I'm reading "Video of Wisconsin supermarket’s massive frozen pizza section goes viral: ‘What’s going on down there?’" (The Hill).
Down there? Sounds like you couldn't even point to us on a map. Unless you're in Canada. We are not down there. We are up here. And up here, we have a store called Woodman's. When I first moved here 38 years ago, I used to take visitors from New York City to Woodman's to entertain them in precisely the way this video is entertaining millions this week. I didn't have social media to share the fun at the time, but it's funny to me now that something I've known for 38 years — Woodman's is a very big store — is amazing millions in 2022.
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51 comments:
Maybe a Canadian. Identifies as die hard Maple Leafs fan, with photo of 3 players.
The Midwest (beyond Wisconsin) tends to have relatively narrow food habits versus other parts of the country. I say this per the dominance of old-school standards, including burgers, hot dogs, and pizzas. And in seeing nothing but McDonald's signs for 4 or 5 freeway exits in a row. And in seeing McDonald's locations in Amish towns with extra large "family size" dining tables.
Squeaky cheese seems to mostly be a Wisconsin thing.
"Identifies as die hard Maple Leafs fan" — Maple Leafs *and* Bengals.
I still have a problem with The Hill choosing that quote for the headline. It liked the sound of it, I suspect, because it likes to portray us as "down there," like we're in America's basement.
Pizza is one of the most significant factors in the Obesity epidemic. I don't know what Wisconsin's like but I went to North Carolina Charlotte the Queen City over the weekend to visit relatives. The Obesity level compared to Massachusetts is at least double double in the numbers of people that suffer from that disease and the ones that do suffer from that disease seem to be suffering at a much higher level of extra blubber.
Wow - that is a lot of frozen pizza.
Ick.
huh - "Woodmans" never heard of it.
I liked the tweet pointing out that folks in Wisconsin are big on cheese.
Down there? Sounds like you couldn't even point to us on a map. Unless you're in Canada. We are not down there. We are up here.
I don't think you really understand the mindset of people that live in Washington DC.
The rest of our country is "down there."
This kind of reminds me of the Serrano Ham section at Carrefour's I went to in Malaga Spain. Giant friggin' Ham legs as far as the eye could see interspersed we precut Ham. Sometimes regions just love certain foods.
I believe that the Woodman's in this video is the one in Kenosha, which is also the largest one in the state.
I also like the expansive cheese aisle at Woodman's. But I don't get out there very often because it's a drive, and I'm mostly a Metcalfe's person, Metcalfe's with its puny frozen pizza section.
Last time I ate frozen pizza: 2005?
"Up" doesn't always mean north, and "down" doesn't always mean south. A notable exception is how the English talk about going to London:
Do you say 'up to London' regardless of which way you are coming from and if so why?
This is an odd one. The widespread, if a little archaic, use of 'up' when travelling to London is based partly on the importance of the capital and partly on the habit of denoting railway lines as 'up' lines (to London) and 'down' lines (out of London).
Students are usually said to go 'up' to university, especially to Oxford or Cambridge, so an Oxbridge student from London could find themselves going up both there and back. Annoying if you chose to cycle I'd have thought."
From https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/58/messages/1333.html:
Ann Althouse said: "We are not down there. We are up here."
Enough with these equator-centric views!
Maybe he was "up Brainerd."
If you see a crazed looking man in the frozen food aisle with a tailor's tape measure asking people to stand still a moment it is probably Howard, don't call the police he will go way soon.
If Maine can be referred to as "Down East" I don't know that Wisconsin really has a right to complain about being called "down there." Besides, as famously also happened "down there," a statue of a Civil War officer was vandalized by a mob in Wisconsin just a couple of years ago. A dumber mob, but still ....
Besides, with a South-up map orientation, Wisconsin really is "down there."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South-up_map_orientation
...I used to take visitors from New York City to Woodman's to entertain them...
To entertain them or to entertain yourself?
Never heard of Down East, I guess. Of course, i think that originated in the sailing days, when Down East meant tacking downwind and going northeast.
To be fair, the Twitter user who was quoted saying "down there" seems to be Canadian. (Has a Maple Leafs photo for an avatar.)
"Down there? Sounds like you couldn't even point to us on a map. Unless you're in Canada. We are not down there. We are up here."
Wisconsin is flyover country. You are down there from 30,000 feet.
You gotta do something with all that cheese.
And if you really want to impress outsiders, show them the beer aisles.
The 2nd best pizza on the north American continent is at Upper Crust Pizza in Pell Lake, Wisconsin.
https://www.uppercrustpizzeriapub.com/
You're welcome.
Away down yonder in cheesy Wisconsin. "My name is Yohn Yohnson, I come from Wisconsin...."
‘What’s going on down there?’
Free Market Capitalism.
We had homemade low-carb pizza last night. Cauliflower crust. Small pizza portion, big salad.
Eat pizza responsibly.
I had a Madison girl friend who would say "going down to Milwaukee". I figured she was referring to the elevation change.
'Up here' is a very Western-centric way of thinking about it...shame on you : )
I've been to WI on a number of occasions...only out in the country.
It is a really beautiful place with very nice people, but there is an obesity problem.
I am a normal-sized guy by West Coast standards, but I look like an underwear model in WI...a lot of people are enormous...
