Supermarkets in Acapulco

Acapulco, and Mexico in general, has supermarkets that are just about like those in the U.S. Ok, you can't get sunflower seeds, tofu and Odwalla like back in the states, but you can get most anything else including my favorite, Mexico's knock-off of Frosted Flakes called Zucaritos (translated: little sugars). One thing about Mexico is that Supermarkets haven't seemed to crowd out street vendors and small farmers like they have in the U.S., well, not yet anyway. I hope they never do because in places like Acapulco, you really have the best of both worlds. I find the supermarkets indispensable and I'm sure you will too, but I'd be pissed if the local culture dried up and everyone here had to eat the same over-processed mass produced palate-busting food as in the U.S..

Around Acapulco, Comercial Mexicana, Gigante, Super Gigante, and Wal-Mart are the major supermarkets. You can't miss them, they're everywhere. What they lack in quality, they make up for in selection and edecanes (pretty girls that sort of stand around and don't really do too much). That's all I have to say about Supermarkets in Acapulco, but in 1955 poet Allen Ginsberg had this to say about supermarkets in California:

Supermarket in California

          What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

          In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

          What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

          I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

          I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

          I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

          We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

          Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

          (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)

          Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

          Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

          Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?



- Yes, America has been taken over by its neon fruit supermarkets, but Mexico, God bless it, remains defiant.