Interesting thread. An Americans in England, DH and I miss our US sausage and can't stand the 'rusk' or whatever it is in the sausage here so we make our own from ground pork. We do like the links with apples, etc. we get at Waitrose.
I've never noticed bread as sweet in the US either, but we loved the bread the moment we got here. We miss the sourdough from CA though, but all the Brits I've known who have had this, absolutely hate it. Does anybody out there love it? Also love the bacon here, but thought beef tasted weird when we first moved here...and it's not because of the hormone stuff..have bought organic beef for years. We like the beef now. The pork and lamb are far superior here..never bought real cream before except for an ingredient in some desserts and don't need to start eating it now..too fattening.
Also, (this brings laughs to most of our British friends) we can't stand that eggs aren't refrigerated here and do not eat runny eggs..what we call raw eggs. In fact, lots of family members refuse to eat eggs when they visit us because they're not refrigerated. (They eat them until they visit a grocery store and find out they are just on the shelves.)
(sort of different topic here) but it's funny what the maternity books/guidelines say not to eat in the US as compared to the UK while pregnant. For example, nobody I know eats well done beef (as in steak)...not a roast of course...in the US pregnant or not pregnant and here it's a no-no while pregnant. Also, US says don't eat unpasteurized soft cheese, but here they say don't eat any soft cheese. Nobody would ever eat runny eggs while pregnant, and that doesn't seem to be a worry here. (I did eat my rare steak and soft pasteurized cheese here.) In the US, not supposed to drink a drip of alcohol..not even while trying to become pregnant. I know this is stupid..but here a moderate amount is fine, although I did read that was changing a bit.
What we miss the most about the US is the variety of items in the supermarkets. American is a country of so many different types of people that we never have any problems making any recipe in cooking magazines.
As for crappy food, please don't generalize America as there are good and bad areas. Whole Foods is the BEST..BTW...London is getting one..YEAH! Trader Jo's, Gelsons (S. CA) and AJs (Phoenix, AZ area) to name a few are wonderful. Also Wegaman's and Dean and Deluca. Publix is ok in FL too.
I totally agree that there are lots of preservatives in a lot of the food in the US, but most people don't think about it but they are starting to wake up. We haven't had that crap in over 15 yrs. since we began going to Fresh Fields...before they sold to Whole Foods. It's much better here without the hormone crap.
We would be miserable without Waitrose and Costco here and think they're the only decent places to shop..M& S ok too...go to Tesco for some bottled/canned items and never do Asda as we boycott all Wal-Mart stores. However, there are so many things that we can't get here.
I miss buying poblano chilis, jalapenos..please don't say they sell them here...I mean proper hot jalapenos. We buy our crushed red pepper (what you call chilis) from the Internet because what's sold here isn't hot...I could put half a jar on pizza and still can't taste it. Also miss freshly prepared tortillas...corn too..not just the flour ones.
The main things that bother us here are the awful tequila selection, lack of spicy food/ingredients, bad/tough sweetcorn, no prepared pizza dough in the stores..I'm not talking about the box or frozen crap..they sell real pizza dough in the US. Here we either buy it directly from a chef at an Italian restaurant or make it from scratch. Our friends don't undstand our fascination with pizza dough. Also, buy lots of baking items on the Internet.
As for large restaurant portions in the US...agree completely...just share with a friend (or two or three) or take the rest home or don't go to places that serve too much. There are lots of nice places locally owned...try and avoid the chain places.