One Fishy Cow and Some Valnötters

Back in September, I posted a story about my adventures in the grocery store.  In particular, I made a comment about how shopping in Finland has been an interesting study in product design—language often is of very little help to me when it comes to discerning a package's contents, so visuals are essential.  Anyways, this past week, the grocery store had a sale on pudding.  And you ask how I knew it was pudding?  Well, not only did this product come in small pudding-like packages, but all the labels also had cows on them in one form of another.  A bee cow.  A kangaroo cow.  A bird cow.  A rabbit cow.  A seahorse cow.  And one fishy cow.  In addition to the unique packaging, I found the flavors to be an adventure too.  I'd never heard of apple vanilla pudding before coming to Finland!

To be honest though, there are times when language is necessary.  My friend had asked me to go pick up some walnuts at the store.  After examining the nut selection for a good five minutes, I had narrowed down my choices to two types of nuts.  Having forgotten how to distinguish walnuts from pecans, I scoured the package for any clues.  While I could not understand the Finnish labels, the Swedish ones did come in handy—valnötters, anyone?