Do you order foods from your homeland for comfort??

[Irish Lass 1]

Every so often I just have to place an expensive online order to get some brand name foods from the homeland. I'm expecting a delivery tomorrow and am as excited as a kid at Christmas waiting for the package of tasty goodness.

I'm getting:

Boiling Bacon for bacon and cabbage.

Parsley Sauce for bacon and cabbage dinner.

Knorr Curry Sauce for curry chips.

Bisto Chip Shop Curry for more curry chips.

Mushy Peas... just to eat on their own right from the can!!

Bachelors Baked Beans for beans on toast.

Real Rashers.... need I say more?

Birds Strawberry Trifle Mix... it's been so long since I've had good custard.

Potato Croquettes.. they just don't have anything close to them here.

Taytos Multi Pack.. munch munch

And sadly that was all I could afford this time, the shipping is insane

I'm saving the bacon and cabbage dinner for Sunday as it's for my husbands birthday dinner treat, he fell in love with that meal when in Ireland

So what are everyones guilty pleasures??????

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

I am bringing in my lugage when we fly over:

- Lyons Tea and Lady Grey.

- McVitie's Dark chocolate covered Digestives.

- Bisto gravy granules.

Already arranged a swap with an Irish friend whereby he'll send me supplies of the above and I'll send back peanutbutter chocolate stuff

- Green&Black's Coco powder.

- SMA follow-on milk and Liga rusk for the twins.

- Herbamare herbal salt

- Assorted Swiss chocolates (dark and coffee)

- Ricola herbal sweets.

I am assuming you know http://www.foodireland.com/

[Irish Lass 1]

Oh digestives sound sooo good, I'll have to get them next time round. And Liga, my all time favourite

Yes, foodireland.com is where I ordered from

I am bringing in my lugage when we fly over:

- Lyons Tea and Lady Grey.

- McVitie's Dark chocolate covered Digestives.

- Bisto gravy granules.

Already arranged a swap with an Irish friend whereby he'll send me supplies of the above and I'll send back peanutbutter chocolate stuff

- Green&Black's Coco powder.

- SMA follow-on milk and Liga rusk for the twins.

- Herbamare herbal salt

- Assorted Swiss chocolates (dark and coffee)

- Ricola herbal sweets.

I am assuming you know http://www.foodireland.com/

[Reba 2]

I usually order a couple boxes of stuff 'round Christmas time for me and hubby from www.canadianfavourites.com and sometimes I'll order Brit food on-line, but I can't seem to find the shop I used to order from (they were in Virginia, so shipping didn't cost me too much).

I wish there was just one Commonwealth shop or somethin, so I could save myself the hassle of having to order from multiple sites for Canadian and British favourites.

Maybe some enterprising young VJ'er could take up the task eh?

[britty 1]

I usually order a couple boxes of stuff 'round Christmas time for me and hubby from www.canadianfavourites.com and sometimes I'll order Brit food on-line, but I can't seem to find the shop I used to order from (they were in Virginia, so shipping didn't cost me too much).

I wish there was just one Commonwealth shop or somethin, so I could save myself the hassle of having to order from multiple sites for Canadian and British favourites.

Maybe some enterprising young VJ'er could take up the task eh?

Reba there was a british shop in old town alexandria here in VA who I believe had online ordering, however, the owner sadly had a bout of ill health and the shop had to be closed. Maybe this is the same store that you ordered from? My must haves are hula hoops, bisto, ambrosia creamed rice, kerrygold butter, galaxy chocolatge, jacobs cream crackers. I can luckily get all those here in VA at three different stores. We also have an irish fish and chip shop that imports irish food including soda bread (yum), and red lemonade. My parents are irish so i was raised on soda bread and red lemmo !

[Dr. Obvious 49]

My husband about passed out from joy yesterday to see Hela curry ketchup at a German specialty store here. However, we couldn't justify spending nearly $6 bucks on a tiny bottle of ketchup he will eat in five seconds.

Occasionally, MIL sends us things from overseas, but we really can't justify the price of some of these products to buy in a specialty shop. I think the only things we buy here are Beck's, Warsteiner, Hengstenberg Apfelrotkohl and mysterious curry ketchup from the German aisle in Meijer. IKEA has a very heavy bread mix that we buy whenever we are up there to sub for traditional brick-through-a-window bread.

Good thing we are going back soon. Some things we miss you just can't send through the mail like chicken doeners. We miss those horrible, horrible things.

[Mrs.J06 4]

Yesss!!! I miss some meat/sausage products from Germany which can't be imported and bread, bread, bread (yes wacken the brick-through-window stuff - love that expression).

Of the legal things, I ask friends and family to every once in a while send me:

Haribo Gummies (whatever available, I'll eat it all)

Ritter Sport and Milka Chocolate

Knorr Salad dressing (powder)

Schokokuesse (chocolate covered marshmallows, sort of)

Some hard candy like Nimm-Zwei

around Christmas it's Lebkuchen (Gingerbread) and Dominosteine (sorry, don't know how to translate...)

mmmhhh now I'm hungry....

For German foods, have you ever tried ordering stuff from German Deli? Very nice selection and great service, but of course quite pricey...

