The dreaded Pie Floater. Pt 1.
I'm not sure how my blog turned into a food blog, from a fandom/random blog. Having recently read an article about how food blogging on Facebook screams middle-class, deferred children, and disposable income (can't find the link, sorry. I tried.) I seem to be a walking, talking, eating cliché. But that's not going to stop me actually blogging about food. Just make feel a little uncomfortable about it. Which may or may not lead to comfort eating and subsequent blogging.
That said, today's verbiage continues the trend of my last post; being a little different from my usual 'here, come plunder my weekly menu'. It's still due to my weekly cook, but this time there are photos. Well, there are in part 2. Not very good ones mind you - my camera's focus is temperamental/destroyed, and I really ought to get the camera fixed or replaced.
It's a common thing among ex-pats from all continents - eventually there comes a time where some primal bit of brain kicks in, and you start craving all the shit food that you left behind in the old country. You know it's bad and is going to taste crap, but you still *want* it.
PLB eschews Marmite and Bovril, but much to my disgust, he eats plenty of Vegemite here, where at home he never touched it.
Minties. Tim Tams. Kingston biscuits. Mint Slices. Cherry Ripes. Cadbury's Black Forest and Snack blocks. Summer Rolls. Jaffas. Chicos. Fruchocs. Barbeque Shapes. Chicken Twisties. Toooooooobs. I can get all these from the various expat stores in town and online. For an exorbitant price.
Not surprisingly, even though I can source these easily enough, I've charged my sister with bringing me over packets of Chang's Crispy Fried Noodles when we catch up in Brussels next month. Cheaper, and a lot lot fresher than the boat-shipped stuff. If a little embarrassing that of all the things she could be bringing? It's these.
Some things can't be shipped or bought though. John West tuna is a surprising one. Australia John West has 17 varieties of flavoured tinned tuna, and then there's all the competitors flavours as well. UK John West has 2 (plus 3 larger meal-for-two packets). One of those tins is the disgusting "mayonnaise with sweetcorn", and the other is "Mediterranean", which is a capsicum/red pepper flavour and thus it's off them menu for me as well.
I did bring back a good 20 tins or so after our last visit to Oz, but there was a Customs sign at Heathrow which suggested we really shouldn't have (I guess it depends on if they consider cooked and tinned fish the same as "fish"), which I ignored and steered PLB past so that he wouldn't see it and freak out and THROW ALL OUR TINS OF TUNA JOY AWAY, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable 'smuggling' tuna again. And definitely not comfortable in asking friends and family to act as tuna mules.
Beyond the junk food, and my complaints that UK Heinz only seems to do ready-to-eat soups which are nasty, not concentrates (the absence of which kills a whole plethora of "skippy can eater" [don't google this - it doesn't come up much, even though it's a pretty common derogatory term to describe my mum's brand of cooking eg: mostly out of tins and packets] staple cooking recipes), and OMFG THIS TINNED SPAGHETTI TASTES WRONG, it's only when you're away for an extended amount of time that you realise that some of the other non-brand-specific food that you thought was pretty ordinary, given our country's leaning to Anglo cuisine, isn't that ordinary after all. I'm not talking Lamingtons or Pavlova - we know they're special, I guess. Same goes for Macadamia nuts.
I miss kangaroo meat. It's hard-wired to the time when I'd bus to the Central Markets with my tartan Granny trolley for the weekly shop, and come home with peppered steaks and the best mince that was cheaper than cat food. Karma was a very spoilt kitty for a while there. I know bush herbs and spices are starting to be more common, but they weren't a fixture of my cooking or palate, so there's no nostalgia working there, nor are they regional, or generally common.
It's the lived experience which normalises certain things, makes them background, and it's only becoming an ex-pat, even when living in a cultural environ that is so close to home it is almost interchangeable, that highlights their importance through absence. This goes much further than ex-pat food, but food is tangible, it's the one that's easy to grip and explain, and the one that hits that primal brain meats the most frequently.
South Australia was only founded in 1834 - my London home is only 30 years younger than that, so it's easy to see why SA hasn't developed much regional cuisine, especially since its teen years were lived after the dawn of mass communication and transport.
It does have one item in the Ark of Taste (Ligurian Bee Honey from Kangaroo Island), but recognised regional food is thin.
South Australia is particularly good for mettwurst and other smoked/fermented sausages. Something that is either stupid expensive or rather pathetic over here in the UK. It's that German settler heritage. Along with Bienenstich and Streuselkuchen, Berliner buns, and good old Fritz. I guess the frog cake has to be included, although I have no abiding nostalgia for them.
I miss Farmer's Union Iced Coffee and Classic Chocolate milk. Especially when the 300ml cartons were frozen and eaten as a massive iceblock during school lunch. Interstate flavoured milks were nasty by comparison. Sunnyboys. Bush Biscuits. Yo-yos.Haigh's violet creams, champagne truffles and Easter Bilbies. Sno-top. Fruita. Golden North Giant Twins and honey icecream. But again, I've drifted into branded territory... and so in part two I will bring you this monstrosity:
This entry was originally posted at http://vayshti.dreamwidth.org/171579.html. There are
: comments there.
