Reluctant Gourmet

We try to steer clear of Wal-Mart for shopping we could otherwise do at local grocery, but sometimes a long-anticipated roadtrip demands a store for both extra truck cupholders and industrial quantities of snackfoods.  As we walked down skylit grocery aisles wide enough to drive through, we discovered that Wal-Mart not only had pretzel kegs and every variety of Easy Cheese, but also had localized its inventory to a surprising extent.

First we found Tim's Cascade potato chips, acclaimed as the finest chip in the land, including a limited edition wasabi flavor.  As it turns out, Tim's is now owned by Birdseye, so maybe this wasn't a surprise.  Just across the aisle there stood two self-serve flour mills filled with Wheat Montana grain, something I noted last year but had not yet seen.  They even sold flats of Montana's Treasure bottled water, tucked away between Dasani and Arrowhead.  But all of these things are available elsewhere--you could find them at most gas stations without a long walk from the parking lot.

The real value of Wal-Mart's food store was finding foods you just can't get anywhere else in Helena, unfortunately.  They had the sweet-garlic Vietnamese hot sauce Sriracha, for example, something we usually had to get at an Asian seafood market in Bozeman.  And tucked near a 35-cent avocado display were industrial-sized bags of ancho chiles, dried yet still supple, a key ingredient for mole that I previously could get only by mail order.

Helena's due for another local grocery, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that they'll have the hot stuff I need.  But until then, I reluctantly must admit that the best specialty food store in town is the Wal-Mart.

Comments

[Scott]

Nooooooo! Please don't go to WalMart. A friend of mine just moved back to her hometown in Indiana and had the same problem. The only place she could find tomatillos was at the Super WalMart. Sigh. Do you think Helena could support a store like the Co-op in Bozeman? Or Good Food in Missoula? I was blown away by those stores on my last trip to Montana and I live in coastal California. (and am therefore jaded.)

[Homestead]

If you are ever in Butte check out the Front Street Market.... They have an AMAZING selection of EVERYTHING a high-end cook (and the rest of us too) could ever want.