Whenever I visit one of the big chain supermarkets I come out thinking "serves you right for going in". The most recent experience is illustrative and by no means unusual.
Yak's butter
The Wikipedia article on cornmeal lists five main uses in Europe including polenta, and over twenty others including tortillas and tacos. But I came out of the supermarkets feeling not just frustrated, but vaguely embarassed that I should have bothered them with such a ridiculous request. I then drove to the nearest Indian store where they had three different grades of cornmeal all in three different sizes. The shop isn't particularly large, but they sell everything from real Turkish coffee to Iranian lavash to Keralan snake gourds. I didn't have to queue at the checkout, the assistant smiled at me, the cornmeal was half the price that I eventually found it at another local Sainsbury's and I only had to carry the shopping ten yards to the car.
Yak's butter
I wanted cornmeal. I already knew that the local M&S didn't have any, so I went to the huge Tesco Extra nearby. After hunting high and low amid hordes of thoroughly unpleasant people and eventually determining that there was no customer service counter, I managed to find a staff member willing to humour me by checking on the computer. All they had was ready-made polenta. I drove to the equally huge Sainsbury's Superstore a few miles away and again hunted high and low, before eventually asking an assistant who unapologetically claimed never to have heard of cornmeal or polenta. Keeping things simple I explained that cornmeal is what mexican tortilla is made from, and she looked at me as though I had asked for yak's butter. I got the impression that she knew for certain that tortillas sprang ready-packaged from tortilla bushes. Another assistant directed me to the lentil section, but in vain. Luckily, after queuing at the customer service counter for a while, they were able to tell me definitively that they didn't have any.
The Wikipedia article on cornmeal lists five main uses in Europe including polenta, and over twenty others including tortillas and tacos. But I came out of the supermarkets feeling not just frustrated, but vaguely embarassed that I should have bothered them with such a ridiculous request. I then drove to the nearest Indian store where they had three different grades of cornmeal all in three different sizes. The shop isn't particularly large, but they sell everything from real Turkish coffee to Iranian lavash to Keralan snake gourds. I didn't have to queue at the checkout, the assistant smiled at me, the cornmeal was half the price that I eventually found it at another local Sainsbury's and I only had to carry the shopping ten yards to the car.