colmans has fallen in quality since closing the Norwich plant.
Marmite is just disgusting
English bacon is ok, but sausages are terrible
Here's what I would pay to have here in the UK. Supermacs Garlic Chips with Cheese. Sadly, McDonalds have successfully convince the courts that Supermacs outside of Ireland would cause brand confusion.
Brits can't do cheese on chips properly at all, they just chuck the cheese on the hot chips and all you get is a big clump of melted cheese on top of your chips.
Supermacs have a thick creamy garlic sauce that goes over the chips then you put finely grated Red Cheddar (not leicester) on top the the sauce, then when you dig out a chip you get sauce and cheese nicely spread out (not melted).
I've tried hundreds of english sausage varieties and been disappointed by all but one which was a spicy sausage and mash that they used to do in East Dulwich Tavern. They couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me who their supplier was.
Decent English sliced loaf. Other countries do great bread but it's just not the same for making toast and on the subject of toast baked beans to go with it.
Not sure about any of the rest. I think the range of quality non-english food that is easily available in the UK (well, in large UK cities) is what I'd miss.
maybe I was spoiled growing up in a city known as Pig Town due to the amount of pork products produced there. We had Mattesons, Shaws, Denny's and Galtee. The only one I have been able to get over here is Denny's and they're only on Ocado.
Also I love spanish and Italian food above all other cuisines but when I am in either country for more than a few weeks I crave the variety of food that is so easy to find here.
It's not the original Mattesons, they just bought the name. They ceased trading in the 80s during the looooong Irish recession. Their city centre plant is now the dole office.
Too thin, not enough variety of flavours. A proper butcher's sausage in England is like a completely different, and far superior, product altogether.
Irish butcher's sausages are better than the supermarket ones but are mostly confined to one or two types (peppered being the alternative to plain pork).
Kelly's do a decent black pudding but I still prefer the bury market version
I can understand that, as it is genuinely different from a traditional plain pork sausage. I hace to be careful when we buy a mixture for a bbq as the kids aren't fans due to the pepper spice
which is literally what I said the very first time I heard of them in 1988. Then one night after a feed of drink, a friend bought me some and I was hooked. Originally sold from Friar Tucks on Henry Street Limerick, the queue would go around the block. All the other chip shops were desperate to get the recipe and when they did, poor old Friar Tucks went out of business. Now Supermacs does them nationwide and every time my friends pick me up from the airport, they know to take me directly there to get my Garlic Chip and Cheese.
Doesn't have to be UK exactly but I would pay and have paid over the odds for good quality fresh dairy, eggs and wholemeal flour in countries where those are not standard supermarket staples.
re the oatcakes, yeah it should be easy to make a decent fine milled oatcake anywhere. BUt it seems not. Nairn's fine thin ones are v special. Not quite sweet, not entirely savoury*, perfect thickness and texture, ideal for whatever you are putting on them** or having on their own.
*because the taste buds' reaction to them keeps changing as the effect of the salivary amylase breaks down the starches and releases sugars. First they are slightly salty and grainy, not sweet, then the sweetness builds.
**because they do not overpower with their own flavours, but work like canvas for an oil painting.
I spent the weekend unwell with a Covid level cold. Two weeks of headaches like I was having a stroke then a chest infection. I sound like Barry White. I am coughing up stuff that has a consistency of blue tack. I am really finding the home stuff difficult. On it goes.
The triad of sausage rolls, pork pies, and scotch eggs. Available here only by mail order and at prices that would make you think they are gourmet items.
The British sausage is king among the saucciform. But to then mention the devil's phallus that is the lincolnshire is an abomination unworthy even of lucifer.
There is a good english ex pat community here on the west coast of Norway but the items usual highly prized items we can't get are:
-stilton
-Heinz baked beans with suasage (we can get notmal heinz beans)
-spaghetti hoops
proper sausage
Mince pies and mincemeat
lemsip (not allowed for sale here)
bisto gravy granuals
We have a lady who makes 30 jars of mincemeat each year for distribution and have managed to teach the local butcher how to make lincolnshire suasage. He will make 2 -3 batches a year but we have to pay in advance.
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HP sauce
Irn Bru
wine gums
UK chocolate (dpuble deckers, yorkies etc)
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I can't think of much really.
