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.

I agree most of the bread is too sweet.

We buy this one, I think it’s probably the closest I’ve found to a non-sweet, easily available bread.

www.hannaford.com/product/hannaford-all-natural-9-grain-loaf/729036?refineByCategoryId=46128

I would take some of those M&S Chocolate coated Bourbons. She probably never had them when she was here. But she sure is missing out..

Orange club biscuits
Hula hoops
Jaffa cakes
Ovaltine/Horlicks

Things I miss that can’t be imported;
Bacon and sausages!!

In Oregon, Franz do decent sliced bread.

Trader Joes is in my building and I can tell you there's sugar in all of it. The "sugar free" bread has honey or molasses!

It's a crime scene, bread wise.

It’s because the Cabury’s here is manufactured by the Hershey Company 😭😭
So it’s basically the same Hershey taste that most Brits don’t like wrapped in a purple jacket of lies 😭

If you can find Cadbury’s that’s manufactured in Canada, it’s more like British Cadbury’s….but for obvious reasons that like trying to find rocking horse shit lately 🫠

Sanity?

@Chemenger, I agree with you on the Trader Joe's bread. Their wholemeal/seedy brown bread is fine, but sweet. Their sliced sourdough is fine, but not amazing (and you can get better sourdough in other places). But their white sliced is AWFUL. Sweet and pappy. I haven't found - in any store in the US, fancy or otherwise, any bread that compares to that available in the Morrisons or Sainsbury's near my parents' home in the UK. I would love to buy a loaf of white bread for toasting that didn't have the sweetness and unpleasant taste. I would love to buy a French baguette that wasn't a sourdough baguette or some soft flappy sweet disappointment. I would love to buy a tiger loaf. I want a crispy crust and a white, slightly chewy inner, with no sweetness or funny taste. When I buy English muffins here (which are nothing like the incredible floury oven-bottom muffins that I could buy by my parents' place), I have to toast them twice to get rid of a smell that I can only describe as smelling slightly like a dirty dishcloth that has been left on the side, unwrungout, all night. That slightly off taste. And the sweetness is still there, no matter what.
I can buy excellent sourdough and rye bread, at a high price ($15 per loaf and up) from the fancy bakery near us, but that really isn't what I am looking for.

I can give you decent white bread. Wegmans Tuscan Loaf! It's freshly made in store and doesn't last long but my whole family like that one.

We have so completely hijacked OP's thread with our bread war. 🍞

Sorry OP! You're not going to take her bread anyway!

Hannaford does good French baguettes that are neither sourdough nor disappointing. You’ll need to be in New England to find it though.

I remember when I lived on the West Coast all the white bread seemed to be sourdough. Don’t know if that’s still the case but it drove me crazy at the time.

I don't even like bread 😂

Have you tried https://parkersgbi.com ?

I haven't used them since they got new owners but they used to be great!

Sometimes when I read threads like this I wonder if NE Illinois is a strangely un-American place, because there are lots of supermarkets that stock about 90% of the items that Brits (and Irish) occasionally crave.

And there is excellent bread of all kinds.

roaminginthegloaming I passed on your suggestions to DD. She said she and her husband had been in Tea & Sympathy, and knew the fish & chip shop but hasn't visited yet. She also said she hasn't been to Myers of Keswick personally, but has recommended it many times to the young people she works with.

MelliC I have never heard of chocolate covered bourbons, but mentioned them at work today and am expecting M&S profits to rise swiftly in the next few days! A colleague said that M&S also do chocolate covered custard creams, which she had tried and said were vile. As I would imagine!