Faites cuire à 200 degrés de Celsius pendant 20 mins

Another problem has emerged over the past few weeks (nothing to do with mini pillows this time, but in the same sort of time span.) It's largely due to the fact I've done my general food shopping at the 'other' supermarket.

Just for background, Sliema has two main supermarkets. The one nearest to my apartment is called 'Scotts' (which has cropped up in previous blogs on the odd occasion), and the other is called 'Tower'. Tower has the advantage of being bigger (3 floors) and not uphill from home, but the disadvantage of being further away. For the last two trips I've decided to make the effort to 'check-out' Scott's rival to see if it's more cost effective for me. (Check-out...geddit? Oh never mind!)

First visit and I had a small shopping list. Anything for the freezer that would make an emergency meal, margerine, breakfast cereal and a litre of milk. I was also planning on having a brief mooch around so I know exactly what they do and don't offer, and compare prices of items I already know the value of. Let's get that bit out of the way first. Tower is cheaper on a lot of items, especially fresh bread and at the butcher counter. Branded goods (Kellogg's Cornflakes, Bird's Eye Fish Fingers etc) seem about the same. Tower also has a much larger 'household section' (lightbulbs, kitchen gadgets etc.) Only thing that stood out as being a problem...cheap beer! (Just couldn't find any!)

So, I pick up my shopping items (the emergency freezer item was a three pack of Bolognese pizzas), and as I reach the till I pick up a large bag of crisps. They were only 60c and believe me, that is cheap over here. I've hardly eaten any since I got here, because of the silly prices some places charge for them. They were described as 'white crisps', so I had no idea what they were like, but for 60c it was worth experiementing. It was one of those 'sharing size' bags about 125g or something similar.

Ok, don't suppose you've worked out where this is leading yet have you?

Being on an island, a lot of goods are imported from other countries. Being in the centre of Europe also means that food comes in from many different sources. When I came to cook one of the pizzas I came across a major problem...

...the instructions were in French, and there were no English translations.

There were two pictures. One was a picture of the pizza, half out of it's box, an image of the oven with 200 written on it, and a clock showing 20 minutes. Instictively I thought that meant 'cook at 200 degrees for 20 minutes' (and the box bit means remove from all packaging.) But then there was a second picture. The pizza was now on a tray, and the clock said 13 minutes. No temperature guide this time, just the pizza and the clock. I ended up cooking it at 200 degrees on a tray for 15 minutes (seemed like a comprimise time). It tasted ok, and the centre was cooked right through, so I think I got away with it. I'll let you know if either of the other two fail.

But there's more. Remember those 'white crisps'? They tasted lovely, only lightly salted, and according to the label (this time in Spanish I think) they were very low in fat. On my second trip to Tower I decided to pick up a couple more bags to put in my emergency cupboard. There they were on the same rack, and the little ticket underneath still said 'white crisps: 60c'

When I got home, I tend to read through my receipt. I always like to see what looks like a bargain, and what feels like I've been ripped off. It was only a short list, but what struck me was their was nothing that cost 60c. There were also two items I didn't recognise, one for 43c and one for 49c. I unpacked my shopping, and there were the two bags of crisps....

....only now I noticed the picture looked different. The bag was the same colour as the first one I'd bought, all the writing was in the same place and the same font, but one of them had an image of popcorn on it, and the other, cheesy wotsit style crisps. I'd picked up two completely different snack bags. I blame the fact it was written in Spanish, and had clearly been stacked on the wrong shelf...

...Perhaps the shelf stacker couldn't read Spanish either!