To ask about your food snob specifics.

[Writerwannabe83]

I'm eating some sandwiches and I've had to use some really shitty bread that my DH purchased and it's frankly ruining my lunch

I'm more than happy to buy own shop brands but I really do believe that some things have to be the 'real thing' and I will not buy cheaper versions to try and get a better deal.

My list includes cereal, nice bread, tea bags, Nutella and pasta sauces

What about every one else??

"I wonder if people in other countries regard those for whom good food is important and don't mind paying a bit extra for it, as 'snobs'"

Dunno, depends which country really. I expect for a lot of people in a lot of countries the concept of 'paying a little more for good food' is quite hard to fathom.

I always thought, when it came to terms like 'food snob' the 'snob' part meant looking down on other people, and the 'food' part showed what you looked down on them about. I didn't think 'snob' meant 'discerning of taste'. That's why it's not a positive term. You wouldn't call yourself a snob and mean it.

Proper butter, nespresso and meat from the butchers is my food 'snobbery'. Although I wouldn't call it being a food snob just enjoying stuff that tastes like it should!

Java beans, greek olive oil, cold pressed rapeseed oil, elephant garlic, real Parmigiano-Reggiano, no cheap substututes. Gravadlax, kalamata olives, fresh kaffir and galangal, fresh whole squid, not frozen, home made dashi.

A friend refuses to have a jar of pasta sauce in her kitchen. She prefers to spend 20 minutes chopping tomatoes and onions, a bit of garlic and seasoning. Fine. But actually it tastes no better than the various jars of pasta sauce I have tried over the years. And the ingredients are identical.

Meat, poultry and dairy - only organic enters this house!

No drinks, let alone diet drinks, crisps, chocolates, cakes and the like!

Specific fruits and veg are organic for e,g. Carrots, potatoes, kale etc. others like mango, pineapple, broccoli, onions can be whatever.

I have zero expenses on entertainment, clothes, shoes - got one pair of shoes, no going out clothes, just don't care about make up etc. food is my only luxury and We have ourselves some organic food :d

I've never understood the snootiness about pasta sauce. Yes, we all known its easy to make your own (with tinned toms - hypocritical much) but a jar of Jamie Oliver tomato and chili sauce does not containe cyanide, mostly just tomatoes and herbs. No E numbers. What's the big deal?

carla- because they taste horrible. The difference in that and a home made tomato sauce is vast.

My kids can taste the difference immediately.

Yep jarred sauce tastes horrid, admittedly I have had no ambition to work my way through all the brands in search of something edible but if you like it good for you. A tomato sauce takes less than five minutes work - the rest is just simmering - even my kids can make it.

Dolmio sauce smells horrible to me. I bought 2 jars as they were doing a promotion last year which was something like buy 2 jars at £1 each and get a free lasagne dish. I really needed a new lasagne dish so bought the jars.
Thought id give some to the dc mixed in with some pasta. It really didn't smell good, I don't know what's in them but I donated the other one to the harvest festival and the rest of the open one was binned.

Dolmio might be rank but I challenge you to try a jar of Jamie Oliver or Seeds of Change and I can't imagine how you could possibly say it was "horrid".

Sometimes I make it fresh, sometimes Jamie helps out. It's not poison.

you haven't met a coffee snob until you've met a coffee snob from Melbourne.

Hahaha MaMa - in my TIO I couldn't see the last 2 words, but I guessed it was going to be Australia or somewhere in it!! So true, they're SO fussy here!

I don't like eggs that aren't from my own chooks. The difference is pretty obvious. I also prefer my own veges fresh from the garden and my own herbs that I've dried rather than ones in a bottle.

Disclaimer: I am one of the aforementioned Melburnian coffee snobs.

I'm from Melbourne, but I don't drink coffee. I'm an outlier.

Yy, I'm a melbournian also (in the uk). I don't drink instant coffee, nor Starbucks, Costa etc. I also live in an area where the school catchment radius also takes in a number of independent coffee establishments :-)

Oh, on the pasta sauce front, I slow cook my sauce in the oven for about 3 hours. I make a soffrito first, so loads of veg. The taste is very different to a jar. I imagine all home made sauces are not created equal either!

It's balsamic vinegar for me. There is no point buying the "normal" stuff, it tastes rank. Last time my proper bottle ran out DH was doing the shopping, and I put on the list "expensive balsamic vinegar. Not the cheap stuff" - he bought a bottle of Tesco "finest" bv and even that is barely palatable - mid way to acceptable at best. I had to tell him in was insufficiently expensive. I'm getting through it very slowly - can't bear waste so won't throw it away but my salads won't be enjoyable again till I can get a decent bottle again.

MidniteScribbler
I'm from Melbourne, but I don't drink coffee.

- is that even allowed? Don't you have to rescind your Aussie citizenship or something?

Sorry, renounce, not rescind.

I remembered a new one this morning.

Waitrose had a 3 for £4 offer on their fresh not-from-concentrate orange juice. The longlife stuff in cartons just tastes awful in comparison and I can never go back. I even take my own orange juice when I have breakfast in my parents' kitchen, as they buy the cheap stuff from Sainsburys.

Being a food snob ruins you!

I won't buy anything with a celebrity endorsement, so Jamie Oliver anything is out. Don't really care about branded/non-branded generally.

Butter not margarine, meat and fish from butcher/fishmonger. Vegetables from the market (pref but not always organic)

I never buy jars of sauce or similar; but that's because I'm mean rather than snobbish

My DM is a sucker for all thing celebrity endorsed, JO pasta sauces for a pound are ok. JO did not produce them, he is but a figurehead.

Where to begin:

-coffee: only decent coffee. We grind ourselves and use Espresso machine (waitrose organic/ ft brans from Sumatra). At work I use a filter and ground coffee. (Machu Pichu from cafe direct or lazy Sunday from Taylor's of Harrogate.

-massive tomato snob. Fresh only in season, organic, firm tomato's stored at room temprature (but we don't have to store them for long )

-most dairy is organic or president (incidentally the only butter our cats will scrounge). I only drink duchy originals milk. Had it once and will never ever go back.

-all meat (dp is veggie, so treat myself rarely) od organic AND free range.

And the list goes on