Erieversible

Real Cadbury’s chocolate decorations for the tree.  Paxo stuffing.  Rowntree’s fruit pastilles to add to the kids’ stockings.  Plus maybe an extra roll as my commission.  Soreen malt loaf.  Branston.  Multiple jars!  

Okay, so the Christmas we are planning is not strictly an American one, but while we were in the UK we always tried to introduce US elements of Christmas to the overall family experience.  So it is only fair that Christmas in the US should have British elements.

Back to Buffalo tomorrow to look at a couple of houses that we liked on Monday.  The second visit will be a much more thorough examination.

Meanwhile, a gentleman from the removals firm dropped round today to carry out a survey of the stuff to be moved.  I did warn him beforehand, and it did indeed take a lot less time than he was planning.  The new house, whichever one it turns out to be, is going to feel very empty until we go on a furniture buying spree.

Busy, busy!

I did promise another post about UK food ordering, so here it is.

Let’s start with the basic bird.  Would you like “Whole Organic Free-Range Devon Bronze”?  Or just “Organic Free-Range Bronze”?  Or just “Free-Range”?  The most expensive, (the Devon Bronze) comes in at 53 pounds sterling for 4.2 kg of turkey.  Or $85.33 for 9 1/4 pounds with today’s exchange rate.  (That is over $9 a pound, so it better taste good!)  The least expensive option gets a similar sized bird for only $42, so a bargain!  The Brits do tend to take their meat a lot more seriously than their American counterparts who will just buy any old frozen bird at the supermarket as long as it is cheap.

Of course, that doesn’t include options like having the bird pre-stuffed, getting a boneless whole turkey or just a boneless breast joint.  Then there are other options like duck or goose.  Or, if you really want to go all out, get a “Free-Range Turkey, Goose, Duckand Chicken Ballotine.  That costs $160, and feeds 10 to 14 people.  There are other options, say for Boxing Day (26th December) or New Year, such as beef, gammon or pork as well.  And loads of differnt sorts of salmon, which is very popular in the UK.

You also have the opportunity to purchase your vegetables and potatoes, again, all prepared and ready for the fridge, nothing frozen.  In the UK, a typical Christmas meal would include roast potatoes (potatoes cooked in very high heat fat, generally roasted with the meat, they get very crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside), roasted parsnips, carrots, and sprouts.  And balls of stuffing baked seperately from the meat.  And little tiny sausages with bacon wrapped around them.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but hopefully I’ve given you a feel for some of the differences between a typical British Christmas meal and the usual American one.  Maybe next time I’ll tackle a few “traditions” that are different.  Potatoes in the toe of stockings for a start! 

According to Wegman’s it is a very eclectic range of foodstuffs, some of which I have never heard of.  Some are in the same packaging that they would be in the UK, some are in packaging that has clearly been re-vamped for the foreign market.  Do the latter items still qualify then, I wonder?

Items such as Marmite, Heinz Baked Beans, HP Sauce are basics on the shelves of the British supermarket.  And to see that they stock Yorkshire Tea, even though I don’t drink it, means that there is still some hope for the rest of the barbarian world outside Yorkshire.  There were one or two items which, if I was choosing the selection, I would not select to represent “British”, but on the whole the selection was not inappropriate.

“Not inappropriate”?  There’s a choice of words that damns with faint praise, but I think that’s the best that could be said about the selection.  So what would I include that isn’t there?  Fair question.  It deserves an answer.

Branston Pickle.  Fruit pastilles (Rowntrees).  Smoky bacon crisps.  Dandelion and Burdock (a type of soda).

Yes, many of these items are available for purchase and delivery to US addresses in this modern internet age, and I may yet crack and buy some (especially the fruit pastilles), but I’m selecting items that I would put on Wegman’s shelves to represent Britain.

I’m surprised how soon I stopped on that list.  I’d have thought that it would have been longer.  Of course, there’s much available in the US that isn’t available in the UK, but this isn’t a rant about stuff not being available, it’s about how Britain is represented on the shelves of a US supermarket.  I’m sure there will be other areas where I can consider ‘What is “British”?’ hence today is labeled as ‘Part 1′ - the first in an irregular selection of musings on the subject.