Since I went on last week about the five British foods I'm excited to get snacking on, I thought it only fair to make mention of the Canadian/North American fare I'm going to longingly miss....though I'm sure my waistline won't.
1. Poutine. I don't care what I come across there in terms of post-bar alcohol sop-ups, poutine is the tops. I don't eat all that much of it here, but I'm sure I'm still eating more an a normal, healthy body should.
2. Candy. Ok, again, I have to believe I will find suitable replacements for most of the candy I adore, but I know, from working in the industry, that certain items just won't be available. I'm going to try to refrain from begging care packages of mint cookie malt balls, but I can't be certain I'll survive without them.
3. Christmas dinner. I love my new family and appreciate their traditions and British-y customs, but I have to say, Christmas dinner at my house is my favourite meal of the year (a close second being Thanksgiving....which is nearly the same). British Christmas will not include my aunt's sticks or the perogies and kapusta. Or the endless cosmos. Heaven help me if there's a goose involved instead of a turkey. I've had Christmas pudding...it's about as appealing as wet socks. I think, beyond all other foods, Christmas dinner will be my "woe is me" pinnacle.
4. Art-Is-In bread...or really anything Kevin makes, for that matter. This bakery is, far and away, one of my happiest of happy places. The product is amazing. All of it. Every single thing. I don't think a week goes by where I don't eat at least two things from here, if not more. And the energy and excitement pouring out of Kevin is awe-inspiring. He's so talented and I'm going to miss seeing what he comes up with in the next few years. He's the mad genius of the high end food world and I'm very fortunate to have gotten to know him just a teeny bit.
5. Barbecue. To be truthful, I don't know how much barbecue there is in the UK, and I'm sure there's plenty, but I can't imagine we're going to own a grill. Given that the majority of our meals are grilled once the snow melts, I'm going to find it very challenging if we don't have a BBQ. There's a particular steak spice that I'll actually be packing a jar of, just to ensure we have some in London.
So there we go, a Top Five Tuesday on food I'll miss.
Yep, Thanksgiving literally doesn't exist in the U.K, so you'll have to celebrate it yourselves kinda thing. Christmas Dinner is more or less the same but we have a few differences. There's 'Pigs in Blankets' which is sausage with bacon wrapped on, laced with sage etc... Also, Yorkshire puddings and parsnips, which are not as popular here.
ReplyDeleteAs for differing foodstuffs, Ha, I remember the first time I encountered cheese flavoured popcorn when I came here. My date handed me some in a dark cinema, and my first two words on tasting cheese was 'what the' and you''ll probably guess the third! I literally had never heard of it! Why would someone put cheese on popcorn! I have told a few friends back home about that, and they just shook their heads.
A lot of the candy you'll see in London is the same as here, there's no Hershey's though, and there's no Reeses peanut Butter Cups. There'll specialist stores though, such as Sugar Mountain is in the Byward Market here. The taste of British chocolate is different though.
Ohhh by the way, if your ever feeling truly homesick, there's a bar in Covent Garden which is 'Canadian'. I think it is named 'The Maple Leaf' or something Canadiana like that. You can get Keith's, Moosehead, Molson etc in there. You'll have to putup with the Roots-esque canoes and pictures of beavers etc on the walls though. I was in there maybe 2004/2005 time....
Ohhh by the way, don't let the media reports of the last few days put you off. Despite the idea of Britain being 'quaint' etc that I get all the time here, it is a modern industrialised nation with similar problems to other nations. London is huge (like T.O, MTL and Ottawa combined).
Poutine will be a miss, but believe you me, the Brits are the master of fried drunken food!