Monday, November 17, 2008

Is This What They Call Southern Food?

In the month of October, I've been in grocery stores far away from home several times -- once each in a Publix, a Winn-Dixie, and (just tonight) a Piggly Wiggly.

Is there some particular reason why two out of the three of those have severely odd names? Up North, I'm used to supermarkets being named things like Stop & Shop, or ShopRite, or something daring and flashy like Foodtown. But simple and declarative just doesn't work Down South, I guess...

2 comments:

Shanna Swendson said...

And you haven't even encountered the Jitney Jungle. Then there's the Texas version of Safeway, Tom Thumb (though it existed as an independent entity before being bought by Safeway).

I have no idea why the names are so weird. A lot of them are names of the founders, though I knew the founder of Tom Thumb and never heard an explanation for that name. I guess we southerners just like things colorful. Plus, it's fun to freak out visiting northerners by talking about going to town to the Piggly Wiggly, Jitney Jungle or Tom Thumb. It's like a code.

Robert Hutchinson said...

I'm wondering whether it's Publix or Winn-Dixie that you're considering as the second weird name.

How about Food Lion? At least they put "Food" in there. (And they always had the best hirroli ... no, wait, that's just my word verification.)

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