Well-kept English ale obvs.
Brannigans crisps (RIP) might have been on there too.
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Probably many of the above brands, together with fruit pastilles, purely for nostalgic reasons.
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Twiglets
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Hot cross buns
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There are plenty of British made stores in the US, t6hat specialise in just this sort of stuff if yu find yourself stranded over there
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colmans has fallen in quality since closing the Norwich plant.
Marmite is just disgusting
English bacon is ok, but sausages are terrible
Here's what I would pay to have here in the UK. Supermacs Garlic Chips with Cheese. Sadly, McDonalds have successfully convince the courts that Supermacs outside of Ireland would cause brand confusion.
Brits can't do cheese on chips properly at all, they just chuck the cheese on the hot chips and all you get is a big clump of melted cheese on top of your chips.
Supermacs have a thick creamy garlic sauce that goes over the chips then you put finely grated Red Cheddar (not leicester) on top the the sauce, then when you dig out a chip you get sauce and cheese nicely spread out (not melted).
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Eddie if you are not british I would not expect you to like Marmite. You are simply wrong about English sausages though.
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Black pudding
Cask ale but basically impossible to export unfortunately
Bread and butter pudding though it's not like its constituent ingredients are hard to get anywhere
Irn Bru
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Guy, they sell marmite in Ireland too.
I've tried hundreds of english sausage varieties and been disappointed by all but one which was a spicy sausage and mash that they used to do in East Dulwich Tavern. They couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me who their supplier was.
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Decent English sliced loaf. Other countries do great bread but it's just not the same for making toast and on the subject of toast baked beans to go with it.
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1
When I lived in the US I used to make my own bacon and bake my own bread as the local offerings were invariably terrible or cost a packet
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Sausage and bacon, 100%
Not sure about any of the rest. I think the range of quality non-english food that is easily available in the UK (well, in large UK cities) is what I'd miss.
Multiculturally delicious
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Marmite
HP sauce
Good cheese
basic crisps
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There’s a lot of shite in that list
Oatcakes
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HP
Sausages, Eddie is wrong, I already import them from Lincolnshire to the NW
Bacon or Cheese both depend where you are, acceptable local alternatives in Europe, inedible in the US.
Tea bags
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cannot be hard to make oatcakes mutters
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maybe I was spoiled growing up in a city known as Pig Town due to the amount of pork products produced there. We had Mattesons, Shaws, Denny's and Galtee. The only one I have been able to get over here is Denny's and they're only on Ocado.
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good point re access to other culinary traditions. When I have lived for prolonged periods abroad the food I have most missed is actually Indian food!
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Also I love spanish and Italian food above all other cuisines but when I am in either country for more than a few weeks I crave the variety of food that is so easy to find here.
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HP and decent T bags the only two things really when I patted.
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Mattesons exist over here being a UK manufacturer but synonymous with cheap mechanically recovered meat products.
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It's not the original Mattesons, they just bought the name. They ceased trading in the 80s during the looooong Irish recession. Their city centre plant is now the dole office.
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Eddie - I asked you this on another thread but you never answered - have you tried Billy Kissane sausages?? Omg yum!!
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The majority of Irish sausages are cack.
Too thin, not enough variety of flavours. A proper butcher's sausage in England is like a completely different, and far superior, product altogether.
Irish butcher's sausages are better than the supermarket ones but are mostly confined to one or two types (peppered being the alternative to plain pork).
Kelly's do a decent black pudding but I still prefer the bury market version
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Not surprised. What a bizarre combination.
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Actus, it's the peppery spicy flavour I seek.
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Defrosted fish.
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I can understand that, as it is genuinely different from a traditional plain pork sausage. I hace to be careful when we buy a mixture for a bbq as the kids aren't fans due to the pepper spice
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which is literally what I said the very first time I heard of them in 1988. Then one night after a feed of drink, a friend bought me some and I was hooked. Originally sold from Friar Tucks on Henry Street Limerick, the queue would go around the block. All the other chip shops were desperate to get the recipe and when they did, poor old Friar Tucks went out of business. Now Supermacs does them nationwide and every time my friends pick me up from the airport, they know to take me directly there to get my Garlic Chip and Cheese.
