, recent trips to the supermarket in Hungary would indicate that Hungarians have really taken their new found right to knobby carrots and scrawny cauliflower to heart, because the produce sections have been awash with less-than-perfect looking fruits and vegetables. I suspect that Hungary, having only joined the EU in 2005, probably wasn't subject to the old regulations that made it illegal to sell cauliflower that was less than 11 cm in diameter, or overly curvy cucumbers. Compared to the picture-perfect produce sold at the markets in Paris, Budapest's fruits and vegetables are a little like the 98 pound weaklings who always get picked last for dodge ball.