Traveling around the world and the country, the most pedestrian meals I've had were in the Northeast.
The big grocery chain in Texas is HEB, they do things a little differently. Where most chains are very predictable, store to store, not so for HEB. They adapt their stores to suit the local clientele. My personal favorite store is across the street from the South Texas Jewish Community center, which is also the semi center of Jewish population of San Antonio. It always has a large Kosher section and blows that up with additional shelving during the high holidays. Not important to me but important to their broad customer base.
Speaking of salad, $5 bag of three Romaine heads is now $10. Broccoli up to $4.50 from $2.50.
It's hard to eat responsibility in Joe Biden's America.
Can't wait to see what happens when we run out of diesel.
not so for HEB. They adapt their stores to suit the local clientele.
HEB also has budget to reorganize their stores every other year, so that patrons are forced to look through the store every now and then for their common products and perhaps experience other products. Not exactly sure it is a good thing, but it does keep the store experience fresh. HEB also has stores branded Mi'Tienda that reside in heavily hispanic neighborhoods, with products branded in Spanish names and workers that greet customers in Spanish.
For those that clicked to see the "viral video" on Twitter and saw comments about Yeltsin visiting a Randall's in Houston/Clear Lake. HEB put Randall's out of business.
When I moved to Madison decades ago I went to Woodman's. In addition to buying food for meals I also needed all the staples. I got to the checkout and after scanning all the stuff in my very loaded cart I found out that they didn't take credit or debit cards. We have them in the Milwaukee area but nothing close to me. I assume that the take plastic now.
Gloria Clemente : [to Billy] Sometimes when you point up, you really point down, and sometimes when you point down, you really point up, and sometimes when you point up or down, you actually point across, and sometimes when you point across, you actually point up or down. Pointing up or down is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.
Well, the store wouldn't stock all that frozen pizza if it didn't sell -- it's just delivering what the locals want to buy. Proving again that flyover country is a bit different. Vive la difference.
In North Carolina, down there means the Piedmont and eastern NC especially if you live in western NC. The rest of the state always refers to us in western NC as "up there". It is based upon elevation.
Traveling around the world and the country, the most pedestrian meals I've had were in the Northeast.
Absolutely true!
I have spent a lot of time in Maine and Mass. Their idea of spice is salt and pepper.
Wisconsin food has always been pretty good simple fare - nothing terrible and nothing extraordinary.
Is it as good as Jungle Jim's? Although, I would call that a food store more than a grocery store. International food market, maybe.
I deliver to grocery stores and when I first started I was amazed at all the pizza coming in That said, nothing is worth than getting stuck behind the beer guy. But Woodman's stores are exceptional. After a three year stint in Connecticut, I sent a photo of the Woodman's cheese aisle to friends out east to show them what a cheese selection should look like. The selection in Connecticut grocery stores was pitiful.
Whatever. I just want to say that visiting The Hill's website is a very unpleasant experience. And I never did break through autoplay to see the video at issue.
Quantum mechanics explains this. Heidelberg showed that it is impossible to know the frozen pizza content of a location andwhether that location is up or down at the same time.
Down East does not refer to Maine, it refers to coastal (and near-coastal) Maine, which is south and east from the rest of Maine.
I gotta admit that Publix store chain is pretty good. Everyone has California quality produce year round. It's metastasising out of Florida through the Carolinas into Virginia according to my cousin. They spent billions on a distribution center in Greenville apparently. Wegmans is too far from the house, so I'm stuck with the chain supermarket frequented by deplorables.
I feel bad for people that don't have the luxuries we have here. But not really.
Monster no-frills grocery store with vintage wood-grain ceramic tile and open freezer cases, pushing around huge metal grocery carts while Captain and Tenile plays on the PA. It's like the Boomer lifestyle never died in Wisconsin.
Leland said...
[‘What’s going on down there?’]
"Free Market Capitalism."
Exactly. Paraphrasing Bernie Sanders, 'you don't need 45 different kinds of pizza.'
Curious George said...
"When I moved to Madison decades ago I went to Woodman's. In addition to buying food for meals I also needed all the staples. I got to the checkout and after scanning all the stuff in my very loaded cart I found out that they didn't take credit or debit cards. We have them in the Milwaukee area but nothing close to me. I assume that the take plastic now."
The self-checkout aisles are going to plastic only.
The problem with Down East is you can't get there from here.
We recently made a summer journey from Virginia to Montana. We stopped at a Woodman's on the way. OH. MY GAWD!
I think the Woodman’s nearest us does debit cards and Discover only. My husband had to call me from checkout in a panic as I was wandering the aisles because he didn’t have a debit card on him. Next time we go, I’m gonna video the cheese aisle for my sister in CA. The other thing of note is their big selection of ingredients for various Thai, Indian, Chinese, Mexican foods to name a few.
Up, down- where is Wisconsin? Many years ago this Texas girl was driving from college Tennessee to visit my boyfriend (now husband) who had gotten a job just outside of Chicago. Approaching Chicago late at night I saw the highway signs that said "Wisconsin- Exit 2 miles". I remember thinking "Wisconsin what? Avenue? Boulevard? OMG- they mean Wisconsin STATE- cows, cheese, Packers. I'm practically in Canada!
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