I do like to buy food off a deli counter as you can choose what you want and request how much you want.
I find it better than buying cold meats in plastic packaging and usually containing more than you want.
Unfortunately, since the Covid outbreak many supermarkets have done away with their deli counters or only open at the weekend.
My only annoyance with deli counter staff are those that take no notice of how much in weight you ask for.
If l ask for 100 grams of cold meat, l mean that weight or very slightly over. So why do some insist on giving you so much more than you ask for?
Then when they slice too much, do they get a bit snotty if you ask them to take some off?
It’s fine if you have someone else who will eat it but many of us live alone and have to throw it away because there’s too much and it goes off.
The very elderly man that was serving me in Morrisons the other day kept chuntering on because l asked for it to be thinly sliced as l don’t like thick meat!
Am l being pernickety and should l just accept what they decide how thick or thin l want it and how much l buy?
Or, is my attitude, the reason why more supermarket deli’s will close?
Commiserations Art on the rare occasion I shop ‘in person’ in Waitrose and ask for a small piece of cheese, I am usually offered the pre cut pre packed pieces which are not small . How difficult is it cut a piece the specified thickness of my middle finger from the large cheese?
I think those of us who live alone are frequently discriminate against, special offers often involve increased amounts of food for more than one person like large punnets of strawberries or 2/3 of something.
When I use to buy from the counter , I would ask the amount of slices of meat I wanted , that way I knew Id have no waste , regarding thickness , its wafer thin or a thick wedge , and I also didnt like the dried up piece .
I suppose you could ask for your meat to be the thickness of say a 5p and have a 5p ready or a 50p for a thicker cut ,
Ask them to put the coin at the side for comparison, haha, and say your trying to help .
Or present them with a five pound note and be very insistent.
That’d keep them busy for a while, they’d probably need one of those jewellers eyepiece thingy whatsits.
I’m not sure if the other waiting customers would be particularly appreciate though.
Sorry Art. I’m much the same as you. My son doesn’t like cold meat so it’s just me. I can only bear a few days of the same Coldmeat sandwich for lunch. I usually give the remainder to my housekeeper or gardener/pool guy.
On a serious note, I’ve never been inspired by delis in supermarket chains. I remember one or two independently run business in the past that were superb .
We’ve recently discovered a local Polish shop that has a deli counter, they also sell some rather tempting varieties of bread.
Fyi, they’re thin sausages about 1 foot long and which can be eaten as a cold snack without cooking them (I never cooked them)… not spiced at all, so don’t think they’re like pepperoni.
My bitch about supermarkets is that they no longer sell the half cucumbers. We both like cucumber but not a lot at a time so the half one did us fine. Now if I buy take the whole one then half of it ends up going off and has to be binned.
Same @Rox !!
Who on earth gets through a whole cucumber in a few days?!! Even when the offspring lived and ate everything in here a whole cucumber was still too much
I used to love cucumber once in a while but I refuse to buy any now
And another thing…
It’s apparently dangerous to wrap cheese in clingfilm for any length of time so I hate it when i ask for a wedge from a block at a deli, when they pick up a wrapped one and say “this is about the same size is that ok?”
I feel like saying “No, I didn’t ask for cheese with carcinogens thank you, just the fresh one in paper for me please”!!
Roxy and Rhian,
I sometimes find, half a cucumber is nearly as much as a whole one! If l buy a half, l usually wish l had bought a whole one as it soon goes!
I now cut my cucumber in thicker slices than wafer thin, than l used to.
I don’t know why and l shouldn’t feel like this as l am innocent… but l find choosing a cucumber rather embarrassing when men are around, as they always seem to grin!
When my brother in law buys fresh Cod off the fish counter in a supermarket, he always asks for the skin to be cut off.
Some assistants weigh and price the Cod with the the skin on before they remove it.
My brother in law refuses to pay for the fish skin, so there is usually a bit of disagreement about this.
Does anyone ever wonder how much the pieces of plastic that the assistant seems to take a handful of to place the ham etc on, weighs?
I remember reading some years ago, that someone was being petty and saying you pay for the weight of those too!
on the rare occasion I shop ‘in person’ in Waitrose and ask for a small piece of cheese, I am usually offered the pre cut pre packed pieces which are not small . How difficult is it cut a piece the specified thickness of my middle finger from the large cheese?
