There's still a difference between the stores having meat on their shelves and the stores having every kind of meat on their shelves. And every kind of vegetable, every kind of drink, every kind of cheese as well.
In many ways American markets have fallen behind relatively poorer countries in variety. Most of what is sold are monocultures and packaged foods. The selection of fresh produce (or any produce) is often disappointing.
But I live in Texas now, home of all the cattle, if you believe the marketing. And I can't find 7-steaks unless I go to a Mexican meat market, because the DFW area is so bourgeois nowadays that the steaks simply don't pass muster for the local market. Hell, I'm more likely than not to end up in a Mexican market simply because the produce is better and cheaper.
Same with beef shank. Osso bucco is traditionally made with veal shank, and oxtails are all the rage, but I can't find beef shank unless I go to an HEB. Most places don't carry the cut. And if I couldn't find beef shank, I could always go with beef neckbones, but uh... HEB is the only place around me that sells that either.
I've never heard that term; does it refer to mirepoix?
I guess I’ll know now what it means to miss New Orleans when I leave. And here I was worrying about not being able to find collards and turkey necks.
You can go to a butcher but they're less common than a regular grocery store. Also, butchers usually have less selection since they're a smaller operation.
EDIT: i live in Dallas, Texas and "HEB" is just another brand of grocery store so "having to go to HEB" just means having to go to the grocery store.
That’s curious; I’d have thought you’d have more selection since the butcher is, y’know, doing the butchering, so any cut is possible. In the past if I’ve needed an “exotic” cut, the butcher would be where I’d go.
Different stores, different clientele.
also, complaining that you can't find Thing unless you go to a Mexican meat market is a weird way to boast that your area has specialty grocery stores.
But unlike a supermarket, you can just ask a local butcher to save you some of whatever off-cut the next time they're trimming it. Normally they'd just throw it away.
That might be possible in some supermarkets.
Yeah, I was going to say, it's worth asking.
I avoid fresh produce at Walmart as well, mostly in that the selection usually kind of sucks. There are more and better options around. As to Butchers, there isn't really a dedicated one near me, have to drive halfway across town. But a local grocery chain does have Butchers, but special cuts usually take a few days to get in.
Independent butchers aren't all that uncommon. Though, for example, my town has 3-4 grocers that sell meat without having a counter (but I expect you could talk to the butcher at a couple of them), a grocer that does have a counter, and then a couple of independent butchers.
In that not-overly-large shopping complex, there are two supermarkets (one of which has loads of European smallgoods, like 40+ types of cheese) and also: independent greengrocer, butcher, fishmonger, bulk grains store, bakery chain, etc. Used to be a poultry-specialist butcher too. Most shopping centres I can think of here will have an independent butcher, plus more separately outside those. There'd be dozens of butchers in a city of about 1 million.
It gets even worse if you look at packaged stuff. “Look, twelve brands of coffee!” but actually it’s three because some of them are owned by the others, or by the same parent company.
That's not my experience of American supermarkets in North Carolina when visiting on business ten years ago. Even in supposedly upmarket supermarkets like Harris Teeter the fruit and veg was really not very good and the selection of cheeses (and other dairy products) was downright poor.
Going from this to a country where any random supermarket would have chicken, several cuts of beef, several cuts of pork, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, onions, several sorts of cheese and was not at risk of running out of any position would have been a shock.