Food! Very, very important, as I'm sure you all know. And of course England has kind of a bad reputation for food. When people would comment "Oh, I hope you're not going for the food, heh heh...", I would just kind of brush it off and say that it's no big deal, I've found plenty of stuff there that I actually enjoy eating. Much like when people would say "Oh, I hope you're not going for the weather, heh heh...", I would also respond with some comment that it wasn't *that* bad, and for all the times I'd visited London, I actually found it to be rainier in other parts of Europe, when I would visit them (France, Germany, Poland...). But no. The stereotypes are true. And now that I've had to live here on a regular basis, I see yes, the weather is that bad. (I guess it doesn't help that there was unusually high rainfall shortly after I got here. Maybe it was my hazing. UK asking me "Are you sure about this? Can you handle it?"). And the food is that bad. Now that I'm no longer on "holiday mode" food-wise, I'm getting to see what all the fuss (or should I say despair) is all about.
I've already complained about the fruits, so I won't revisit that. But I will also say that I'm used to hearty American preservatives and genetic modifications and whatever other freakish stuff they do to our foods so that it lasts exceptionally long without going bad. But here, fruits and cheese and yogurt and things are going bad a lot faster than I'm used to. My friend who responded to my fruit post was right, fruits can go from unripe to rotting/bad/moldy, with little to no "good" eating time in between. But enough of the complaints. One plus to produce here is that I do get more of a variety of things that I'd find (or find for cheap) in the states. Bagged salads (with which I have a love/hate relationship) here most often have much more than just lettuce and few bits of other veggies. Here they're made more often with the fun and different leafy green stuff - rocket, endive, novel bunny food type greens. I've actually seen lychees in the grocery store here. Also, many a leek to be found - I bought my first leek ever weeks ago to make soup.
And yes, the soup. Soup is one of my default easy, healthy, go-to pseudo meals. I would eat canned soup all the time for lunch at work. Having no Progresso here or Target's Market Pantry foods, I had to explore the realm of soup over here. Starting basic I tried canned chicken soup, thinking how could they possibly mess up chicken soup, it's so simple! Though it took some effort to find soups that weren't creamy. They sure seem to like their mushy creamy stuff here. Heinz brand chicken soup. Ok, a known brand, there are many Heinz products here that we don't really get regularly in the states. I simmer it up as directed, simple, noodles, broth, some carrots, maybe celery, some chicken bits. But when it was time to sit down in front of it to eat it, I start to notice - it's thick and slimy! Hesitantly, I try a spoonful. Yup, just as it looks, it tastes like mucus! Thick and glossy and viscous and a bit starchy (corn starch should not be in chicken soup! What's wrong with them?). Feeling bad for it, I managed to choke it down. It was still ok, in theory. But I would certainly never buy it again. Next adventure was with Morrison's (a local supermarket) canned pumpkin coriander soup. Ok, I like pumpkin. I like veggie-based pseudo meals. It could be good and healthy! Double double toil and trouble, I boil up this soup. And this one is even worse! It looked and tasted like a cross between mucus and baby poo. Seriously. I couldn't even have my usual food empathy towards this one, and had to just "bin it" as they say after a number of spoonfuls of wanting to try to like it, but failing miserably. Determined to have some good recognizable soup, next time around I settled for good old chicken flavoUred instant ramen. Chicken ramen is one of my guilty, junk food pleasures. I grew up on the stuff as a kid - cold winter weekend days playing in the snow, and coming in for a nice bowl of chicken ramen. So the ramen made me feel better and back to normal, but I really don't like eating 400 cheap calories of nutritional void on a regular basis. Next attempt was Morrison's healthy "NuMe" line of "cup soup". Pour soup packet in a mug, add boiling water, let it sit and constitute into "food", and eat. Sounded kind of like ramen, only with fewer calories. Well I prepared it, and no kidding there's fewer calories, the amount of "noodle" in there was pretty much the equivalent of the end little noodle bits in the ramen package, after you add the brick of noodle to the boiling water. I seriously had to boil up some spare pasta myself just to make a real meal out of it. But then, my latest attempt was the soup I'd been looking for. Knorr "super noodle" chicken soup. A packet of short noodle bits with seasonings and chicken powder that you add to boiling water. Double double toil and trouble, and yes! Yes! It's looking right! All of the wonderful almost fluorescent greenish yellow glow and excessive delicious sodium content of ramen, but for less than half the calories. Win! The package does claim "Meets FSA 2012 salt targets" (?..?..), but then again, a "serving size" is a quarter of the packet. I make a meal out of the whole thing!
