What can you get in the UK but not USA

[GreatestShowWoman]

Friend moving and wanting to put together a wee survival pack, what needs to go in?

I noticed Whole Foods has packs of tissues with European robins on that looked very festive. They were from Germany.
I also went to a museum and the shop had a lot of mugs, flasks etc with British birds on them that had been imported.

Chocolate: at the moment Green & Black seems to be available in the no palm oil recipe

Lindt available pretty much everywhere

Trader Joe do some very nice stuff, reasonably priced. I think it's much the same as Aldi's. Also their prices on frozen fruit are very good.

Medication with codeine (Nurofen etc) not available off precription here so worth bringing if you need it.

Personal favorite: tins of soft roes. Soft roes seem to be unknown here and tins very expensive via "British" stores

I really miss thick cream!

What are soft roes?!

So if only coffee cake is called cake, what are other flavours of cake called?

"What are soft roes"

Fish sperm, known here as "milt". (You want milt? a fishmonger asked me incredulously.)
One country's delicacy...

No. Roes are eggs.
Soft roes are where the eggs have hardly formed

Nurofen doesn't have codeine in it here, it's just ibuprofen.

soft roe see www.thefishsociety.co.uk/herring-melts.html

and others

There are some great online British supermarkets in the US if you don't live near one

I also highly recommend this company for excellent sausages, bacon, etc parkersbritishinstitution.com/shop-online

What about a voucher for here?

Just realised my post said mini checkers. confused I meant cheddars.

Me with my poor eyesight I read that as mint checkers and thought I don't have them either!!!!

BritInUS1 Parker's looks fabulous. I'm tempted to try the sausages and a few other things. I wonder how they wound up in Buffalo, NY.

And there's good news for us sausage and cheddar eaters!

Cheese and red meat is good for you

One year my sister sent me a hamper from Parker's - it was one of my best ever Christmas presents. The only thing that wasn't all that good was the stilton pork pie. I'm not sure what it was about it that didn't quite work but I'd get the pork pie again, just without the stilton.

So if only coffee cake is called cake, what are other flavours of cake called?

Coffee cake is one type of cake - one that you eat with coffee rather than having any coffee flavour (oh the bitter disappointment the first time I ordered it). It is like a plain cake, maybe with cinnamon in it. Other cakes are called chocolate/vanilla/black forest/cherry etc. Pound cake is the same as madeira more or less. You don't find coffee and walnut cake or victoria sponge generally.

Actually, American coffee cake is very different from a normal cake. It is less like a sponge texture and usually has some kind of topping, usually a crumb.

Here are examples.

Thanks for the heads up, I would be pretty disappointed to order coffee cake here it seems.

Coffee cake here tends to be denser and a bit less sweet than a regular cake, and there is usually a topping of some sort - sweet crumble, nuts, etc. It's meant to be a bit filling.

The examples Mominatrix linked to look great. I may have to make the blueberry one while they're still in season.

Thanks for the heads up, I would be pretty disappointed to order coffee cake here it seems.

I had just moved here and was desperately homesick and was expecting a version of my aunt's fabulous sandwich coffee cake - and got that crumbly stuff. it was "the first if not the keenest disappointment" to quote oscar wilde.

it was "the first if not the keenest disappointment" to quote oscar wilde.

Cake not meeting expectations is a sharp blow indeed. All of those bloody calories for nothing.

Ah ok- that's confusing! So what do they call coffee- flavoured cake then? ( Not that I eat it,it's vile - the US version sounds nicer if there's no coffee in it!)

So what do they call coffee- flavoured cake then?

I don't think we have any coffee flavored cake. At least I've never heard of any, made any or been offered any.