It all started with the desire for a decent bacon roll.
I didn't often eat bacon rolls in the UK, but when I did, I wanted a tangy brown sauce to complement the crisp bacon and chewy roll. Unfortunately tangy sauce is not easily found in the US, and after trying various barbeque and steak sauces (mostly liquid sugars with a little coloring), I voiced my desire for some proper HP Sauce to Beth. She immediately got online and found a store in Eugene that carried said HP Sauce.
Cost Plus World Market caters (at a cost) to palates that respond to tastes other than sickly-sweet. You can get Asian, Indian and British foods, as well as many non-edible things. I zoned in on the British aisle, and picked out the HP Sauce ($6 a bottle), adding digestive biscuits, Branston Pickle and some Haywards pickled onions. Again, I'm not a huge consumer of pickled onions or Branston Pickle, but there's nothing quite like these produced or widely available in the US.
Is this the pangs of homesickness? I don't think so, though many ex-pats yearn for various foods or beverages. I haven't really missed any specific tastes or textures much, but it's nice to know I have somewhere I can get a digestive biscuit or a tangy sauce if the inclination is upon me.
I've always wondered if digestive biscuits help you digest. I mean, is it easier to digest one than, say, an oreo?
ReplyDeleteAs for HP sauce, it looks like A-1. Same bottle.
I guess they call it Cost Plus because "plus" can mean anything they want it to.
There's a pan-Asian market not too far from here where half the fun is trying to guess what the heck is in the package. Once, as a b-day present, Gabe gave his friend Matt green bean popsicles. There were some other choice selections, some of which we ate.
I always used to make jokes about digestive biscuits. :) Wiki says "The term 'digestive' is derived from the belief that they had antacid properties due to the use of sodium bicarbonate when they were first developed. Historically, some producers used diastatic malt extract to 'digest' some of the starch that existed in flour prior to baking."
ReplyDeleteI didn't have hankerings for any British food other than Bisto (a gravy mix) before seeing M's haul...but now I think I may need to get my own chocolate digestives....yum!