I’ve decided that Shaw’s is my least favorite supermarket of the Big Three (Whole Foods, Hannaford and Market Basket). My reasons were firmly planted after a visit to the Falmouth Route 1 Shaw’s recently where I went to buy two items: Hershey’s cocoa and Karo light syrup.   I’ve never done a complete shop at any Shaw’s. Though if you want to finish fast, the Shaw’s at Westgate Shopping Plaza in Portland is the best because hardly anyone is in there. But I was in Falmouth and it was convenient to go there.

Route 1 Shaw’s in Falmouth

First problem is the layout.  It’s a very deep store, which results in having double-deep aisles, divided into sections A and B.  So that if you’re in the front of the store and scan the banners  at the head of each aisle you miss entirely what’s available in the B section.

The “aisles” at Shaw’s. But what is “good thru?” (see below)

Pricing:  Generally I’ve found that Shaw’s pricing is more expensive than Hannaford or Market Basket.  And the rewards program is very complicated.  It’s not straightforward like Hannaford’s where items are listed clearly with their posted discounts.

Staff: You encounter very few Shaw’s staff working the floor. At the other stores, even WF, there’s always someone stocking shelves or working at some other function, especially onsite managers.  If you have a question as to where a certain item is located there’s no one to ask at Shaw’s.  At Market Basket, for instance, staff is all over the place.  And if you ask an employee where something is they just drop everything and practically take you by the hand to show you. Whole Foods is pretty good with on-the-floor staff (but don’t ask their Prime shoppers because they’re apt not to help).  And the shelves are often not stocked well, even bare. Some think it’s because of the Prime Shoppers who’ve overtaken the store.  The average Prime order is $550 and the weekly gross is 650,000, most from Prime Shoppers.

So I’m at Shaw’s to buy the cocoa and Karo syrup.  Both are generally found in the baking aisle at the other stores (except at Whole Foods where those two items don’t pass their muster). They were not in the baking aisle.   There was no one around to ask.  Then I spotted someone doing some cleaning and stocking near the cash registers.  I asked him about the two items and he hadn’t a clue.  I thanked him and walked away.  He came after me with a store list of items and their aisle numbers.  We both looked for the cocoa and Karo syrup.  There was cocoa listed at aisle 3A but nothing for the Karo syrup.  I went to the aisle and all I found was a can with big letters on it for Hot Cocoa, obviously to make hot chocolate.

(Note, on a second visit a few days later, Hershey’s cocoa was on the shelf in the baking aisle; and I found the Karo syrup, which was in  another aisle with the maple syrup.)

I left the store and stopped at the Forest Avenue Hannaford on my way home.  There they were: in the baking aisle.

Hershey’s cocoa and Karo syrup are well stocked in the baking aisle at Hannaford, with Special Dark in the back

Pre-pandemic you had a good chance of finding stocked shelves at all the stores, not just paper products and sanitizers. For unknown reasons lately, spices–from McCormick to specialty brands–are in short supply.  The other day I needed both yellow and black mustard seeds, the latter being more difficult to find during normal times.  Hannaford had none nor Whole Foods.  I didn’t check at Shaw’s or Market Basket.  But the Leroux Kitchen store on Commercial Street had a good supply of both.

Recently I needed Post Grape Nuts cereal to make grape nut pudding. My first stop was Hannaford.  All they had was Post Grape Nut Flakes.  A staffer was in the cereal aisle and I asked about the Grape Nuts cereal.

Don’t use Grape Nuts flakes to make grape nut pudding; Hannaford only has the flakes but not the original post nuts

“Funny you should ask,” she said.  “Earlier a shopper also asked for it and told me that she too wanted to make the pudding and the flakes wouldn’t work at all.”

That morning there was a New England Today post in my email (from Yankee Magazine) for Grape Nuts pudding recipe.  A rush on Grape Nuts?

I found the cereal at Market Basket. Their shelves are generally very well stocked.

The real McCoy of Grape Nuts cereal at Market Basket

At Hannaford they discontinue items that don’t sell well, leaving us hapless shoppers in the lurch.  Items like Knox unflavored gelatin and Comet cleanser disappeared from the shelves a while back.   I called the company and inquired about those two common grocery items.  Months later they were back on the shelves.

