I have always been under the impression that the US is the food capital of the word - if not necessarily in quality, certainly in scope. You guys seem to have everything that the rest of the world has when it comes to food.
A recent thread made me change that idea - the fact that ou don’t eat offal of ANY description (even in steak and kidney pies!) came at quite a shock to me - how can you guys not like steak and kidney pie?
This got me thinking - what other foods are stupidly common in the UK, but simply unheard of in the US? I heard somewhere that baked beans in tomato sauce, although ubiquitious in the UK, are exceedingly rare in the US. Is this true? What other common foods don’t you have? Worcester Sauce? Gravy?
Well, in my limited experience, the average British supermarket has many more flavors of jam than the average American one, and a truly impressive variety of curry pastes, chutneys, and spice mixes – stuff that you’d never see outside of a specialty Indian grocery here.
I haven’t seen baked beans in tomato sauce in the US, but on the other hand I haven’t been looking for them. We do have Worcestershire sauce and gravy, unless there’s some specific kind of gravy you have in mind.
Oh, and I also saw a bottle labeled “American Style Peanut Ketchup” at a street market in the UK once – which confused me no end, because I’d lived in America my whole life and never heard of peanut ketchup. Dunno if that counts as a “common” food, though.
Chicken Kiev (breadcrumbed chicken breast stuffed with garlic butter)… available in every M&S in Britain, can’t get it here for love nor money.
Occasionally you can get it with coriander butter, but it just isn’t the same. Also, I’ve never seen Ryvita, not that I’m missing it…
or Vegemite (which I am).
I’ve seen frozen Chicken Kiev here. I just checked my pantry, and I have a can of Campbell’s pork & beans in tomato sauce. They aren’t strictly speaking “baked,” but there are other more expensive brands are really legally “baked.” Worcestershire Sauce is easy to find, as are various kinds of gravy. Unless by “gravy” you mean something other than the thickened “meat juice” type thing that you pour on turkey, beef or meat loaf. Then there is the seasoned tomato sauce that Italians call “gravy,” which you put on pasta.
I have no idea what Cadbury’s Flake is, though. There was another thread here a while back where a number of UK folks were talking about “biscuits,” which are supposedly similar to what we call “cookies.” It was apparent that they were writing of some delicacy of which we have absolutely no experience. Many of them sounded quite yummy.
It’s hard to say what other things are available in the UK that are not here, because, well, they are not here, so we don’t know we’re missing them!
Also it depends where in the US you’re referring to. In the greater NY-metropolitan area, and I’m sure in many other major city areas, there is a lot of variety in the ordinary grocery stores. If you get into other parts of the country, for example, you will be more likely to be limited to their regional specialties.
I once gave an American internet friend my Grandmother’s recipe for Christmas Pudding. It called for “beef suet”, and my friend couldn’t get it anywhere … in the end I had to send some over to her from the UK.
MLS… if you could remember where you saw the frozen chicken kiev (and whether it was the food of the gods with garlic butter, or the food of the trash can with coriander butter) I would be willing to pay in cash for such information…
Huh?? Every grocery store I’ve been to in Atlanta and Charlotte carries these. Not that they’re “fine dining”, but I can’t imagine finding Chicken Kiev would be that difficult.
I think that blood products and organ meats are the principal missing ingredients. I would guess that the only organ meat the vast majority of Americans have ever tried is liver. Blood as an ingredient is absolutely unheard of in the US.
I’m having a devil of a time finding any meats outside of the pork/turkey/chicken/beef/fish variety. I have to go to the Indian store to buy lamb and the Asian store to buy duck. I haven’t seen goat for sale anywhere. I can’t score pheasant, quail, dove, deer, goose, or any other kind of “game” meat, short of hunting it myself (yeah, right :rolleyes: ) or ordering it off the 'net at a huge markup.
Not sure if yer average English grocer has all these “exotic” meats I listed, but they’re certainly hard to come by on this side of the Pond.
There is a butcher store in Lockport,Illinois that carries a lot of game meat and various items listed. If you feel like doing a little traveling, let me know and I’ll find the exact name and address for you
I’ve lived in the Chicago area my entire life, and I’ve always been able to find the frozen Chicken Kiev with no problem in the major grocery chains. I think MLS is right, though - in major metro areas, you can find almost anything if you know where to go. I’m way out in the 'burbs, but I still have 2 or 3 different ethnic grocery stores within just a few miles.
