Before Costco and Sam’s Club my family was bulk shopping when bulk shopping wasn’t cool. It was in the late ’60s and we’d make a trip to the Frontier Market in West Duluth once a month.
We didn’t get a shopping cart, we’d get a huge flat bed cart! My brother Gary and I could ride on the cart until it was too full of groceries, and then we’d help push it. We’d buy case lots of canned vegetables, soups, offbrand Spaghetti-Os that were terrible… we’d doctor them with Worcestershire sauce to give them some kind of taste.
At the market our family would spend $100 on groceries and worry that we didn’t have enough room in the car to get them home. Now I spend $100 on groceries and I can carry it all in one hand.
There would be groceries in the trunk, on the floor of the car and in between us in the back seat. It was 85 miles of rattling cans and being squished.
After the Frontier Market we’d go to the Tastee Bread store, also in West Duluth to stock up on breads and treats. Their “animal bread” could be bought for $1 for a 50-pound flour bag packed full. You never knew what was at the bottom because you couldn’t sort it at the store…you got what you got, no fuss no muss. We’d get really excited when there would be doughnuts or mini apple pies somewhere in the bag. The only things we fed to the animals was the bread that was starting to mold. The rest we would eat ourselves or freeze for later.
My husband and I have often joked if there was an apocalypse we’d drive straight to my mother’s house because her pantry could feed our family for a year on canned goods alone. We laugh but it pays to be prepared. It might not be the end of the world but with the winter we’ve been having you can see it from here!
I like a cook who smiles out loud
when he tastes his own work.
Let God worry about your modesty; I
want to see your enthusiasm
Robert Farrar Capon
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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