Sage & Simple

A "Lady No-Kids" following the goose around Europe...

  • Home
  • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Living in Denmark
  • About
    • Privacy Policy

German Shopping

May 30, 2010 By Sage 2 Comments

In Denmark, we pay 25% VAT (value added tax) on everything we buy. German VAT is only 19%. So with the German border less than 2 hours away by car, it’s quite common for people to drive over the border to shop. The Germans have hospitably built a huge shopping center just for this purpose!

Yesterday, I was able to borrow a car, so I grabbed a couple of friends and headed to Flensburg. I have power inverters for my high ticket appliances like my food processor, blender, hand mixer, etc., so I was hoping to pick up a toaster, vacuum cleaner, electric kettle, lamps, and a deep fryer for falafel, but one of the above mentioned friends is moving back to the US, and he’s offered to sell me some of his small electrics on the super cheap.

So, I bought the deep fryer and spent most of the afternoon wandering around the most American store I’ve yet to encounter on this side of the pond. In Denmark, our choices are limited to a few varieties of each thing, we just do not have a whole aisle dedicated to condiments, another dedicated to cereal, etc. But this German store was huge, like bigger than Costco with tons of variety!

Here’s a photo of yesterday’s combined haul…

Boys will be boys, so is it any surprise that we ended up with 10 cases of beer, Dr. Pepper, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s?

I was ecstatic to find ricotta! It’s difficult to find in Denmark, comes in tiny 250 g containers, and costs a small fortune. In Germany, it still comes in 25o g containers (about 8 oz.), but at least they’re only 1.25 Euro (about $1.50) apiece. One of the first meals I’m going to make in my new kitchen is manicotti, Caesar salad, and garlic bread!

I also found dill pickles, which do not exist in Denmark. The closest thing we have here are cornichons. How times change, I remember once running around town trying in vain to find cornichons for a particular recipe and ultimately substituting dill pickles. The jar is huge, 2400 grams (about 5 lbs.), and I’m not sure how I’m going to fit it into my tiny Euro refrigerator, but if there’s a will, there’s a way!

And finally, 5 kilos of brown rice!!! I have 40 lbs of brown rice coming in my shipping container, but there’s no telling when that’s going to show up and since I’ll have my kitchen as of next Friday, I need my brown rice! Brown rice is difficult to find in Denmark, and when I do find it, it’s very expensive, think wild rice in the US :(

All in all, the Germans didn’t disappoint, but I sure wish they had tempeh. It’s impossible to find tempeh here, and that makes me sad :(

Like it? Share it :)

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Denmark

Comments

  1. Smilingsurfer says

    June 3, 2010 at 6:30 AM

    That is quite a haul, the savings must have been worth the cost of fuel, and time.

    One shopping cart was full of Beer, what kind of Beer – and is it priced well below Denmark’s cost?

    I hope that you find Tempeh. I happened to see a website called : http://www.maketempeh.org

    The Tempeh making process looks a bit complicated.

    Reply
  2. Smilingsurfer says

    June 3, 2010 at 6:02 PM

    Maybe you can make you own Seitan?

    http://vegetarian.about.com/od/cookingtipstools/ss/HowToSeitan.htm

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Once upon a time, I had the chance to move to the happiest country in the world!

My restless Aries spirit liked that idea, so I did what any girl in my position would do… I grabbed my cat, booked a one-way ticket to Denmark, and became an expat!

Read more…

logo
Food Advertisements by

Archives

Never miss a post :)

logo

Food Advertisements by

Categories

Aarhus Antique & Vintage Jewels Baking Bohemian Decor Denmark Food Freeganism Frugal Living Green Living Home House Hunting Moving Abroad Other Recipes Secondhand Finds Simple Living Travel Vegan Recipes Vegetarian Recipes
logo
Food Advertisements by

© 2009 - 2021 · Sage Autumn Media