What Do Brits Living In The US Miss?

[Leeds2]

I am going to visit my DD in New York in July. She has lived in the States for a number of years. I like to take her something from home, usually food, but am running out of original ideas! I usually take tins of baked beans, baked beans with vegan sausages, Bounty, Galaxy, Yorkie etc but would like to take something new. Any ideas? If I ask, she just says it doesn't matter but she is always pleased to receive! I know you can buy a lot of British produce out there, but stuff seems very expensive.

My brother lives in the US and over the years he has asked me to send
Lemon Marmalade
Creamed Mushrooms
Cadburys Mini Rolls
Henderson’s Relish ( a local delicacy IYKYK)
Caramac
Coconut Mushrooms
Stones Green Ginger Wine
Mushy Peas (dried)
Cherry Balsams

I can’t send a lot of these now - no bottles or alcohol. They are all things he can’t get over there (Florida). They are all things he remembers from when younger. It’s just nostalgia

Cadbury's Mini Rolls is a good shout!
I love Henderson's Relish, but I don't think DD would appreciate it!!
Most of her American friends who have been to my house always want to take back Colman's English Mustard to go with steak, but daughter is a vegetarian so it doesn't really apply.

Tea
proper biscuits
anything from M&S!

and randomly, proper fitting bras!

It was tea bags when I was living there - I finally found the holy grail, a local supermarket that sold Tetley tea bags at the equivalent of UK prices.

Henderson’s Relish ( a local delicacy IYKYK)

I have noticed that the word about Hendos is spreading outside Sheffield more and more now. After all these years, the wonder of Henderson's Relish is to be shared with the rest of the country.

Lea & Perrins? pffft😊

Hula hoops
Ribena
Oat cakes
Cadbury buttons
Marmite

my American relatives love any kind of chocolate biscuit but particularly chocolate hobnobs.

Sanity.

Branston pickle is what DSis asks for.

i missed good chocolate, easily available bread without corn syrup, and excellent unpasteurised cheese.

However, I was not in NYC, which makes a big difference to what is available.

God yes to the bras - it was so bad when I tried to buy one out there.

I don’t live there anymore but when I did and friends/ relatives visited I always asked for Yorkshire tea and wotsits! Other things that went down well -

• Heinz cream of tomato soup (weirdly I missed it but haven’t ever really eaten it since I moved back and I hear it’s changed recipe so YMMV)
• Ribena or Robinsons squash
• Jaffa cakes
• M&S stuff especially Percy pigs and their Viennese biscuits
• Decent chocolate
• monster munch
• Gravy granules
• Ginger biscuits
• Mince pies at Christmas time
• Cadburys hot chocolate and ovaltine
• Lemon curd

Also very much missed decent bacon and both bread and milk that didn’t taste weirdly sweet, but obviously didn’t get those brought out!

Also this is random and might be just a case of where I was looking - but when my mum first came out I asked her to bring me a couple of bedding sets from like Asda or similar. Everything out there was so weirdly expensive even the not very good quality stuff (and the Asda one was great, still using one of the sets 12+ years later!)

Nothing at all. Ask her what she misses if you want to bring something.

So easy to make your own ginger biscuits, lemon curd, mince pies, and Viennese biscuits. The rest can be bought from Amazon (although I’ve never liked squash, tea, gravy, Jaffa cakes…) why do people always assume we miss junk?

Proper chocolate and treats from M&S.

Proper tea bags
Rich Tea Fingers
Jaffa Cakes
A butter dish (only get sticks-of-butter ones here)
Chocolate Digestives
Prawn cocktail crisps
Poppadoms
Hot Cross Buns
Kiplings cakes
Battenberg
Welsh cakes
Sudocrem

Lea and Perrins used to have anchovies in, so wasn’t vegetarian. I’m not sure if it is now?

I mean, with the internet there’s very little you can’t get these days! I used to order catering sized bags of Yorkshire Tea,
go to World Market for Heinz beans etc. I have no idea at all re the bras comment - really?! Decent bras available in most department stores just like here, or worst case, ship internationally from M&S. I’d say hot cross buns were a good shout though. Apart from that, if you’re prepared to spend a bit more, you can have anything you like and then some!

Quality Street and crumpets!

Why didn’t you just go to TK/J Maxx? Loads of designer sets on discount, amazing quality and last for YEARS.

You can get crumpets in Trader Joe’s.

A curly wurly?

Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce is still made with anchovies, Henderson’s is vegan.

1. I’m not assuming anything - I’m saying what I missed when I lived there. Which is clear from my post.
2. If you don’t miss anything then great but it’s hardly an uncommon experience. I worked with a mostly British team, working with some American but predominantly European and South American families and ‘food we miss from back home’ was a pretty universal topic of conversation.
3. Nobody who has even the most passing familiarity with US food culture would assume that anyone living there would be deprived of ‘junk’ in general - the options for junk surely surpass anywhere else in the world. But sure, most of us missed one or two junky items specific to our country of origin.
4. Yep, they’re probably all easy to make. I didn’t want to. I was also working 12+ hour days and having far too much fun in my downtime to worry about baking (in my teeny apartment kitchen). Luckily I’m a boring old mum back in the UK now who can bake all the ginger biscuits she wants.

@helpmeCalifornia - I have to say I agree with @SagForLife Where did you live and how long ago? You can get pretty much everything on your list if you know where to look or are prepared to pay a premium. Or - you could make things yourself. Easy to buy mincemeat in international supermarkets at Xmas so mince pies are hardly a trial. It’s the USA, not some backwater. And if you couldn’t get what you were looking for, you must have lived there pre-internet or possibly in Alaska 🤣