What can you not live without that you can only find in the UK !

[tiredpom]

Inspiration needed everyone, I have lived overseas for 8 years. Parents are coming to visit again in a few weeks and normally I have a huge list of things for them to bring ..... but this year, maybe it's the years away from home I am losing a bit of nostalgia for UK centric goodies. So far I have Liz Earl cleanser, soap and glory body wash (can get it here but it's expensive), cheese and onion/ prawn cocktail walkers, robinsons juice and diet Irn bru. If you lived abroad what would you crave/miss/couldn't live without ???

My dads wife who live here for approximately 7yrs before they went home misses sausages, she says she can’t find decent ones there like she had here. She also gets me to send/take cooking sauces, ear plugs, green & blacks chocolate I’m sure there is lots more for both of them that I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Am i missing any amazing toiletries ranges (from boots or super drug?)

Oh, good point. I don't know about 'amazing'; it's all personal choice! but I personally like Boots Botanics cleansers, eye creams and moisturisers and they're almost always on buy one get one half-price or similar. And Superdrug's own-brand skincare is cheap but (IMO) quite good – I like their cleansing balm that you remove with a hot flannel.

If you like luxury toiletries etc. I do find Jo Malone (especially bought at Heathrow airport duty free) is so much cheaper in the UK than overseas. I always stock up on luxury treats there on the way back through.

Ready brek as well. Bloody lovely.

Mince pies are good but my mum is next over here in May so I don't think they'll be in the shops then 🤔

And a pp is right, nothing like a Cumberland sausage.

When I lived abroad I missed treacle toffee, liquorice sticks and salt and vinegar crisps. my sister always asks me for calpol 6+ melts they can get a good calpol substitute but not the melts.

Shreddies. If you are in Australia OP there are a lot of things that can't be brought in.

In Canada can't get (except possibly at v expensive expat shops): squash (particularly full sugar ribena), atora suet, ground mixed spice (for Xmas baking), sloe gin. Heading back to UK this summer and my return luggage is going to be strange!

MouseholeCat; you can get crumpets in the States! I don’t know which State you are in but the national chain

www.traderjoes.com

sells “British crumpets” (with a drawing of Big Ben on the label) and they are the real deal :)

I lover Trader Joe’s (it’s actually owned by Aldi). They also sell Weetabix and a very lovely extra mature “Coastal Cheddar” from Dorset, England (it sells very quickly so it’s hit and miss whenever I go in the store to see if it’s in stock). TJ’s also sells frozen Balti chicken pies and steak pies I’ve got some in my freezer but haven’t eaten them yet).

Sometimes they also sell traditional imported English fudge. They also have English breakfast tea bags but they are rubbish compared to their Irish tea bags which are stronger and I use them all the time now.

There is a wine and liquor store about 5 miles away and I buy (at ludicrous expat prices) Bisto gravy granules and Paxo sage & onion stuffing. I still buy it to bring back when I’m in the UK though.

When we were living in Switzerland we used to take the car over to England from time to time and fill it up with stuff to take back. I used to buy the “Lakeland” oven cleaner which you brush on the inside of the oven, many cans of Heinz baked beans, megasize Fairy Liquid (original - just love the smell!), Heinz Mulligatawny soup, Tiptree LIttle Scarlet/Ginger/Rhubarb & Ginger jams, Paxo stuffing, orange squash, rough oatcakes, Boots skin creams and cosmetics, McVitie’s Jamaica Ginger cake (fab with cheese!) Cathedral City Extra Mature large blocks of cheese....never did really like Swiss cheese lol....Cadbury’s boxes of Flakes (for ice cream), Colemans Mint Sauce, HP sauce, tins of rice pudding, sachets of instant custard powder, Jacob’s Club biscuits, Marmite, Percy Pigs (hate them but spouse loves them) Walkers multipacks of crisps, Twiglets, Kiwi tins of shoe polish, tumble dryer sheets, greetings cards, Heinz tins of Spotted Dick, sponge cake with Golden syrup.....also I am a Costco member so used to buy up a lot of stuff in Costco to take back to Switzerland....there were other things too which I’ve now forgotten!

Other must have items (even going back to when we lived in Singapore more than 20 years ago) and still considered ‘essential’ on trips to bring back from the UK is:

Imperial Leather bars of soap.....husband adores it
“Good Housekeeping” magazine
Original Mint Source shower gel
The Sunday Times
Twiglets
Boots Soltan sunscreen (5* UVA/UVB protection, can’t find anything made by any other manufacturer which seems to have this?)
Walkers multipacks of Prawn Cocktail and Smokey Bacon flavour crisps
Percy Pigs (for spouse)
Around Xmas...chocs to hang on the Xmas tree
Bottle of Pimms or Bailey’s

Btw: Costco in the US now sells big buckets of UK-made Maltesers....yay! We are very lucky that we can go to a proper English chip shop in New York City www.asaltandbattery.com and have cod or haddock with chips, mushy peas, curry sauce and a can of Boddingtons, Woodpecker cider etc...yum yum!

