Next weekend d/h and I will go to my home in England for 3 weeks. There are certain favorite food items which I love but can't get here which always make my mouth water.

This time of year the local runner beans will be ready for picking. These are like a very long pole bean sometimes 12 inches long but with an incredible taste. I could eat a whole plate of these with Bisto gravy

From the local bakery I'll buy eccles cakes. These originate from up in northern England and have a flakey sugery pastry with a soft spicey raisin or currant centre.

The local pub serves the best Banoffee pie. A deicious but very rich pie with a layer of soft toffee, a layer of mashed banans and topped with whipped cream.

Then, from the grocery store Melton Mowbry pork pies with Branston pickle.

Needless to say I'll gain a pound or two. But what the heck it'll be worth it.

Volupte I don't know how long you've been away from the UK but the home-grown vegetables and fruit are fabulous these days (just avoid the dreaded Elsanta strawberries as they're flavourless)! We had a fresh pasta dish with watercress pesto and fresh broad beans as a late lunch/early dinner today and it was heavenly. Lots and lots of berries for breakfast, too.

I'll leave you to the pork pie and the gravy, being vegetarian!

Have a good trip.

What is Bistro gravy?
Volupte I love your food discriptions! Wonderful!!

When DH and I lived in DC, we were close to several places that made wonderful Vietnamese phở. I wish I could find it in the town where we live now. (BTW, phở for breakfast is a delight everyone should have at least once in their life.)

I also miss some of my Mexican favorites: buñuelos and sopaipillas, fresh fish tacos, fresh tortillas.

There's a watercress farm near my mothers in Hampshire.........watercress sandwiches on Hovis bread

We always go to a great fruit and vegetables stall in Winchester, he has a great produce.

It's very basic gravy mix that's been around for years. Originally it came in powder form but now you can buy the instant granules which makes it so easy to prepare, you just add boiling water plus a certain amount of Bisto and voila! you have a good bark brown gravy without lumps and you can make it as thick or thin as you wish.

Bisto

I have not had decent meatloaf since my mother died. She's been gone ten years, so I haven't had a taste of meatloaf worth eating all this time. *sigh*

If I have my way I will never be far from these.

Oh, there are a lot of things I miss eating, but I think potato chips tops the list for me. Since my surgery, they just don't agree with me at all. Probably a good thing though. But I still miss 'em!

I just got back from Montreal, where I gorged myself on chocolate croissants, fresh baguettes and wonderful French cheeses. Oh yum!! I miss Paris and it was a good substitute.

from the azores I miss the butter (strong and cheesy flavoured), the strawberried ( wild and more intense), raw milk , steak , chicken and oven baked broa.

being landlocked I miss fresh catch of the day fish , its either very $pendy or frozen

Cazaubon, are there any Trader Joe's near you? In their freezer case they have (among other great ready to bake items) pain au chocolat. This could be one of the better frozen food products ever! You put the 4 rolls of dough on a baking sheet to proof before you go to bed. Cover with a paper towel, maybe. 8 hours later when you rise, the little pains are ready to bake. Preheat oven while you're making tea or coffee. Bake for about 20 minutes, take out and voila! These are darn good pain au choclate. No funny stuff, just the classic ingredients, and they use a very good quality of chocolate.

My mother used to make cabbage rolls and stuffed green peppers. I love them but never make them because I am the only one that would eat them.

I'm going to make them anyway.

When I was growing up we ate all kinds of wild game and fish. We mostly lived on what we grew or killed or else we wouldn't have eaten much.
We were never on food stamps although I am sure we would have qualified.

My husband doesn't do much hunting and fishing and I never have personally killed anything but I miss eating those things.

I miss corn (dietary restriction). The mostly Ukrainian food my grandmother would make. A particular yellow pack no-name curry-flavored ramen from '88-'89 (then the flavor pack changed). French walnut cheese.

I miss eating really good empanadas with a pork picadillo filling and fresh crusty Cuban bread.

From Central Pennsylvania:

-A single piece of shoo fly pie (conveniently wrapped in plastic next to the cash register)

-Lebanon bologna (sweet please) just sliced from Shivley's butcher ship in Mifflinburg

-Beer pretzels (hard as rocks in a tilt jar for 5 cents conveniently next to the cash register)

-Birch beer (the red kind please)

-Ham pot pie (with home made noodles) at most carnivals fairs and auctions

-Bechtels Teaberry ice cream (Lewisburg location)

-Ridiculously enormous translucent sticky buns from the Dutchman's wife Nora (with nuts)

-Big soft molasses or raisin filled cookies (wrapped in plastic next to the cash register)

-Kenobles Grove sausage and pepper rolls, sugared elephant ears, and candied apples

-Homemade dried beef from Shively's butcher shop in Mifflinburg

-Aldene Beans from Bings Drive In in Penns Creek (served in paper boats with a fork)

Morticia, funny you should mention that - I did in fact go to a Trader Joe's the day after I got back, and saw the Chocolate Croissants in the frozen section. I bought a box, thinking I would try them out, although I haven't cooked them yet - glad to hear they are good! Now I'm really looking forward to trying them. Thanks!

I miss lots of things my Polish Grandmother made: fat little pork patties with fried onions she called kutlety; her weird spaghetti and meatballs (tiny meatballs of ground round with no fillers, fried hard and crunchy, spaghetti sauced with a combo of fried onions, tomato paste, and lots of salt); corn or asparagus placki (like potato pancakes, but without potato); and her barszcz (beet borcht). She was illiterate and used no recipes and couldn't write them down. She stopped cooking when I was in high school and not all that interested in preparing food myself, so I didn't think to ask her how to make anything.

I also miss my Mom's pot roast, mac and cheese, country spareribs, and hell, even her tuna casserole. I could make all of these myself now, but nothing tastes the same as when she made it.

ETA: I used the word "meatballs" without the "meat" part in the above parenthetical description and it was CENSORED and replaced with #####! Too funny.

A proper onion bagel, toasted with butter, topped with gravlax and cream-cheese, fresh purple onion rings, capers, lemon juice.... and salt.


I'd slay for such a thing, but our small texas town lacks a NY deli.


I sure could go for a big mess of sushi round about now, as well....

Oh Ras, I catered a Jewish wedding last month and had permission to take home the leftovers constituting your dream meal. It really was heavenly.
2 lbs of Norwegian gravlax and 2 cups of tiny little French capers the size of a peppercorn
were mine. I can close my eyes and still feel the outer crunch of the fresh onion bagel as it settles into the cream cheese and salty nirvana. A celestial experience.

Oh, you're making me hungry!