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Oh, the stories it could tell
By adamg on Tue, 03/26/2024 - 6:19pm
Rob Colonna spotted this Purity Supreme shopping cart outside the Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown today. The last Purity Supreme closed in 1997.
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...or, as we called it back in the day...
"Poverty Supreme"
Then we'd roar with laughter, raises our bottles of Tuborg Gold (the Golden Beer of Danish Kings), and watch the Sawx on Channel 38.
We Called It - Where We Got Our Groceries
Sorry if all you nice middle class folks didn't like it.
The ones in Fields Corner and Adams Corner were our places.
If you look at the one in Adams Corner, it says "Supreme Market - 1935" on the Gallivan Boulevard facade.
Sheesh
Who said we "nice middle class folks" (actually, we were raggedy working-class folks at the time) didn't like it? People have always come up with riffs on businesses they frequent, e.g., "Slop&Shop," "Fileenies," "Whore 24" (one of my housemates worked the night shift there).
When I was a kid
we called it "Stop&Barf"
Perpetual Grievance
A lot of us who called it Poverty Supreme also shopped there, because it was all we could afford. So you are mistaking self-deprecation as some sort of attack on your own personal story. You do that a lot, but not everything is about calling out your particular tribe.
Come on, John. It’s a joke.
And the people who called it poverty supreme were the people who shopped there. This guy was drinking Tuborgs and watching Dana Hersey in the Movie Loft with his buddies. Not exactly little lord Fauntleroy stuff.
That's Not The Point
Would you walk into Price Rite today in Roslindale, and say "Hey - Look at all the poor people who can't afford Whole Foods"?
Saying Poverty Supreme (Which I never heard until today) is degrading the people who worked there and shopped there.
The people who worked and shopped there
We called it that.
As much as you aspire to being Abe Simpson yelling at clouds, let's just say you are really too young to understand this particular cultural nuance.
You probably don't know who Little Joe Cook is, or ever set foot in the Cantab, either.
I'm not sure John ever set foot in one
To have experienced being a regular shopper at Poverty Supreme would lead to understanding the joke. Clearly he doesn't understand the joke, despite it being explained several times in this thread.
Fuck You
How about that?
Having to help my mother take groceries back on the bus from the one in Fields Corner is what I remember.
Saving receipts from the one in Adams Corner to get dinnerware. How about that?
It's all we could afford.
We also knew that it was impolite to make fun of a kid on Free Lunch or the kid who had plastic coins back from a certain bakery in Fields Corner that gave you back "their" money when you paid with food stamps.
So, back off on the gallows humor of where people shopped. It was all they had.
Playing the poor card
You ain't never lived in a trailer or a crime-blighted trailer court. You've never gone hunting or fishing or foraging for food at the end of the month. Ever turned in bottles to buy enough hamburger for dinner on the day before payday? Picked berries or beans in the fields to make enough money for school events? Drank powdered milk from the feed store?
If you want to play White Poverty Olympics, you need to clear the qualifying rounds. I'm game.
I know, right!
He thinks he's the only person here who has ever been poor, and is therefore uniquely qualified to discuss it. I could tell some stories, but I'm not self-centered like John is.
Definition
Self-deprecation:
the act or habit of belittling or undervaluing oneself; excessive modesty, *often as a form of humor*
The Point Is
No! We would ABSOLUTELY NOT say detrimental things about those who can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods! A lot of people who shop at Whole Foods can’t even afford to shop there and it’s getting harder to afford shopping at just about any grocery store today.
What a killjoy!
You mean Whole Paycheck?
Lighten up
Poverty Extreme
Was not about the people who shopped there. It was about the condition of the store. Lots of us call Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck" -- that's about their prices, not the shoppers.
The Poverty on the Allston/Brookline line (now a TJ Maxx) was nasty, too, although it didn't hold a candle to the filthiness of the Central Square location. They built a fancy one in Allston where the Stop & Shop is now and it was shiny & new but we still called it Poverty.
Ahh the memories...
I bought the cheese grater I STILL use at the one in Central Square. And in the summer of '84, I literally dug change from my car seats to buy macaroni salad at the one on the Allston/Brookline line. (And I think I even drank a Tuborg or two from their liquor store.)
This is exactly what I was afraid would happen!
John, Please lighten up! In regard to Central Square’s “Poverty Supreme” rest assured it was an insider-joke—we all shopped there (reluctantly) and called it that! We were making light of the ridiculously horrendous surroundings of that market!
Don’t you have any fond memories of earlier times in your life when people used a bit of perverse humor to get through an unpleasant experience?
or as we used to call it in college
Puberty Sublime.
The one in Central Square in Cambridge was so gross. My roommates and I were so relieved when Bread & Circus opened up on Prospect St. so we had an alternative. Just thinking about it gives me the creepy-crawlies.
Poverty Supreme
You mean Poverty Supreme in Central Square?
I remember it well
Thank you for that! Was going to mention its old, familiar moniker when I read this earlier, but feared someone would find it offensive in these very sensitive times. Central Square has seen good times and bad, yet it keeps on ticking like a trusty old Timex!
We called it Poverty Extreme
And that location in Central Square was the most disgusting supermarket I've ever been in. It was small and it was filthy. It was well worth the hike down to the Stop & Shop on Mem Drive (while that existed) or up to Stah on Beacon. Or getting on the Red Line to Porter in the days before it took an hour to go between Central and Porter.
Exactly
When I say we were grateful for the Bread & Circus opening, it wasn't that we had extra money - it's that the PS in Central Square was so horrible that it was worth scrimping other places (and B&C wasn't so outrageously expensive back in 1980). We all would have been happy to have any other supermarket at a similar price point in walking distance that was clean, didn't have rotting food, and wasn't vermin-ridden.
If I remember correctly
The place was half seedy liquor store, too - place where you could get Boons Farm and nips
Was just telling a young
Was just telling a young person who lives in Allston about how the PS on Harvard Ave on Brookline line was one of the worst supermarkets I've ever been in about 30 years ago- also a reminder as to how radical the Star Market down the road on Comm. Ave was when it opened in 1995
Those things were built solid
Those things were built solid with no skimping on metal quality and heft. Just like the sturdy brown thick paper bags it carried
With all kids having fun riding on it. Now store carts are made like all of our street sign thin metal poles that rust and bend and break right out of the sidewalks shortly after they are installed.
A classic cruiser.
A classic cruiser.
Isn't Purity Supreme
the older brother of Vermin Supreme?
I believe he is also a perennial candidate, but, since his kid brother is already running for President, he has to run for something else, I forget what. God, probably.
I think she's his sister
If you think in terms of Puritan naming conventions.
Yes, but
it is High Weirdness naming conventions, or unconventions, that apply here. Purity as a sister's name is not weird.
This thread is perfect Boston
People arguing about the colloquial nickname of a supermarket that closed almost 30 years ago.
LOL!
You nailed that on the head!
They're all posting to UHub
while drinking their coffee at Charbucks.
While we're on the topic, in
While we're on the topic, in our circles Bread & Circus was known as "Bread & Ripoff." KFC: "Kentucky Fried Rat Lips"
I wish they were still around
Mattapan is a bit of a food ghetto unless you count Walgreens and corner/convenience/bodega stores. Not much variety between the three types.
America's Food Basket is the new Purity's.