Oh My God, Really ????

[theoldtrout01876]

I live in USA, have done for many years. There are certain things you just cant get here so since the rise of amazon, many years ago, I use them. I have just spent $46 for 4 packs of Bisto, $18 for 2 bottles of HP sauce and $12 for a jar of marmite.Oh and $27 for a 6 pack of baked beans. I cant be without baked beans. I cant get over how much they have gone up since last time I bought them, which was only a matter of months ago !!!. I had to unload the branston from my cart cos it was $32 for 3 jars and thank fck I noticed this but a multipack of frazzles ( My husbands favorite and a rare treat) was $8 a good deal thought I till I noticed they wanted $95 for shipping !!!!!!. Had to remove my colemans mint sauce too. I will buy that next month with the Branston.
I didnt even get to look at the chocolate hobnobs or custard creams cos my basket was too expensive before I even got there

World Market also carries some of these items.

@TatianaBis

Why spend so much money on shit food. None of it is even nice.

Nostalgia.

I’m loving this thread and I can’t eat most of it because of gluten sensitivity- even the Branstons pickle - but the pull of childhood foods is so evocative and strong.

UK based Americans might want to check out the international foods aisle in their nearest large Asda, especially if you can find a Walmart branded one, as there's often quite a wide range of US goods.

@HarmonyPuss - thank you! Looks like the perfect thing to take to the US the next time I go.

@Skone

I miss cheetos. Not the puffed ones, but the crunchy ones. I saw them in the American sweet shop on Oxford Street for £10 a bag. Outrageous

You can get these in Costco, but I don’t think they’re quite the same as in the US.

Ask a friend or family member to send items to you. Then u get them at a reasonable price and postage will be cheaper.

@knockles

Ask a friend or family member to send items to you. Then u get them at a reasonable price and postage will be cheaper.

A lot of items are banned from importing to the USA They will be impounded and destroyed, anything with chocolate for example.

I have been judged for using bisto . I do make my own gravy and only use the bisto to thicken and colour it. Otherwise id have grey slimy gravy and I dont want that. As for having more money than sense, well what can I say, its just stuff Im willing to spend the money I do have on. Yes we have a lot of good stuff here but some things there is just no substitute for, A1 sucks so if I want brown sauce I need to buy HP, boston baked beans are a different animal entirely to Heinz so are not a substitute. Branston makes everything taste better and you just dont get anything remotely similar here.
British delights used to be in the next town over from me, then moved to Westford. They are also very expensive, amazon was cheaper or at least not any more expensive and I didnt have to drive to westford. Just been to check and they have apparently changed name and are just as expensive as they used to be. $11 for a box of cup a soup for example
I also used to go to the Union Jack on route 1 in Peabody, always got what i needed in there but they were pricey too They closed. It was always and adventure going in there, it was run by the rudest Scottish lady I ever met, no idea how they stayed in business as long as they did. I had gone there for 25 years
Stop and shop nearest to me doesn't carry a lot of British stuff and nothing I want, neither does the one near my work, tho I can sometimes get hobnobs in there. Wegmans has gone to shit too.
I used to go to an Irish store when I worked in Roslindale but any of those stores are now way too much of a hike to get to, Im close to the NewHampshire border.
World Market will be where I go from now on in and if they dont have what Im after then I have the names for a lot of other places that might now.
I just need someone to come visit and bring Bovril, anyone up for a vacation in my spare room in exchange for a few jars Bovril

"A lot of items are banned from importing to the USA
They will be impounded and destroyed, anything with chocolate for example."

Clearly, anyone sending stuff to the US would need to check the allowable items list before putting packages together but if done responsibly it would obviously be far cheaper than buying UK foods at a ridiculously inflated price in the US!

