I had a friend over the other day and was making coffee for us both and asked him if he wanted a decent Instant coffee or if he wanted to try some Folger’s medium roast from the US.*
“Why am I not surprised you have American coffee in your fridge?” he commented as we were drinking it, and that got me thinking that I can’t be the only person who has a (semi-)regular supply of a foreign food that’s not readily available where they live.
In my case it’s Folger’s Coffee, Maggi Soup Mix, and NZ Jaffas. The NZ foods are fairly easy to get (there are shops that specialise in NZ foods, believe it or not, and I still have family in NZ) and whenever my Dad or I are in the US we stock up on Folger’s coffee; and if push came to shove I could always order it off the internet.
So, what foreign foods that aren’t readily available (ie from the Supermarket) do you still manage to maintain a regular supply of? And how much trouble do you have getting them?
*Yes, I know lots of you don’t think much of Folgers. I like it, however, and so does my Dad. That’s why we keep a cannister of it in our respective fridges.
Regular supplies:
Maggi soup mix (Onion, for dips)
NZ Marmite
NZ Vegemite (for the heathens in the family)
Things we get when we go to the NZ Shop but don’t last because they get consumed:
Pineapple Lumps
L&P
Moro bars
We go to the NZ Shop in Covent Garden when we go to London. We usually eat round there anyhow if we are in London for the day (Gourmet Burger Kitchen - yum), but we only go once every few months. We’ll probably head up before Christmas for a look at the lights.
#1 Ika No Shiokara (Squid bits fermented in guts, malted rice, and salt. I swear to Og it is amazing). The town where I lived had an asian grocery, but they didn’t stock any kind of shiokara, which meant driving an hour and a half to Columbus. But soon a new asian grocery popped up that carried not only squid but octopus varieties as well!
#2 Kombucha. This I could never get unless I made the trek to Columbus and paid top dollar. But I did, just the same.
Upon returning to Japan:
#1 Peanut butter. Good, natural, 'murican peanut butter. I haven’t found any place near me that sells it, so I have friends and family send me a jar every once in a while. On occasion I’ve resorted to buying peanuts and making it myself, but peanuts are pretty darn expensive where I live.
#2 Steel-cut oats. I order them online or have them sent from home. There are specialty shops in the neighboring cities that carry rolled oats, but how am I supposed to make goetta with those?
#3 Tim Tams. Developed a love for these from an Aussie classmate. Not so easy to find up here in the mountains, but if I make the JPY3000, 1.5 hour trip to get to Nagaoka, there’s a really nice import store that sells them for cheap. I usually stock up while I’m there and then hoard them.
#4 Cool Ranch Doritos. One supermarket in town carries Nacho Cheese Doritos. I buy those on occasion. But I <3 me some Cool Ranch Doritos. Unfortunately, they aren’t marketed in Japan, so getting those also involve trips to the aforementioned import store.
[Inigo Montoya]I do not think that emoticon means what you think it means.[/IM]
We can do without most stuff. But we found a store that usually stocks Bluebell Ice Cream, and as a native Texan, I just can’t resist. Damned if I know how they get it here; I’m pretty sure it’s all produced solely in Texas.
I keep a vast array of herbs, spices, and blends in my freezer, mostly purchased from Penzey’s but from many sources: for example, berbere from Ethiopia, amchur from India, boharat from Egypt, dried chilis from our garden in Hawaii (which is strictly for sentimental purposes, since chili is hardly hard to come by in Indonesia).
Coleman’s Shepherds Pie packet
Batchelors Baked Beans
McDonnel’s Medium Curry
Lakeshore Guinness Mustard (for use on a corned beef sandwich with swiss cheese and horseradish on rye…nom nom nom)
Powers whiskey.
The Powers is easy to come by, the rest I either buy online or get raped on price by going to the nearest Irish Crap store when I want fresh stuff like rashers or sausages or the occaisonal whites or blacks.
Mexican coke! It’s got sugar in it! And it’s in glass bottles! Bonus: my husband prefers the kind sweetened with corn syrup so he doesn’t raid my stash.
Japanese koala cookies in chocolate and strawberry. link I found them in a grocery store in Rochester, NY. The odd thing is, when I moved to Seattle and went to an actual Japanese grocery store and found them, they tasted…really odd. It was almost as though they’d used a different flavor, and they were kind of stale. It’s a shame. I haven’t really been interested in trying them again after that.
But the coke in the glass bottles makes up for it.
I have scoured the interwebs in search of Rani juice drinks.
Mmm this little containers hold amazing beverages . . .
I sampled them in Iraq during my first deployment and continued through the next one. Delicious. . . .oh I am going to try to search again, any insight dopers?
I have my friends send me ramen noodles and super-buttery microwave popcorn. I can stock up on peanut butter in the ‘weird food’ part of the grocery store.
There’s a shop a bit of a drive from my house that I’ll hit two or three times a year called Winston’s Market that specializes in all things Irish that I hit for the curry and for lots of other great stuff, and the Coleman’s packet, although every great once in a while the Meijers by my house will end up with a box of the Coleman’s, but nobody else gets any because I buy the whole carton.
Lay’s Original Flavour. I don’t get them *that *regularly. I’m obese enough as it is. Supposedly Walker’s is the same company but their crisps here taste like shit to me.
Several years ago a South African friend of mine got me addicted to biltong.
When he moved back home, my supply dried up. Then I got a new co-worker who’s married to a South African, and it turns out he jones for the stuff, too.
I looked up a couple recipes and they agreed to be my guinea pigs. Now we have a standing arrangement. Once a month she buys two big London broils, I do the work and we split the product.
Thanks man, I appreciate it. I don’t usually have that hard of a time since there’s a pretty big Irish community in Chicago. You know what…nah, I don’t suppose one can ship a pint of the black stuff from Dublin. Shame. I’ll stick with the artificial Canadian kind for now.
On the failure end of things: sadly, living in the Northeast U.S., I’ve had to resort to making my own hush puppies and not-oversweetened cornbread (I don’t know of any local sources for cooked-to-death greens either but I’m OK with that).
so he doesn’t raid my stash.