Off to France soon..

[ImWearingPantaloons]

Hit me up with great things to buy in French supermarkets…

Will be taking a Cobb oven and a two ring gas cooker.

I’ve not been camping in France but am interested in what people suggest

Peach cordial!! We come back with tons of it 😊

Mustard. Really cheap

Mustard mayonnaise

this amazing butter, it has a line of delicious crunchy sea salt crystals running through it.

Camembert 😋

There are these amazing soft biscuits with jam of all kinds of flavours in you need to try. I can't remember what they're called but they are the best.

DH loves visiting French supermarkets, I think it’s the highlight for him of any holiday in France. There’s so much I could recommend that I hardly know where to start, but here goes:

Those little bottles of long life milk. They last for ages without refrigeration until they’re opened, so are great for camping.

Capsules of Nuages de Lait coffee creamer, so much nicer than a splash of milk for those who like their coffee white, and they don’t need refrigeration.

A bit niche, but the small rectangular tins of Cassegrain petits pois are the perfect size for the mattar paneer that DH insists on making whenever we holiday in our campervan (we have to sneak the paneer into France, I’ve never seen it on sale there). More generally, French supermarkets have a far bigger range of canned veg than we have in the UK, and the quality is high. Cassegrain is the dominant brand, and their cute little rectangular tins can be handy for camping cookups.

We like the dinky 250ml bottles of beer and cider that are sold in six packs. So cute, so inexpensive but often bloody strong!

Our cat now has quite a collection of distinctly French cat bowls procured from French supermarkets.

The vegan butter is so good, we always bring home a few packets. Also love the sauces, soaps and showergels and those little sweets, they are called carambars I think.

I’m always surprised at how good the sushi is too. Lots of the supermarkets make it in house.

Brets crisps
Bonne Maman puddings
Cremant & white wines
Petit Lu biscuits
Fruit sirops - grenadine
Cheese
Party snacks for aperitifs

Cheese, cider, more cheese Try to go to the weekly market and have a rummage around, they are amazing foodie places, cannot be beaten. There will be a few in the towns near you.

My favourite thing to bring back is not food, since it's problematic to import certain foodstuffs now (sad face), so it's Savon de Marseilles for me! I get the bar soaps and there is a pump dispenser of moisturising cream that is excellent.

It's lovely to root around the big hypermarches like Auchan and Carrefour on the way back to the ferry, especially the beauty and toiletries section. That's where you'll find me anyway!

Thank you all!!! (Makes notes furiously)

We’ve just come back. I absolutely love French supermarkets!
Crisps - oh my gosh so many amazing flavours. Tagline and chicken and thyme were my particular favourites this year.
Juices. - my DC’s loved trying all the really top quality apple juices plus lots of weird and wonderful flavours.
Jars of asparagus.
Mustard mayonnaise, fab salad dressings and bottled sauces (peppercorn sauce in a squeezy bottle!)
Tinned food - we buy the mixed veg which is brilliant to mix with mayonnaise tuna and egg to make a Russian salad.
Tinned lentils with or without sausage / tinned cassoulet.
so many lovely biscuits.
packets of fresh plain galettes that you can warm up with emmental ham and and egg.
The melons and bananas were particularly delicious this year.
We made a lovely seafood risotto a couple of times with a frozen pack of seafood, risotto rice, tomatoe purée. It was perfect for camping as they didn’t need any refrigeration between being picked up at the supermarket and then cooking an hour or so later.
All the cheese!
oh my gosh I want to be back there now…!

I’m with@converseandjeans …all of those are lovely. I’d try as many flavours of sirops as you can, we love the pink grapefruit, the peach and the mint too.

The Cassegrain tins of Ratatouille, confit de légumes, tagine de légumes are brilliant. Their ordinary tinned veg are very nice as @worrisomeasset says but the prepared veg dishes, also in the cute rectangular cans, are fantastic. A tin of their ratatouille mixed with a tin of tuna and heated through makes a fantastic pasta sauce. A really tasty meal from three cupboard ingredients. One of our go to camping or emergency meals.

Tinned fish…the Connétable brand does wonderful sardines and tuna, available in the supermarket. If you can find them La Belle Îloise does absolutely amazing tinned fish products, their soups, sardines, salads and rillettes are all amazing.

I think that the soft jam filled cakes might be Nonnettes @StressedOutPeanut? Very popular with our friends and family. We always take bags of the St Michel Madeleines for my Dad, he loves them.

We used to buy the little “nuages de lait” creamers mentioned by @worrisomeasset, really handy for our campervan or to use in cafés where coffee with milk can be twice as expensive as coffee without, even if you just want a spot of milk. I got into the habit of carrying a few in my handbag…great until one burst! We live in France now and we’ve adapted to the french way of drinking coffee black when we are out and about but they are super handy if you like a touch of milk!

The Petit Marseillais range of soaps, hand creams and shower gels is great. The big tubs of their body cream are wonderful.

Just re read your post and saw that you have a Cobb. Baked camembert in its box or wrap a whole fromage de chevre (something like a St Maure de Touraine…the log kind) in a bit of tin foil and bake it. Drizzle with some lovely local honey to serve.

@tuberosity what do you do with the jars of asparagus? The French must be fond of them as there’s always a big selection of them in French supermarkets but I’ve never found a good way of using them. I even started a thread on what to use them for on here but none of the many kind suggestions took my fancy.

I’m very boring and just have them as a veg accompaniment with a meal (often steak) or add to a salad.

Wine, cheese, mayonnaise, but alas couldn’t find apricot juice last time

Nooo! Lemon, citron syrop is so much better!

I love French supermarkets and always bring back mustard, mustard mayonnaise,Petit Marseillais shower gels and hand wash but also plain Savon de Marseille liquid soap in a large bottle - perfect for handwashing jumpers and I love the smell. Little jars of chopped chillies (piments) which you get in the Asian food sections of supermarkets are great to add to meals - I always take about 10 jars home to last all year. Tins of cassoulet, ratatouille,confit de canard; I find ground coffee is much cheaper in France as well and you can usually buy packs of 3 or even 6 that work out at good value. Little chocolate mousses in yellow packaging with a swirl of chocolate crisp through them are also a treat when we’re here (we’re in France at the moment 😊).

Wine, beer, Cremant - all so much cheaper than in the UK although limits on what you can bring back are now imposed, thanks to Brexit 😡; crisps with far more exotic flavours than you get at home although have noticed Tyrell’s becoming more popular here and flavours like Ancienne Moutarde a little harder to find, especially in the smaller supermarkets.

Brets honey and mustard crisps 🤤
Bonne Maman lemon tartlettes.
madeleines.

If you see them, Brets crisps are the best and the Cheddar and Jalapeno are chef's kiss.

The cordial to beat all others is Tessiére Mojito.

Bear in mind still can't bring meat or dairy products back due to foot & mouth source:%20GOV.UK
https://share.google/46jffVbLzDfdAbFFE

Half the trucks on any ferry will be bringing in meat and dairy from Europe into the UK.