You need to get a postal friend in a town that's cheaper. Or get in touch with Heinz personally ship a shitload of stuff and sell to britz yourself

Now i could understand if you said you missed UK chocolate. When I lived in the States many years ago I used to get my mum to mail me chocolate hated Hersey chocolate and now they sell it in the UK . I will admit to ordering chapstick from the states we only have a few flavours here. I'm not saying how much I've spent on them

Hershey’s chocolate is vile but it isn’t difficult to buy better chocolate in the US. You can get Cadbury mini eggs in CVS ( in Boston anyway) and properly good chocolate in whole foods (not cheap there obviously). I really struggled to find a big chocolate Easter egg or a chocolate advent calendar (the Easter egg I got from Hotel Chocolate which has a US website).
Nice cheese is also easily available, both US made and imported.
People brought Branson from the U.K. for me, Crunchies and Flakes.

Now I’m back in the UK I miss lobster rolls, Lays crisps, sour beers and pastries from the Italian bakeries in Boston.

Ahhh this reminds me of hunting down Yorkshire Gold tea in a British Export Shop in West Edmonton Mall.

Now I’m back in the UK, I wonder why I can’t buy hash browns Canadian style anywhere.

I was pretty surprised when a peppered white sauce was described as gravy to me the first time.

Sausage gravy?

I don’t eat Cadbury’s or Hershey’s - they’re both vile. Plenty of other edible chocolates for sale here. At a push we buy Galaxy.

This shop in Texas where I used to live gets good reviews from locals, and appears to do shipping: thebritishdepot.com/

Before I moved from Canada to England, I was given some advice by someone who had moved from England to Canada a few years before. She told me that she had made herself miserable by being sad about the lack of red cabbage, Bird's custard, and Rose's Lime juice. Inevitably, I found myself being miserable over the lack of this and that (cannot now remember what) and was lucky enough to remember the advice of the wise English lady. It is far easier just to adapt.

Sausage gravy?

The gravy that came with biscuits which we would call a savory scone.

Yes, I know all about biscuits vs scones (and I pronounce scone to rhyme with gone fwiw).

Sausage gravy is very nice. I make it from sausage bits stuck to the pan plus a little crumbled sausage, a little of the sausage fat and maybe a dab of butter, flour, and milk. It's basically a sausage flavoured bechamel, served over sausage and 'biscuits' plus other breakfast foods. The classic sausage and biscuits involves only crumbled sausage, with the entire package in the sauce. If the sausage gravy you were served was only peppered white sauce there was a major ingredient missing.

Sausage gravy is very nice - I think here we will have to agree to disagree. Biscuits and gravy are right up there with grits on my list of things that should never appear at breakfast. In general I like nothing more than an American breakfast but those are a step too far into he beige goo arena. To be balanced I also hate porridge.

@georgarina

Ahh I'm from the US and I have the opposite problem. I would give anything for a box of Lofthouse pink cookies...and ranch dressing, and sausage egg and cheese biscuits, and cheese popcorn, and Progresso Light soup.

Some of which I can get online!

We should start an international exchange group lol.

Newman’s own are a decent brand for ranch dressing that you can get in the UK. If you mix with Mayo and crumbled blue cheese you get a spectacular blue cheese dip too.

I make it to go with buffalo wings. Proper US buffalo wings, not the dried out hot wings crap that UK restaurants think is acceptable

Buttermilk biscuits are super easy too. I have large cookie cutters so I can make big ones for sausage and egg biscuit sandwiches. And they freeze. Tesco sell sausage patties which work really well.

I miss the feta egg white wraps from starbucks... I’ve tried making my own but it just isn’t the same. Oh, and proper Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. To die for!

@Stillfunny

There are a lot of Irish stores in Massachusetts , they may have some if what you are looking for especially Heinz beans.

More likely to have batchelors beans I’d have thought. But I like them better than heinz so it wouldn’t bother me

@Fireflylane and others...op is not buying gravy granules. She’s buying the bisto powder which is a seasoned thickener for making actual gravy.

@Ninkanink yes I realise that but I've never used that to thicken gravy add an oxo for flavour, wine, and flour to thicken, juices from meat and gravy browning for colour.

Oh and liquid from boiled vegetables