What UK things aren't available in the USA?

[PandaEyes56]

I have an American friend who loves all things UK. I generally send her a parcel at Christmas, but I'm a bit stuck as to what to put in it this year. I used to send things like Quality Street and Terry's Chocolate Orange, but she can get those at a supermarket called World Market now. All ideas welcome! She's also a huge reader, so ideas for bookish gifts welcome too!

On a related note, I'd like to send her 17 and 18 yesr old daughters a small gift (maybe make up) but am also not sure what brands they have access to.

I could ask them of course, but that would ruin the fun of a surprise package!

Not sure why, but the Aussie version of a Cadbury’s Crunchie, Violet Crumble, seems to be readily available in supermarkets in my state 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 Can’t say I’ve noticed that many Australians knocking about, so it’s a little odd 😂

Literally the only brand of worcester sauce you can get here is lea and Perrins and it's in every supermarket? I get a giant bottle in Costco and it lasts for ages

My carer. He describes it as 'like crack' because if I make some he can't walk past the plate without eating one.

I actually, joke threaten him, "I'll make shortbread".

OP

Crackers - you can get them without the explosive so they can be sent abroad, probably not in your local supermarket, but the do exist.

I know lots of people are saying 'we get X Y Z' but I think the cost is a factor, someone quoting £15 for a 6 pack of crisps.

I have no idea what your friend will have to pay.

Ground almonds are proving difficult to find here, I can only get almond flour which is NOT the same 😒

Bovril

Memories.

When I visit DC/DCiL I take snacky little things from childhood which are simply not available - salt and vinegar snacks, twiglets, iced gems etc. They like to have a few in the cupboard for when under the weather.

All the quality and high value stuff they can buy imported these days, often for not a lot more than they would pay in the UK, or they have better alternatives locally. Its the trivial/low value comfort items which are harder to find.

My goddaughters in Mass. brought up in the UK until age 4 and now 16 live on Marmite on toast. Every visitor is requested to arrive with a small tonnage of the stuff.
Invariably they are down to last scrapes when I arrive and descend on it like vultures.
That and Skips, M&S Cheese Balls and all varieties of Monster Munch, Salt and Vinegar crisps, Prawn Cocktail crisps, Twiglets, Frazzles, Lion bars, Rolos, Minstrels, After Eights, Matchmakers, Picnics, Fruit Pastilles, Double Decker, Mini Eggs, Crème eggs, Turkish Delight, Aeros, Dandelion and Burdock, Squash (drink) Mince Pies, Curly Wurlys, Tunnocks Tea cakes, Tunnocks Caramel Wafers, HobNobs Jaffa Cakes, Jammy Dodgers, wagon Wheels, Ginger nuts, Branstons Chutney, Coleman’s Mustard and Mint Sauce, Mr Kipling French Fancies and Bakewell tarts, proper Tea Cakes, Yorkshire Tea, Crumpets, Soreen Malt Loaf, Shreddies, Cheddars Biscuits, Scampi Fries, Lucozade, Millionaires Shortbread

Salt and vinegar crisps are available in any store (in Boston, can’t vouch for anywhere else).

Oh mine are in Europe where salt and vin is regarded as just weird. I was musing on why people like “cheap” items when living away from their childhood country.

Apparently insufficiently ‘vinegarey’. They have to turn your face inside out to be proper S&V chips.

Speaking of which it was apparently also impossible to buy a standard vinegar shaker for fish and chips so I had to bring several of them from the pound shop as there’s a whole community of British immigrants who can’t dispense vinegar in the way they are accustomed. Who knew? Oh and egg cups apparently impossible to buy and milk jugs for a tea tray, teapots and kettles?!

I don’t know I just get sent instructions.

You could send some nice skincare/bodycare products from more niche English brands that aren’t (yet) available in the US/ on Amazon? (Subject to your budget of course). I’m thinking of brands like Wildsmith and/or Pelegrims.

https://wildsmithskin.com
https://pelegrims.com

Or a slightly more bizarre one, an umbrella from London Undercover (seems pretty damn English to me!):

https://londonundercover.co.uk/pages/umbrellas

Years ago my American friends used to LOVE Molton Brown but it’s readily available there now (and has gone down significantly in quality). Pretty sure part of the reason was because the bottles said London on them.

