FoodGloriousFoodFridays

7 reasons why I heart British grocery stores

1. Ode to Tropicana juices sold on the British Isles: Oh Florida orange juice, when I first arrived here I mistakenly bought our regular plain orange juice and bemoaned the clearly inferior orange taste. But behold! Here in Britain, you are not content to appear garbed purely in orange! Orange and passionfruit! Orange and lime! Orange and watermelon! Orange and raspberry! Orange and pineapple! Orange and mango! All freshly-squeezed! All delicious! Now if only you came in something other than a midget-sized 1-litre container….

2. Speaking of juices. I heart apple and elderflower juice. Brits love and consume their apple juice in proportion to how Americans love and consume their orange juice. (Although I still haven’t seen a container of anything here – not even beer - that is as big as those jumbo orange juice bottles back home.) The apple juice is always cloudy and so scrumptious – no triple-filtered, triple -pasteurized, sugar-water here! – and it is especially scrumptious with the added elderflower juice. Elderflower is SO good. Tart and indescribable and you MUST try and find some at your local fancy grocery store because it is one of these things that I know I will pine for if/when we move back to the States!

3. Fruits and Veggies. To everyone that warned me that I would be disappointed in the leafy green department – I am so glad to inform you that you were so very wrong! The fruit and veg here is of superior quality and variety and value than what I was used to back home. 4 passion fruit for 1 pound? And a container of absolutely PERFECT strawberries for 1.50? They also package berries only in one layer, with a thin strip of bubble wrap on the bottom so the berries don’t get bruised and ruined. I obviously can't speak for grocery stores in the rest of England, but fruit&veg here in the capital rocks.

4. Pasteurization. Everything here, from juices to cheese to milk, is single pasteurized. I don’t know if everyone is aware of this, but everything in the states is usually triple pasteurized – aka destroyed of flavor and goodness but capable of staying fresh for an (unnaturally) long time.

5. Milk. Because of the above single-pasteurization the milk here tastes SO MUCH BETTER!! Not kidding at all. It is SO good. The only drawback is that it goes sour SO quickly. You have to consume within 3 days of opening it. If I didn’t live 2 minutes from the grocery store I might find this a drawback – but seriously – when you come visit us – have a glass of cow nectar!

6. French cheeses. Again with the pasteurization. You can buy raw milk cheeses of all varieties in the ho-hum pedestrian super market! You can buy every imaginable type of French cheese – pasteurized or not. And they are inexpensive. And delicious. And it is so lovely.

7. Bonne Maman brand chocolate mousse and crème caramel cups. You know the French brand that makes those pretty darn good (but pricey) jams and fruit spreads available in the US? Well it’s too bad we don’t live closer to France, because I’m pretty sure they would export (and we would happily devour) their refrigerated desserts to us too if they could. The chocolate mousse is airy and rich at the same time, so chocolate-y and divine. It tastes like a million bucks, but only cost a few pennies per serving. If only you could scoop it out into pretty glass dishes and claim creator-ship without mussing up the texture. You can, however, pretend to have made the crème caramels. Invert those bad boys over a pretty plate and pretend you’re in a posh French brasserie. Ahhh, c’est merveilleux!

Bon weekend a tous!