Grocery Stores in Oslo: We Find (at Great Cost) Fish and Cheese Nirvana!

As (hungry) strangers in a strange land, our first stop is always the grocery store. By which we mean we go to at least one a day pretty much every single day. And we’ve done that here too. John grew up working in his uncle’s grocery store and Laurel just flat out loves food, so it’s important to us to get this right. Friends, we have seen many things to surprise and amaze, a few of which are pictured here. First, we don’t mean to pile on to all the complaints about how expensive everything in Scandinavia is. But MAN is everything expensive, by anywhere from 15 to 50% compared to the US and UK. We love being here, but are glad we skipped this whole area when we were poor backpackers.

Grocery Stores

There are many grocery stores in Oslo, both in variety and in location; we see one about every ten minutes on a typical walk. Usually they bear the name ‘mini’ and are fairly small stores – but the selection is good, especially for certain kinds of food (cheese, fish, junk food). Kiwi, Rema 1000, and Coop are the ones we see most often, but there is also Joker and 7-11s. These contain more real food than we expected (e.g. milk, bread, and eggs) and cost more, but are open on Sundays, which others are not. Meny seems to be the most expensive, and also to have the largest selection.

Fruits and vegetables look fresher than in the US and about the same as in the UK. They come loose, which cuts down on waste and means you see what you get. The selection is smaller, as many things have to be imported. Frozen vegetables look to be a pretty good deal. There is a wide selection of meats and a double-wide selection of fish. Hoo boy is there fish: salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring, haddock, WHALE, and lots of other stuff we can’t identify yet. We’re super-excited about many of these particulars, including fish pudding. Which, perhaps, is processed fish to slice and fry? At any rate, that’s what the instructions and pictures seem to suggest.

Dairy of all kinds (yogurt and cheese especially is also available in enormous quantities. That said, the majority of grocery store cheese comes in slices and looks processed. One notable exception is the enormous wodge of Jarlsberg we got on our very first day. This seems like an enormous amount but we are making good progress with it, thanks in part to the fact that even grocery store bread is beautiful and comes in many interesting varieties. Our closest store even has a bread slicer! There is a disturbing amount of mayonnaise (which, you may remember, we are not fond of) on display.

Other Food Stores

We have much more to say about Oslo’s Mathallen, which is a ten minute walk from our flat and contains all varieties of yummy goodness, including ingredients and compete meals, often from the same place. Steen & Strøm, the Norwegian department store, has a food court and also some stuff we haven’t seen elsewhere, especially from other countries. There are tons of bakeries and delis, especially in our very hip neighborhood. We’ve also found a number of international food stores (mostly Middle Eastern), which look to have a better selection of vegetables (especially greens) at lower prices, and some of our favourite foreign condiments. Finally, there are health food stores which have seeds and nuts; these seem fairly expensive but might be the best place for a large selection.

So it looks like we will not starve here. We’ve hunted down a few Norwegian recipes, mostly fish-based, and are eager to try them. Stay tuned!