Emily Mester's childhood was punctuated by an excess of what she calls "getting." In her debut collection of essays, American Bulk, she explores how our lives are impacted by what we consume.
Evan Kleiman: I so enjoyed your collection of essays. It's wonderfully written and fantastic food for thought.
Emily Mester: Oh, thank you for reading.
Did your family have a designated shopping day?
Yes, it was Sunday. Not to say that shopping did not occur outside of Sunday, but Sunday was sort of, we didn't go to church, but that was kind of our day of retail. We would go to Costco, then before the Costco trip, which was every Sunday, we would go to REI sometimes or Service Merchandise or weird pet stores or Sam's Club. It was old, but yeah, Sunday was always the shopping day.
Was there a list? Or was it a free-range shopping experience for all members of the family?
Absolutely no list. My mom, because Costco does not actually sell a lot of the stuff you need, or not in the quantities you need, she would go regular grocery shopping during the week. She had a list, but yeah, we would go under the guise of necessity, like, "Oh, I have to do my shopping." But no, it would be sort of like my dad would get another tool kit, a pack of scissors, another box of Sharpies. Nothing really that sexy but, I think, exciting to him.
It was also exciting for the kids because I feel like we couldn't get absolutely anything we wanted, but certainly the ability to acquire things, it felt like the reins were loosened. The one thing I was never allowed to get, for some reason, was the really oversized stuffed bear that they sell at Costco. I'm not sure why. Maybe they just had to draw an arbitrary limit there.
Emily Mester remembers her parents buying frozen pizzas and trays of croissants at Costco. Photos by John Khuszagh.
I don't know who gets to have that bear.
Who does get to have that bear?
I know. Were there any particular food or beverage products that were always put in the cart on those Sunday excursions?
Oh, yeah. Where do I begin? The Costco croissants, for one. They have the big chocolate chip cookies. Surprisingly, not the rotisserie chicken. I'm not really sure why, because that is the best deal in the chicken world. Packets of little bites, brownies, so many frozen pizzas.
I feel like Costco has some stuff that's truly for restaurants and it's industrial vats of mayo and giant bags of rice. And I always would be like, "Could we get those?" And my parents were like, "No." Even they drew the line. But occasionally the catering stuff. So they have a chicken parmesan. And then they have these, anytime I go I can clock that they're from Costco, these pinwheel sandwiches you can buy in a little tray.
I love that. So would you guys buy the pinwheel sandwiches to take home?
Yeah, sometimes my parents would be like, "Why don't we? We're not hosting, but I would get them to buy them." There's also the Babybel cheeses. It's a lot of the same stuff that people bought at regular grocery stores. But it was so much of it that it felt maybe in how much we were buying it, it felt like it defined my childhood, even more than if we had gotten a normal amount. Because it just was always like… those croissants were always a little cardboard tray of the croissants on the table, or a giant canister of cheese puffs or something like that. It was just like an endless supply of that food.
"American Bulk" is a collection of essays documenting the country's habits of consumption. Photos courtesy of W.W. Norton.
You say that the joy of Costco doesn't lie in thrift, it lies in bulk. Can you explore that idea a little bit and what that need for us to have mass quantities says about us?
Sure. I think Costco is undeniably a good deal for those that can afford to buy in bulk. It's a great deal. And it's not why people go there. But I feel [that] for my family and for other people, there's also this excitement of a big pack of toilet paper or all of the soda cans you'd ever need.
I really came to think about this a lot when COVID happened and people who had never experienced that kind of scarcity were experiencing it for the first time. They had the money to buy cans of beans or toilet paper, hand sanitizer or baby formula, and they couldn't. It is really scary. So I think it's really comforting to have more than you need, to have backups, to never experience reaching into the pocket and it's empty. I think a lot of people fear that, and I fear that. It's why I have backups for anything I really like. I have a backup for… even though what's the worst thing that happens if I run out of toothpaste? I have to go buy a new tube. But I think people want to just have it on deck and ready to go.
What do you think of the current elevation of Costco by a lot of shoppers, that many are pivoting from Walmart and Target to Costco?
It's been really interesting. I feel like Costco is occupying maybe the cultural space that Target did once, or maybe still does, where it's seen as kind of higher end. It's a destination in and of itself. It's not like Walmart, [which] no one ever sees as, "Oh, I'm just gonna browse and see what's there." But Target has been that. And I think Costco people want to see… there's this Instagram account I follow. I think it's called, Costco Does It Again. I don't know why I follow it. I don't really go to Costco that much anymore, but it's like, "Ooh, look. Costco has this specific brand of vegetarian meatball." Or, like, "Wow, look at this great deal on Smartwool socks. Costco does it again." It's one of the strongest shared cultural experiences we have. We don't all watch the same TV shows anymore, we don't all listen to the same music, but we do, a lot of us at least, shop at the same handful of stores.