From March 2020 to April 2021, I had no job, and quarantine was a lonely time in the city. Facing month after month of freefall, the one thing I could reliably look forward to was cooking. I got really good at it ― obsessive, one could say ― and it wasn’t long before I became addicted to the Valium calm that washed over me as soon as I got in front of the stove.
Serenity was in short supply in the early days of the pandemic, but then again so was everything else. Without a social calendar, a source of income, or any local attractions to fill my time, my scant amusements were funneled into one practice: going to the grocery store.
It became a fascination for me: What kinds of strange sea creatures were for sale in the canned section? What fresh oddities lay in store in international foods? What was the most interesting flavor of Kool-Aid, Jell-O or salad dressing I could find?
Even though we’re all immune to the novelty, American supermarkets are actually kind of crazy ― they’re food museums. The candy-colored land of plenty Saran-wrapped and offered up on particle-board shelves, beneath fluorescent lights. I dug it.
The market, my sole entertainment in the constant commercial break of lockdown, presented me with challenges in addition to comforts.
I got very good at stealing. It had never been a necessity before, but my lack of income made my cooking habit financially impractical, and I wasn’t ready to give it up. My thieving exploits didn’t last too long, however: After smuggling two four-pound rump roasts, I realized I was acting like a lunatic. Besides, I don’t like to waste food.
Psychologically speaking, maybe my dependence on these supermarket forays has something to do with the market trips I used to take with my parents as a kid. Maybe I was chasing a simpler time on a more naive stage, where nothing beyond the automatic doors could hurt me. The grocery store is a sort of fortress, I guess. The ritual of buying food is an ancient one, and it has its therapeutic benefits.
And it has its drawbacks, of course. Some might think it’s totally insane to actually enjoy going food shopping during the pandemic, and they’d have a point. It could be a tense environment, and at times a nasty, hostile, and downright creepy place to be.
Not only does one automatically risk getting the virus every time they visit a large public space, but there were fundamental changes to this ancient ritual that made everyone, myself included, really uneasy ― and I’m not just talking about capacity limits and one-way aisles.
It sometimes felt like everyone’s distrust for one another came to a head in the supermarket. Here we all were competing over resources, swerving out of each other’s ways, making stink eyes at each other, waiting for someone to do or say something wrong, and none of this is our choice. We’re forced to be here for bare survival. We were camped outside the doors hours before the stores opened waiting for paper towels, bread, and milk. We were contemptuous of those who didn’t wear masks, and we were contemptuous of those who did. People sometimes seemed hungry for someone to make a bad move. Sneeze at your own risk.
Human beings don’t need any more excuses to mistrust each other, and it’s all well and good to think happy thoughts about humanity… until another surge hits and there’s only one package of toilet paper left on the shelves.
It got to me, all the interpersonal disdain and misanthropy of the COVID-19 supermarket. So I began to shop around. I started at my local Stop & Shop, then transitioned to Trader Joe’s. Then I figured I’d give Star Market a try. There was an Asian market I dallied with for a bit, and once or twice I drove out of the city to pop into Wegmans. (Unfortunately Market Basket, that perennial North-Shore favorite, was too far a drive to be worth the trip.) Now that I’m employed, I go to Whole Foods.
At the end of my yearlong internment, my torrid love affair with the supermarket has left me with three things: vastly-improved cooking skills, the ability to shoplift eight pounds of raw beef, and a bunch of useless opinions on the best places to buy groceries in the Greater Boston area.
I no longer need to go food shopping for my mental health, but I’m glad for the hours I spent amusing myself among the aisles. I’m even glad I got subjected to all the tension and the creepy looks. It added some stakes to the game.
Sometimes the mundane things are a comfort. Sometimes they’re our last shred of normalcy. And sometimes they’re all we’ve got.
Sophie Yarin is The Item’s senior writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
