James Blick Takes a Tour of a Spanish Supermarket

Mountains of ham, rivers of olive oil and lakes of wine: that is what to expect when you go shopping in a Spanish supermarket. New Zealand-born James Blick and his Spanish wife, Yolanda Martin appear together regularly on their Spain Revealed YouTube channel and have clocked up more than 350,000 hits alone for their video exploring a supermarket in Madrid.

Here’s what they found out.

“It’s like walking through a ham jungle,” explains Blick, who moved to Madrid with Yolanda eight years ago and co-founded the hugely successful Devour Tours.

In the jamon section it’s possible to find every kind of ham product, from the cheapest at €30 to the premium, all singing and dancing Jamon Belota de Iberica of Cinco Jotas for €569 that comes with a special ham cutting knife in a beautiful presentation box.

Expect to find two or three aisles of a large supermarket dedicated to pork products, explains Blick.

An enormous part of every supermarket is dedicated to UHT milk. Whereas as fresh milk will be contained within just one shelf in the refrigerated section, it is cartons of the diary product that is pre-treated at high temperatures that most Spaniards will buy.

For breakfast, there’s donuts, magdalenas and pan de leche. Sliced bread can be kept for days before it goes mouldy. And there really is a bestselling brand called Bimbo!

Potato chips are different in Spain. For starters, there is a big selection of jamon flavour, even gourmet jamon iberico flavour for those with superior taste buds and a budget to match

Or you could try “ajo and perejil” – garlic and parsley flavour. Spain even has a “huevo frito” – fried egg flavour.

Blick, a certified sommelier, is also a travel writer for The Sunday Times and The Guardian.

Original article by The Local Spain, February 5, 2019.