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Speaking as someone living abroad we pay stupid money for british:
Bacon
Black pudding
Gammon ham.
Lamb (welsh) although this really is only special occasions as it is crazy expensive.
I would also pay stupid money for British cheese if I had to but don't because it is very widely available.
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Doombar, but that might depend on the climate of the place I'm moving to.
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In my local British people's Facebook group it seems that one thing a lot of people crave is "a proper English Chinese" whatever the fúck that is.
We've got some of the best Asian food outside Asia but they want English Chinese.
For me it's kippers.
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A decent golden ale. Dartmoor legend, something like that.
NO I DON'T WANT ANY OF THE 47 DIFFERENT IPAs YOU SERVE. THEY ALL TASTE LIKE GRAPEFRUIT JUICE OR EARWAX.
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Cadburys chocolate.
Branston pickle.
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Doesn't have to be UK exactly but I would pay and have paid over the odds for good quality fresh dairy, eggs and wholemeal flour in countries where those are not standard supermarket staples.
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1
re the oatcakes, yeah it should be easy to make a decent fine milled oatcake anywhere. BUt it seems not. Nairn's fine thin ones are v special. Not quite sweet, not entirely savoury*, perfect thickness and texture, ideal for whatever you are putting on them** or having on their own.
*because the taste buds' reaction to them keeps changing as the effect of the salivary amylase breaks down the starches and releases sugars. First they are slightly salty and grainy, not sweet, then the sweetness builds.
**because they do not overpower with their own flavours, but work like canvas for an oil painting.
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i would save these from the waves in the shipwreck.
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On the subject of waves are you still above water?
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I prefer Tesco own Rough Oatcakes. I have them instead of dinner at least twice a week. Nairns are nice too, just not my favourite.
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Marmalade. I go through jars of the stuff. I love it.
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sails
above water… mmm not sure.
I spent the weekend unwell with a Covid level cold. Two weeks of headaches like I was having a stroke then a chest infection. I sound like Barry White. I am coughing up stuff that has a consistency of blue tack. I am really finding the home stuff difficult. On it goes.
Thank you for asking.
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I wouldn't and didn't when I was living abroad for a long time.
Coming back having taken the foods and wines and beers in the host countries, Brit stuff is really shyte, though I thought it was before I left.
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I was thinking more of the flooding over West Sussex way as don't need that to compound your woes.
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i pay over the odds for marmite when I am in the us for a few months at a time
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The triad of sausage rolls, pork pies, and scotch eggs. Available here only by mail order and at prices that would make you think they are gourmet items.
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So far the silly money has gone towards:
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Always take marmite on self catering hols abroad.
If it were America? Think I’d need an entire British greengrocer and deli in my suitcase
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The British sausage is king among the saucciform. But to then mention the devil's phallus that is the lincolnshire is an abomination unworthy even of lucifer.
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Your wrongness is beyond measure.
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Cadburys chocolate
Robinsons Orange Squash
Occasionally some Heinz beans
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Any Cadbury’s chocolate.
All the chocolate.
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Wheat Crunchies
Hula Hoops
Lemon Drizzle Cake
Horseradish Sauce
Mint Sauce
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Wheat crunchies are possibly the worst savoury snack of the last half century - you are a sick puppy
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Snack of the Gods, Guy…
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Ribena.
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regularly pay thru the nose for:
Hellmann's mayonnaise
Branston pickle
Branston's baked beans (the superior brand)
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and Yorkshire Tea, of course. But that's a given.
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There is a good english ex pat community here on the west coast of Norway but the items usual highly prized items we can't get are:
-stilton
-Heinz baked beans with suasage (we can get notmal heinz beans)
-spaghetti hoops
proper sausage
Mince pies and mincemeat
lemsip (not allowed for sale here)
bisto gravy granuals
We have a lady who makes 30 jars of mincemeat each year for distribution and have managed to teach the local butcher how to make lincolnshire suasage. He will make 2 -3 batches a year but we have to pay in advance.
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1
Having lived abroad for 10yrs, the answer was Hp Sauce
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and british chocolate
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Pork Scratchings
Cadburys Milk Chocolate
Wiltshire Ham
Melton Mowbray Pork Pies
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I am surprised there are not full blown british supermarkets in HK given no of expats out there
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