When my mum visited last I got her to bring:
Crisps, especially with unusual flavours and Tayto
Newspapers ( Sunday Times and Saturday Guardian)
Magazines
Irish dairy milk
Badedas and fenjal
Lemon cologne from Turkey ( great for keeping mozzies away)
Barry’s tea bags by the thousand!

Anything else we can get here.

I just thought of something absolutely nasty (but so tasty) that I cannot get here in the USA unless I pay exorbitant costs to a specialty company: banana flavoured nesquik powder! When I lived in Tokyo I found a german brand of banana milkshake powder that was far superior to nesquik (not hard) but I've never found it since. It must be fifteen years since I've tasted the stuff.

Didn’t anyone mention crumpets and sudacrem yet? Obviously not on the same plate!

We used to miss many things but have now found most in either trader joes’s or world market. At inflated prices of course.
Chocolate weetabix
M&S knickers and food.
Jaffa cakes and choc. Digestives
Normal Baked beans!
Good fish and chips
Socialism and nhs!

Ooh and Christmas pudding!

I'm in the ME, but not cosmopolitan Dubai. I bring:
Maldon sea salt
Smoked paprika
Allspice/mixed spice (yes spices here are great but some are hard to find)
Cadbury mini eggs
Hot cross buns (as many as I can stuff in. I was home for Christmas and was actually pleased to see the Easter stuff out cos I've stocked up).
Whey protein powder/milled flax and other low carb foods (so cheap at Aldi and Lidl!)

My friends usually ask for Yorkshire Tea and Welsh cakes.

Oh yeah - nice sausages, nice dry cure bacon and great big lumps of vintage cheddar. I dread the day I get my suitcase searched.

Have lived in the USA for four years and I still miss so many things!

Sausages (Just don’t seem to be a ‘thing’ here, unless it’s turkey, or a breakfast patty 🤢)
Galaxy chocolate
MALTESERS
Marmite
Rich Tea Biscuits
Walkers Crisps
English Bread! Give me a loaf of Kingsmill thick sliced I beg you!

I'm in the ME, but not cosmopolitan Dubai. I bring:

Its really surprised me that you and Sandland are in the same region as me and I can get everything you've both mentioned despite me not being in Dubai either. I really did think we were the backwater when it came to shops even though I still thought we were lucky with what we did have.

I will admit though that when I was in M&S Dubai last week I was open mouthed at the food items they had and I may have bought a few packets of submarine rolls, a cherry sultana cake and their equivalent of fondant fancies.

My biggest laugh though is when some of my gang are in Munich and they do an Aldi run. You'd never believe what comes off the plane with them. Its a supermarket sweep of all the things you don't need but can't resist.

Missing the point od being able to take the, through customs...

Cheddar
Bread
Milk
Yogurt
Chocolate

All of the above are needed in America! Their cheese is vile, the bread is sweet, the semi skimmed
milk is too creamy, the yogurt is a weird texture and the chocolate has a vomit undertone.

I am American, but since I don’t live there all of the above now turn my stomach when I visit.

Fionne tbh I can get a some of those items (flax, mini eggs) but they are at much higher prices than Lidl, or UK supermarket offer prices. We do have Spinneys (for Waitrose goodies), but again most of this is out of my budget.
Most bacon here seems to have that fake smoke flavour; and I don't trust the contents of the sausages so I buy Lidl and package it with freezer blocks.
I can't complain though - there's an amazing selection of fresh produce and the Indian food is superb.

@EnormousDormouse I switched in normal milk, but hot cross buns. And if you can be bothered to make mixed peel, it really helps them.

branston pickle

and the uk. not moving, if at all possible.

Maldon salt for me!!

I live in France. Luckily I can find Branston pickle (albeit at extortionate prices). I usually ask my Dad for Oven Mate, golden syrup, magazines, sweets (dolly mixture and love hearts)...

Sunday newspapers, Bartender's friend (for cleaning), kids mags and fancy dress.
And EBay bargains! eg second hand Lego (sold by the kilo and washable in the washing machine in laundry bags). Also laundry bags in fact

@McSmoke I don't know where you're from in America but locally we have amazing cheeses, breads, milk, yogurt and chocolate. In fact I'd say where I love for quality, local ingredients is way better than Britain. It's a foodies heaven.

I just don't get people that say you can't get good versions of these things in the States.