But if you’re looking for Swan’s Down or Softassilk cake flour, none of the three carry that flour because it’s not natural or organic like King Arthur, which has taken over the shelf space for cake flour.  The other two are bleached and have all sorts of additives.  But according to  cookbook baking guru Rose Levy Beranbaum, her preference is for bleached flour for cakes. You can order organic/natural bleached flour from specialty mills.  But that’s a lot of effort and very costly.

Pond Cove IGA in Cape Elizabeth carries Softassilk.  Leave it to an old-fashioned small supermarket like the IGA to carry products like that.

Bleached, enriched cake flour, Softasilk generally available at the Pond Cove IGA Market in Cape Elizabeth

Then there was the search for green peppercorns.  Haven’t you bought them by mistake when what you wanted was capers?  They look alike and both are generally stocked side by side in aisles marked “condiments.”

Hannaford has had them but according to a staffer they haven’t been around for months.  The same was true at Whole Foods.  Market Basket  never heard of green peppercorns (in brine).

I needed the peppercorns for a sauce  fork pork chops. I called around everywhere, including Micucci’s, Leroux , Solo Cucina market and Browne Trading–not in stock.

It was Monte’s Fine Foods that came to the rescue.  Actually they’re a good source for lots  of specialty items, a great store not only for pizza but esoteric products as well.

One of the latest items on my food search was for veal–any cut suitable for stew.  Most stores and butchers don’t have veal.  I tried the usual sources, including Market Basket, which does have some veal such as roasts and ossobucco.  Otherwise, very hard to find.

But Pat’s Meat Market, one of the last remaining old-fashioned butcher shops in Portland, generally has veal, often frozen, including veal bones for those of us serious enough to make  veal stock. I picked up three packs (frozen) for the stew.    I also went there the other day to buy boneless chicken breasts with the skin left on. The store was packed.   This is a real butcher without being fancy enough to offer all those $25 per pound cuts of organic pastured meats.  Father afield, Bisson’s and Curtis Meats are prime sources for well priced quality meats.

Whatever you need, Pat’s most likely will have it. I also went there the other day to buy boneless chicken breasts with the skin left on.

Pat’s had just the cut I needed for Blanquette de veau. Another butcher item that’s hard to find is boneless chicken breasts with the skin left on.  The butcher at Whole Foods won’t open a package of on the bone with skin chicken breasts to debone it.  Hannaford’s and Market Basket butchers will do that.

Pat’s came to the rescue so I could make veal stew with dill

Pat’s Market, still a great old-fashioned butcher shop and specialty market, great meats and service

But it’s far easier to just ask the butchers at Pat’s market, who bone the breast in seconds, leaving the skin on.

Now the most elusive product is butcher’s leaf lard.  This is the best ingredient to use in pastry dough, biscuits or to fry chicken in rendered leaf lard  (don’t ever buy the packaged lard found in supermarkets).  I love it.  For years all the Rosemont markets had it, made in house. by their butchers  But since they discontinued their  operation of nose-to-tail  butchery, lard took a hit because there’s no one to make it.  They have packaged farm meat mostly from Pineland Farms. It’s available, however, at Solo Cucina by special order.

Farmer’s Market lard found last summer at the Bath  Farmer’s Market

Occasionally you can find it at farmers’ markets  from vendors who sell rendered leaf lard.  One  farmer’s market vendor who shall remain nameless has leaf lard if you ask for it.  He’s not allowed to sell it because he doesn’t have a commercially approved kitchen.  Other sources for butcher lard include MEMeats in Kittery, Riverside Market in Damariscotta and Bleecker and Geer in Rockport, among a few others.

Leaf lard from MeMeats in Kittery, $5.99 per pint; Jared Spangler, the owner/butcher introduced lard–he called it the new olive oil–when he ran the butcher department at Rosemont many years ago

But if you do secure it try this simple recipe for lard pastry. It’s the flakiest pastry you can ever have, with more flavor than its modern counterpart, shortening (Crisco).  Easy and quick to make (recipe follows) or use it in biscuits: 2 cups self-rising flour (3 tablespoons lard, 2 tablespoons butter), 1/3 cup more or less buttermilk.  Mix in the usual way.