> If you can move larger distances (i.e. rent a car and the like) you'll find wonderful and cheap restaurants pretty much anywhere. Even in otherwise expensive places like SF or NY.
After doing a trip in America, I interpret "eat normally" for a French as not eating in the restaurants, but the food available in the supermarket that you cook at home.
Finding vegetables, fruits is hard, if not impossible. You don't find it in every supermarket.
Eating normally, for me, is buying the vegetables, meat, etc, and cooking it myself.
Yesterday I made a ratatouille:
Eggplant, courgette, poivron, tomatoes.
I remember finding these in USA was really hard.
And the only fruits we found was already cuts pineapply/mango/apples/etc...
I think you did not end up at an actual supermarket. I’ve never been to one that doesn’t have eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, or red peppers.
Neighborhood bodegas, which can look like small shops selling food, are a very different type of establishment, and sound like what you’re describing. Perhaps you are ending up in those? (They’re rife in tourist areas!)
> Finding vegetables, fruits is hard, if not impossible. You don't find it in every supermarket.
I live in the US currently, and can't think of a single supermarket that doesn't have a large fresh fruits and vegetables section, and all of the vegetables you mention are commonly available.
I suspect you were in a big city and going to the equivalent of corner stores (as someone else mentioned, what they call bodegas in NYC at least.
I think you fell into the common traveler's trap of thinking that your lifetime of knowledge of your home country would easily translate to a different country. When you don't know what's available or what to look for, it can indeed be difficult to find things.
After doing a trip in America, I interpret "eat normally" for a French as not eating in the restaurants, but the food available in the supermarket that you cook at home. Finding vegetables, fruits is hard, if not impossible. You don't find it in every supermarket.
Eating normally, for me, is buying the vegetables, meat, etc, and cooking it myself.
Yesterday I made a ratatouille: Eggplant, courgette, poivron, tomatoes.
I remember finding these in USA was really hard.
And the only fruits we found was already cuts pineapply/mango/apples/etc...