That said, today's verbiage continues the trend of my last post; being a little different from my usual 'here, come plunder my weekly menu'. It's still due to my weekly cook, but this time there are photos. Well, there are in part 2. Not very good ones mind you - my camera's focus is temperamental/destroyed, and I really ought to get the camera fixed or replaced.
It's a common thing among ex-pats from all continents - eventually there comes a time where some primal bit of brain kicks in, and you start craving all the shit food that you left behind in the old country. You know it's bad and is going to taste crap, but you still *want* it.
PLB eschews Marmite and Bovril, but much to my disgust, he eats plenty of Vegemite here, where at home he never touched it.
Minties. Tim Tams. Kingston biscuits. Mint Slices. Cherry Ripes. Cadbury's Black Forest and Snack blocks. Summer Rolls. Jaffas. Chicos. Fruchocs. Barbeque Shapes. Chicken Twisties. Toooooooobs. I can get all these from the various expat stores in town and online. For an exorbitant price.
Not surprisingly, even though I can source these easily enough, I've charged my sister with bringing me over packets of Chang's Crispy Fried Noodles when we catch up in Brussels next month. Cheaper, and a lot lot fresher than the boat-shipped stuff. If a little embarrassing that of all the things she could be bringing? It's these.
Some things can't be shipped or bought though. John West tuna is a surprising one. Australia John West has 17 varieties of flavoured tinned tuna, and then there's all the competitors flavours as well. UK John West has 2 (plus 3 larger meal-for-two packets). One of those tins is the disgusting "mayonnaise with sweetcorn", and the other is "Mediterranean", which is a capsicum/red pepper flavour and thus it's off them menu for me as well.
I did bring back a good 20 tins or so after our last visit to Oz, but there was a Customs sign at Heathrow which suggested we really shouldn't have (I guess it depends on if they consider cooked and tinned fish the same as "fish"), which I ignored and steered PLB past so that he wouldn't see it and freak out and THROW ALL OUR TINS OF TUNA JOY AWAY, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable 'smuggling' tuna again. And definitely not comfortable in asking friends and family to act as tuna mules.
Beyond the junk food, and my complaints that UK Heinz only seems to do ready-to-eat soups which are nasty, not concentrates (the absence of which kills a whole plethora of "skippy can eater" [don't google this - it doesn't come up much, even though it's a pretty common derogatory term to describe my mum's brand of cooking eg: mostly out of tins and packets] staple cooking recipes), and OMFG THIS TINNED SPAGHETTI TASTES WRONG, it's only when you're away for an extended amount of time that you realise that some of the other non-brand-specific food that you thought was pretty ordinary, given our country's leaning to Anglo cuisine, isn't that ordinary after all. I'm not talking Lamingtons or Pavlova - we know they're special, I guess. Same goes for Macadamia nuts.
I miss kangaroo meat. It's hard-wired to the time when I'd bus to the Central Markets with my tartan Granny trolley for the weekly shop, and come home with peppered steaks and the best mince that was cheaper than cat food. Karma was a very spoilt kitty for a while there. I know bush herbs and spices are starting to be more common, but they weren't a fixture of my cooking or palate, so there's no nostalgia working there, nor are they regional, or generally common.
It's the lived experience which normalises certain things, makes them background, and it's only becoming an ex-pat, even when living in a cultural environ that is so close to home it is almost interchangeable, that highlights their importance through absence. This goes much further than ex-pat food, but food is tangible, it's the one that's easy to grip and explain, and the one that hits that primal brain meats the most frequently.
South Australia was only founded in 1834 - my London home is only 30 years younger than that, so it's easy to see why SA hasn't developed much regional cuisine, especially since its teen years were lived after the dawn of mass communication and transport.
It does have one item in the Ark of Taste (Ligurian Bee Honey from Kangaroo Island), but recognised regional food is thin.
South Australia is particularly good for mettwurst and other smoked/fermented sausages. Something that is either stupid expensive or rather pathetic over here in the UK. It's that German settler heritage. Along with Bienenstich and Streuselkuchen, Berliner buns, and good old Fritz. I guess the frog cake has to be included, although I have no abiding nostalgia for them.
I miss Farmer's Union Iced Coffee and Classic Chocolate milk. Especially when the 300ml cartons were frozen and eaten as a massive iceblock during school lunch. Interstate flavoured milks were nasty by comparison. Sunnyboys. Bush Biscuits. Yo-yos.Haigh's violet creams, champagne truffles and Easter Bilbies. Sno-top. Fruita. Golden North Giant Twins and honey icecream. But again, I've drifted into branded territory... and so in part two I will bring you this monstrosity:
This entry was originally posted at http://vayshti.dreamwidth.org/171579.html. There are
: comments there.