There’s a lot to like about food quality here

I like being able to buy goose fat, duck fat, lard, and tallow right in the grocery store.  If following an ethnic recipe that calls for pomegranate molasses and sumac powder, it’s right there, too.  Duck, rabbit, grouse, venison, yep, right there in the meat aisle.  Pork from pigs allowed to range.  Honest free range chickens and eggs.  Clever packaging, for instance,  a four pack of tomato paste in tiny tubs, so if you just want a little, you don’t have to open a whole can.  Cream at the top whole milk.  Single cream, double cream, whipping cream, pouring cream, clotted cream, creme fraiche (which I like better than sour cream).  Inexpensive Barolo red wine.  Great bread.  Brioche hamburger buns.  Beautiful fresh, in season veggies and fruit.  Oh, and the butter, yum, the butter.

If you are a cook, it’s a delight.

I shop at Booth’s and Sainsbury

I like being able to buy goose fat, duck fat, lard, and tallow right in the grocery store.  If following an ethnic recipe that calls for pomegranate molasses and sumac powder, it’s right there, too.  Duck, rabbit, grouse, venison, yep, right there in the meat aisle.  Pork from pigs allowed to range.  Honest free range chickens and eggs.  Clever packaging, for instance,  a four pack of tomato paste in tiny tubs, so if you just want a little, you don’t have to open a whole can.  Cream at the top whole milk.  Single cream, double cream, whipping cream, pouring cream, clotted cream, creme fraiche (which I like better than sour cream).  Inexpensive Barolo red wine.  Great bread.  Brioche hamburger buns.  Beautiful fresh, in season veggies and fruit.  Oh, and the butter, yum, the butter.

If you are a cook, it’s a delight.

I shop at Booth’s and Sainsbury

I like that the provenance of the produce is well-documented, and the conditions under which food was produced are better.  I am happy to keep my eggs and butter out on the worktop.  I eat runny yolks and rare-ish beef here.  I feel soooo much safer with the food supply here.

While I'm sad that some things can't be had here, I really do appreciate non-CAFO meat and poultry, and unwashed eggs.

Yes to all of this, that both of you said. I love that I can ask my local butcher for advice when I want to try something new. And the farmers market-quality stuff is more cost-effective here than the equivalent in America. Flavour in general is much better as well, because there's no, like, high-fructose corn syrup in sauerkraut or whatever.

I was always a really good cook, but my skills and range have flourished so much here. Not sure I could move back; afraid I'd starve.

I do agree. I have told my husband that I feel like the quality of the food is better and fresher than what we get in the states. When I cook something from scratch it always tastes great. Aside from some very specific American items, I have had no problem finding everything I want or need at the market. I do most of the shopping between M&S and Booth's. I think Booth's has a great selection especially if you're into baking or preparing complex recipes. Honestly, since I've been visiting the UK and spending lots of time with my husband there, I've started to actually enjoy cooking again. I love doing the shopping there as well! 

Yes, yes, yes

When my daughter visited in July, she was stunned at the quality.  She told me she had always thought U.K. =bad food.

I find I don’t miss much.

Calf and beef liver.  I can only find lamb and chicken liver.  And I so wish that avocados weren’t kept refrigerated.  Even once brought home and kept out they don’t seem to ripen evenly.  Ice cream doesn’t seem as good.  But all in all, I’m really happy

YES!!!

I had ZERO cooking experience when I moved to England at age 25 and my husband had even less.

I remember the day after I arrived to England to start my new life, it fell upon my shoulders to figure out the cooking. At that time, hardly anything was ready-made and the most exotic freezer meal was pizza with sweet corn. I’m Mexican-American and all I had eaten growing up is Mexican food so I was completely freaked out! I only knew how to make Kraft Mac & Cheese. I finally stopped a lady to ask her for help in preparing macaroni and cheese and she said it was “the easiest thing” and then proceeded to throw instructions like: making a roux, pasta being  ‘al dente’,  grinding of nutmeg, etc... I thanked her and felt a sense of doom. Then I noticed a beat-up box of Old El Paso Taco Kit. It was a sign from my deceased grandparents, my deceased mother because my hometown is EL PASO! I literally cried in the aisle! They were probably giving me a lifeline and a lesson to learn to cook! I vowed that day to learn. I enrolled in a week-long course at Leith’s Cooking School in Chiswick.

I was supremely spoiled in England because everything was made from scratch using quality ingredients and you had real conversations with butchers, fish mongers, market holders. You knew where it all was grown or raised. It’s even BETTER now! I have been in the US now for 14 years and it’s much better but not to the extent of the UK. The food industry in the UK is miles ahead than it could ever be here. As a cook, you are spoilt for choice in the UK and it’s actually the Number 1 reason for me (don’t tell my husband) that I want to return.


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And all of that is why I am on week 8 of a diet. For the first year we were here I heavily sampled all the lovely food.

(Sigh - it's so hard to pass it up now!)

and 30-odd years of it is why I'm about to have weight loss surgery, LOL!! 

I am a little upset with British food at the moment. They changed the sauce pack included in my Rustler's burgers from the "Rustler's sauce" to some sort of "tomato relish". It is a microwaveable hamburger for goodness sake; it can't be made classy with a sauce change.

and 30-odd years of it is why I'm about to have weight loss surgery, LOL!! 

Wow, good luck with that Albatross!   

Wow, good luck with that Albatross!   

Thanks... well, you saw me the last time when we went to Edinburgh with G.  It's only got worse since then, so I've got to put a stop to it.

I really shouldn't blame the food/ale.... it's my own greed that's the problem!   

I really shouldn't blame the food/ale....

I do blame it!!      

I think it's fair to blame the food and ale.  If it wasn't enjoyable, we wouldn't consume it.

and 30-odd years of it is why I'm about to have weight loss surgery, LOL!! 

(self-funded, in case anyone is up at arms about my gluttony draining NHS funds!)