[NickyMcMillan 0]

Very lucky here in Chicago. We have a store called Gaelic imports.. they have EVERYTHING!! Got tons of Irn Bru, scotch pies (real ones!) sausage rolls, walkers crisps, taytos, lots of breakfast stuff (bacon, scottish bangers, black/white pudding) soda bread etc etc

Ohh and tons of Cadburys chocolate too.

Well stocked up with HP brown sauce, typhoo tea & chefs vinegar too. Going to have my mum bring over stuff when she visits in January.

Edited September 25, 2008 by NickyMcMillan

[Laura+Tom 2]

Yesss!!! I miss some meat/sausage products from Germany which can't be imported and bread, bread, bread (yes wacken the brick-through-window stuff - love that expression).

Of the legal things, I ask friends and family to every once in a while send me:

Haribo Gummies (whatever available, I'll eat it all)

Ritter Sport and Milka Chocolate

Knorr Salad dressing (powder)

Schokokuesse (chocolate covered marshmallows, sort of)

Some hard candy like Nimm-Zwei

around Christmas it's Lebkuchen (Gingerbread) and Dominosteine (sorry, don't know how to translate...)

mmmhhh now I'm hungry....

For German foods, have you ever tried ordering stuff from German Deli? Very nice selection and great service, but of course quite pricey...

I'm sure you can get that in the US, because everytime I saw it Tom would try and tempt me as he knows I love that stuff.

[Jeraly 4]

Mmm - We can't afford to order online - the things that I miss are decent sausages (the different flavoured Asda Extra Special ones were lush!) and bacon. Other than that, oxo cubes are really handy as stock seems to be expensive here and vegetable stock cubes are practically non-existent!!

[StillThePrettiest 3]

a tip for people missing British things - try Indian / Pakistani / similar shops, if you have any in the area

I like cooking that sort of food, so have been into a few to explore (after things like couscous, nigella seeds, decently priced - and a good range of - curry pastes and powders, that sort of thing) and found all manner of random British things as well - Weetabix, Bird's custard powder, PG Tips, Ribena... the latest one I discovered had a whole British chocolate section! with Lion bars, Bounty, Cadbury's, Yorkies... can't even remember it all

oh, and they have a huge range of Knorr and Maggi stock, Jeraly, and it was VERY reasonably priced

and I know I said elsewhere, but just in case it's helpful - I found German style bread (as well as a PLETHORA of German and British stuff) in the Spec's downtown, here in Houston... they're a liquor store, but this one outlet has a gourmet food place attached

so I guess the moral of the story is: look where you think the stuff might be, and look where you think it might not be; you may be surprised

[Jeraly 4]

We're quite lucky in that grocery stores around here stock Pataks and have a pretty decent "foreign" section with things like various pastes and sauces as well as couscous, coconut milk etc. And we found out that Jeremy *loves* wasabi - we found a tube of wasabi paste in World Market for a mere $1.99!!

[StillThePrettiest 3]

oh, the grocery stores here have some supplies too, but usually the choice is limited, and it's all more expensive than in those other stores

and my main point was not that you can get Indian / Pakistani stuff there, but that you might be surprised by the UK provisions they also have

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Yesss!!! I miss some meat/sausage products from Germany which can't be imported and bread, bread, bread (yes wacken the brick-through-window stuff - love that expression).

Haribo Gummies (whatever available, I'll eat it all)

For German foods, have you ever tried ordering stuff from German Deli? Very nice selection and great service, but of course quite pricey...

My husband loves Haribo, particularly the licorice. Occasionally we'll pick some gummi bears up at CVS or something, but like most things, it is overpriced compared to what we *know* it costs. I am interested in going to the grocery store when we go back to Germany. I have heard so much on the German news about inflation (particularly when it comes to food), so I wonder what all is different in pricing. I.am.a.dork.

Have you tried the IKEA Swedish rye bread? It is stupid easy to make and about the only thing I have found here that comes close to what I had over there. There is a quasi-German bakery here. On their website it says they try to stay as German as possible so don't make this or that. My husband and I went there for the first time yesterday to buy a cake for a guy at work. Most of the cakes had buttercream frosting and were yellow, two things I basically never saw in Germany. Believe me, I at least was looking for the frosting. There was also no good vollkornbrot there that I really saw. Did have preztels and a few decent looking pastries. This was also the place where my husband found the ketchup of his dreams and there were also a few other nice grocery type things. Mostly though the place looked like grandma's house of nic-nacs blew up all over it. It was much like a German themed version of Cracker Barrell if anything. People here love it though and can't say enough good about it. They apparently have quite a large German language video collection. We couldn't spend a lot of time looking around though, had to run to get our kid from daycare.

There is a German butcher here and my mother bought some cuts of pork from him. They were pretty decent, I have to say. Otherwise, it is a bit of a drive out of the way and I am pretty lazy. I would really like some Katenschinken though for green beans and spinach though. I'll have to get down there one of these days.

[JenT 0]

For German foods, have you ever tried ordering stuff from German Deli? Very nice selection and great service, but of course quite pricey...

Has anyone ever tried www.karlehmer.com? That's the only deli meat we had in my house when I was a child.

Jen

...so I guess the moral of the story is: look where you think the stuff might be, and look where you think it might not be; you may be surprised

Very true!! I actually found some things in the packaged food area of Marshall's department store here in Michigan... jams and sweets....

Edited September 25, 2008 by JenT