Gaze Upon the Nonsense that is “American Week” at the Norwegian Grocery Store

It’s Amerikanske Uker – “American Weeks” — at the local Bunnpris grocery store. Our attention was piqued for two reasons.  First, Norwegian interpretations of other cultures can be, um, less than nuanced.  Second, with respect and love, Norwegian food is bad, and Norwegian interpretations of other people’s food is bad.

For a great example of America filtered through Norwegian lenses, see the national chain Peppe’s Pizza, Norway’s “Real American Pizza Since 1970,” which is easily found throughout Norway.  The decision to tie pizza to America, rather than Italy, is flabbergasting to me.  Additionally, as I told colleagues when asked to confirm Peppe’s authenticity at a lunch meeting, I have no idea what American pizza is, except that we speak of it politely, lest there be another civil war (for the record, 1-Chicago, 2-California, … 12-New York … 23-being hit by a car[1], 24-St. Louis).

Needless to say, we grabbed ourselves a circular from the grocery store, and invite you to flip through it with us.  So fill your heart with judgment and your mind with an unearned sense of superiority, and let’s take a look!

Any advertisement that leads with lettuce is going nowhere good.

Let’s discuss the cheeseburgers.  Here, we have prepackaged burger patties, with cheese, like, blended in.  Norwegians!  That’s gross!  Just put the cheese on top!  And, if anybody has any idea what might be involved in “chunky burger dressing,” get in touch.  Is it like this shockingly political “mayochup”?  If so, why is it chunky?

Normally, I would wonder if a club sandwich was interesting enough to be “American” versus anything else, but its sufficient (or even extraneous!) number of pieces of bread at least means it isn’t a Norwegian sandwich. The only blowback we’ve gotten on this blog is for making fun of Norwegian open-faced sandwiches, and so with that in mind, we delicately point out that this sandwich has not only two pieces of bread, but three, and it looks both damn tasty and not too messy to eat.

Multicultural groups of youths!  Generic football uniforms!  Trucker hats!  Yeah, I’ll give them this one.

Serving a Coke does not require a five-step process, regardless of your country of origin (particularly when one of the steps is “open and serve the Coke”).

The text in the top right says, “Did you know pancakes in America are eaten for breakfast and not for dinner or dessert like here in Norway?”  I am fully on board with the concept of pancakes as American, but selling them pre-cooked in a 4-pack?  Yikes.  And save those crepe-looking things in the lower left corner for French Week.

[1] – Not my joke.  Credit where it’s due!  This profane and unkind introduction to regional American foodstuffs and stereotypes might be one of my favorite things on the internet.