Speaking of nutrition facts, that is one thing slowing me down in the grocery stores here, these days. Nutrition labels aren't as nicely graphically laid out for you as they are in the states. They typically just throw all the facts into one messy paragraph, somewhere on the package near the ingredients. And also they often have calories per 100g, and calories per serving. But not always. It's certainly not regulated like it is in the US, and even feature different and fewer vitamin and mineral bits of info (no iron listing, no calcium...). And I am a label reader. Especially when I'm getting accustomed to a whole new realm of food here. I'm also slowed down by the awe and exploration of looking deep at what's actually in the food aisles here. And also, I'm still learning what's where in my neighborhood supermarkets. It took me all too long to find plain ol' black olives. Canned vegetables? No. (Though they did have a whole section for beans and peas. Ew.) International foods? Like maybe near the artichokes and other jarred veggies in different ethnic sections? No. After aimlessly wandering, I passed by the "pickle" section, and lo and behold, there they were. I guess many things are considered to exist in the "pickle" genre, such as these olives, vast arrays of chutneys, and also, yes, pickles.
Another thing that was a letdown are some of there Christmastime goodies. Hubby and I were feeling seasonally festive and decided to try this so-called "Christmas pudding". ("pudding" here means pretty much any dessert in general). It was in the desert section of menus and available in supermarkets, so we tried a couple, and were less than impressed. My take on it is that "Christmas pudding" is the chance for bakeries to save up their miscellaneous pan scrapings all year, maybe mix in some orange peels (sure, dip into their compost collection, why not), nuts, maybe raisins, mash it all into this dome shaped moUld, pour some booze all over it, and try to pass it off as a dessert. Bleh. We just couldn't take it. Then there were all these mince pies (fruity dessert ones, not actual meat) around, people would bring them into work to share, they got recognition as their own course at the company Christmas party dinner. Ok, they are quite cute. Let's see what the fuss is all about... (though deep down inside I really knew, convinced that I'd tried them before, and never craved them again while in the UK for a reason). Yeah... no. Slightly more palatable than this "Christmas pudding", but still, just too many heavy and savory-spicy flavoUrs hitting you all at once. Maybe if I was desperate and it was the only dessert around when I was craving some, I could do it once in a while. But I had zero interest in nabbing any more off the desks of folks at work who would set them out to share.
On the plus side, I am exploring more interesting snack foods. Such as "bacon rashers". Think some Cheetos-like extruded corn/wheat/puffed substance, only shaped and flavoUred like bacon. Yeah, I kind of went to town on a bag of those for a few days... So bad, but so clever and tasty! Another "brilliant" find are salt and vinegar flavoUred peanuts. So flavoUrful! So yummy! It kind of reminds me of Pad Thai (at least how Pad Thai *should* be made), only without the noodles... or chicken... or veggies.
And lastly, I will just say that I deeply miss the wonderful variety of nutritional/breakfast bars that were in the States. Luna bars, Zone bars, Target brand knock-off Zone bars... a staple for me and my daily breakfasts! A healthy and yummy and happy way to start the day! But sadly, such things don't seem to exist in many forms here. Maybe just some Slim Fast bars. But that's not quite the same.
Oh well. Still super happy here, all in all! And my Big Box O Stuff that I'd shipped off from the states the day after the hurricane (30th October) *finally* arrived here to my flat. And I am happy to say that it looks like my kitchen will have enough room for all of cookware and bakeware. Excellent.
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