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!

Food, glorious food! Nutella and more

I know I promised to talk about our new flat (aka apartment) today. But seriously – who am I kidding? – I really need to share the wonders of the British supermarket with you first.

No, that wasn’t sarcasm, but genuine pleasure.

Milk tastes SO good here! I was expecting the milk situation here to be similar to that in France (where every bottle of milk is pasteurized ten billion times so it can be stored on the dry goods shelves like Parmalat) but I forgot that Britain is a country of dairy farmers – and their milk ROCKS! And not just the organic stuff – just normal grocery store brand milk is SO GOOD! You should come visit just to try the milk.

Milk’s probiotic cousin, yogurt, comes in amazing flavors here (just like France.) Exhibit A:

That label on the right reads “notoriously nutty” – a delicious hazelnut yogurt (or yoghurt because the Brits also don’t know how to spell) with lots of hazelnut pieces inside. The Activia flavor (or flavour) is rhubarb and it is DELICIOUS! Yet another lactose-linked reason to visit.

Now on to a product I am sure you are all very familiar with: behold, Nutella. Everyone knows how wonderful it is. But... I swear it tastes better here!! (Attention all my study-abroad friends – didn’t Nutella taste better in France too?? Back me up here!) I hypothesize that it’s because of the glass jars. I think the plastic jars they use to ship their product to the states doesn’t retain the flavor as well. But for whatever reason, it tastes sublime, and I – unfortunately – discovered a disastrously dangerous combination.

*Drumroll please*

Pretzels dipped in Nutella!!!!

My poor husband scoured several stores and many aisles in a quest for pretzels last night, and now when he comes home he’ll find his stash obliterated. Oh well. It was worth it. In fact, I suggest going out and buying some (superior) American pretzels and (inferior) American Nutella and going to town.

Attention Nutella execs! I’m available for promotional gigs!

(Life rule #1 - always lick the spoon.)

Another way you can share in my British supermarket adventure is head to a fancy Manhattan grocery store and buy some of these McVitie's biscuits.They are delicious. And definitely expensive when imported, but not expensive here! Yum! Milk chocolate coated whole-wheat biscuits. My heart just skipped a beat. (not sure if it was gastronomic excitement or cholestrol.)

Lastly, since we’re meeting some of Chris’ British friends for drinks and dinner tonight, I though I’d end with some philosophizing on the state of alcoholic beverages in British grocery stores.

You remember how yesterday I said that the Brits are perfect embodiments of moderation? Well, you can just throw that theory out the window where alcoholic consumption is concerned. They drink SO much. Particularly, SO much BEER! But not necessarily good beer. In fact Budweiser is pervasive. But at least the Budweisers are super sized. Yup that’s right, every single can of beer (not just Bud) is this size:

Brits complain about Starbucks coffees and BigMacs being too big, but look at the size of the beers! I think this is a cultural difference we could get accustomed to ;)

And to end with a pretty, pretty picture…. Behold! Italian wine in a ….

Can???

Yum! Yes, my friends, not only was it less than two pounds, it was also two glasses worth, and delicious, and fun, and in a can decorated with pink scrolls and flowers! What more could a very tired girl ask for? Not too much.