Me too. Also Savlon and otc codeine.

I take back antibacterial cream and hydrocortisone into the UK. Sometimes Naproxen.

Cadbury's.
DS1 lives in US and needed cheering up recently. I tried to buy Cadburys in USA to send him, but it was nowhere to be found.

Good cheese is very hard to find. I don't know if you are allowed to send sealed packs of cheddar or Stilton or Wensleydale. Or those whole cheeses wrapped in wax.

DS says they don't really do chutney over there. He always goes home with some good Fortnum's chutney and mango chutney from the farmer's market.
We also send him lots of spice and herb mixes. He is in a small town and those things aren't easy to find there.

All Americans I know adore good all-butter shortbread and Yorkshire teabags.

Where did you look? You can get Cadbury’s at Target or Walmart. And the US has had a huge uptick in cheese making over the last 25 years. You can get a good imported cheddar at many supermarkets and really good US cheeses at upmarket places.

You can get Sudocrem off Amazon. It’s a bit pricey but probably less so than mailing it over as, I believe, OP is intending doing.

I also bring Anusol back from the UK, though it may not be the best gift, I admit.

Agree. I’ve had some amazing US cheeses from farmers markets and upmarket cheese shops/deli shops. My absolute favourite is Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam. Sadly unavailable in the UK as far as I know.

Cowgirl Creamery ship US wide:
https://cowgirlcreamery.com

I actually met a goat farmer from North Carolina whose goats supply the milk for a very niche artisan goats cheese. The artisan cheese market in the US seems to have really taken off so there’s lots of good cheeses out there these days. It’s not all rubbery orange “American cheese”. Okay so it may require a little more effort than mindlessly grabbing some cheese off a supermarket shelf but isn’t that the same with most (good) food?

The Cadbury’s you can get here in the US is basically just a Hershey bar wrapped up in purple jacket of lies 🫠😭

If it’s on the shelf in Target or a supermarket, check the back: it will say manufactured in the US by The Hershey Co.
And to the British palate? We know it’s not proper Cadbury’s.
My mum brought me one of those enormous family-size bars from the U.K. last year and my American DH was like; “Yeah, that doesn’t taste anything like the cadburys we have here”.
Pre-Donald, Cadbury’s manufactured in Canada was easier to find in US stores and that’s pretty much the same as U.K. Cadbury’s. Obviously now? We can’t have Canadian Cadbury’s either without paying up the wazoo for it 😭

That’s fair. Not a huge fan of uk Cadbury’s any more so the differences mean little to me!

But you can easily get imported uk Cadbury’s from places like British Corner Shop. And many big cities will have a British (or, more likely, Irish) shop that will sell imported Cadbury’s.

Yeah for sure!!
Its just even more expensive now than it was before 🙁 So it’s become a rare treat

The only chocolate I buy here is lindt or trader joes. Can't stand Hersheys and its vomity taste. Disgusting

Yeah….the aftertaste is exactly that: vomit

And the reason behind it is equally as grim. Apparently, back in the day before refrigerated transport, the milk was going bad before it arrived at the chocolate factory. When milk is on the turn, the fats begin to produce butyric acid which is was makes that awful sour smell.
Butryric acid is also present in human vomit 🫣
But consumers of old-school Hershey chocolate became so accustomed to the weird, sour taste, to this day they still add small amounts of butyric acid during the chocolate making process 🤢🤢

I noticed it for sale in Hawaii (it was lovely) but definitely not on the East Coast.

Honestly unless they have some food things they cannot get in the US and you can safely take them through customs , I think the idea of some Christmas decorations with UK themes would be nice and reusable. & anything local to your area . So this as an example (see below - they're London because google brought them up ) - but I went into a shop where my parents lived and they had some baubles with local landmarks on them & I bought them as presents ( not London )

www.historicroyalpalaces.com/london-icons-glass-tree-decorations-1.html?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17189508209&gbraid=0AAAAADlWfcNXq49OgHSD91hk-NhfBCOdF&gclid=CjwKCAiAlfvIBhA6EiwAcErpyRu4x2xVVJ8tQrlfXcSNwjwCCFASWZdR978oDEv6YlS_FxZ89_MrSBoCVo0QAvD_BwE

I see them quite often in our Smith’s (Kroger) here on the West Coast!