British Food Experience 01

Stealing the idea from The GirlAlive British Food Experience, here is the first list of “British” foods that I’ve tried and my thoughts on them. You can get a lot of them in North America and elsewhere, but they are probably not as readily or popular as they are here.

Digestives: While most of the foods in this list will not carry over when I move out of the UK, digestives are not one of them. I liked them before coming here. I had the McVittie’s Dark Chocolate digestives the first couple weeks here, and I love them. Pricey at around £1.20 (and regular ones just below that), but I had them on sale at the time. Like many people, I dunk mine in tea, but I also like them plain. Great with Earl Grey (which I will always think of Jean-Luc Picard and now, living in the UK).

Cadbury Chocolate: It deserves it’s own line because it’s ubquitous and different from NA Cadbury. In Canada, I never really ate store bought chocolate bars because I prefer dark chocolate and those were always too sugary. The chocolate here is sweet, but just a bit more richer. I think there is more milk content in these. I prefer these to NA chocolate bars if I had to choose. I don’t have them regularly, but I like Buttons and the Milk Chocolate line.

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread: Specifically the one made by Green & Blacks (fairtrade chocolate brand now owned by Cadbury). If I am going to have so much sugar on my bread, might as well be organic sugar. I opted for this instead of Nutella which I never bought back in Canada since it was so sugary/I was indifferent. G&B’s spread does have its first ingedient as sugar, but it is lot better than I remember Nutella being. I have spooned it out of the jar when I had cravings for chocolate or sugary. It is that good! I am trying to make my jar last though. I would continue to buy the G&B when I leave here if I could, but not chocolate hazelnut spread in general.

Mince Pies: My first time with these were the Sainsbury variety. Then I recently had the Starbucks version; the latter were actually just a bit better since they had icing sugar on top. They are good, but not required for my Christmas enjoyment. Maybe if it gets more festive and I try some more expensive ones.

Flapjacks: 2 for £1 at the convenience store. While these were sweet, I am very eager to try to bake my own as I like this concept of chewy, sweet oaty goodness. More later as I am going to use honey instead of golden syrup.

Banoffee Pie: An English dessert cake of toffee, bananas, and chocolate. I had this in a restaurant drizzled with ginger caramel. It was excellent. I need to store this at the back of my brain so I can remake it for myself one day. Otherwise, I just had a really good version in the restaurant

Crumpets: Less than £1 for six. Very nice, soft and buttery when toasted. I am a girl who likes carbs after all. Probably not as good for you as whole wheat bread or pita, but I like the texture and the crunchy underside.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.