Need Suggestions from our UK Friends!

Jack Parker · May 22, 2013

I live in Minnesota, USA and have a friend in the UK who absolutely loves to cook. Cakes, curries, breads and foods from all over the world. She's done a fair bit of traveling, too.

As a thank you for all she does, I'd like to send her a care package from the U.S. Here in Minneapolis, we can buy certain products from the UK and I'm sure the reverse is true. I really want to make this care package unique with unexpected items.

Any suggestions of things I can send her that she might be hard pressed to find there? Are there any particular items that I definitely SHOULD and/or SHOULD NOT enclose? (Other than the obvious cold items like meat and cheeses.)

Feel free to recommend small kitchen gadgets or toys that might be nice to receive, too. What about spices?

Basically, any recommendations or MUST HAVES would be greatly appreciated!

Please let me know if you agree with the following things that have already been suggested by others on different forum:

Salt Water Taffy
Nutter Butter Cookies
Duncan Hines Cake Mixes (although she makes her own from scratch.)
Tinned Pumpkin
A good microwave popcorn (???)
Grits
Corn Meal or a good Corn Muffin Mix

From my time in Europe, I achingly miss a good chips and curry, curried Pringles and I'd trample my grandmother for some double cream!

mirandashell · May 22, 2013

You might be better off asking this on an ex-pats forum. Americans living in the UK would know better than any Brits.

Jack Parker · May 22, 2013

Thanks for the suggestion. I played it safe by posting it here because I know the mods preferences are pretty firm!

I'll give it a try. Any mods reading this, please feel free to delete this thread completely. I'm going to copy and paste it as a new thread in the ex-pats forum. Thank you! (Sorry for the trouble.)

GeorgeK · May 22, 2013

Minnesota wild rice

firedrake · May 22, 2013

As a Brit who's ping-ponged across the Atlantic a few times, the things I miss are:

A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce

Stubbs Barbecue sauce (You guys have much better BBQ sauce)

A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce

I used to miss salad dressings, like Ranch, or Creamy Italian. I just make my own. Now I just need to find a recipe for Green Goddess dressing, that's next on my list.

GeorgeK · May 22, 2013

firedrake said:
As a Brit who's ping-ponged across the Atlantic a few times, the things I miss are:

A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce

Stubbs Barbecue sauce (You guys have much better BBQ sauce)

A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce

I used to miss salad dressings, like Ranch, or Creamy Italian. I just make my own. Now I just need to find a recipe for Green Goddess dressing, that's next on my list.

Canned tomatoes, maybe some tomato paste depending on your taste, a splash of Worchestershire sauce and Black Pepper...maybe a spritz of liquid smoke if you don't want to cook it down yourself until you are caramelizing things

Jack Parker · May 22, 2013

GeorgeK said:
Minnesota wild rice

How embarrassing that I didn't think of that myself! LOL

Thanks!

ETA: Keeping with the Minnesota theme, I could send her lutefisk, but I want her to remain my friend! LOL

Jack Parker · May 22, 2013

firedrake said:
As a Brit who's ping-ponged across the Atlantic a few times, the things I miss are:

A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce

Stubbs Barbecue sauce (You guys have much better BBQ sauce)

A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce

I used to miss salad dressings, like Ranch, or Creamy Italian. I just make my own. Now I just need to find a recipe for Green Goddess dressing, that's next on my list.

Never heard of Stubbs but A1 flows like honey around here. Thanks!

TedTheewen · May 22, 2013

Stubbs is good stuff.

I was told maple syrup was something not very common in the UK. But that was years ago and things might have changed.

mirandashell · May 22, 2013

It's not common where I'm from but we have heard of it. Someone did say it was expensive though.

TedTheewen · May 22, 2013

I would also recommend Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey because my European friends have never heard of it. But of course, that was 2 years ago.

mirandashell · May 22, 2013

Jack Daniels is a drink here. Often with coke and ice.

Jack Parker · May 22, 2013

This package is getting veeeerry heavy! Thanks for the suggestions!

TedTheewen · May 22, 2013

mirandashell said:
Jack Daniels is a drink here. Often with coke and ice.

Right, JD is world-wide. But they recently came out with another product called Tennessee Honey. I found it to be love in a bottle. But none of my European friends could get it a couple years ago when it first came out.

kikazaru · May 22, 2013

You might want to check with the import law regarding food before you send it off, but how about some beef jerky or blueberry products - maybe dried blueberries?

Jack Parker · May 22, 2013

kikazaru said:
You might want to check with the import law regarding food before you send it off, but how about some beef jerky or blueberry products - maybe dried blueberries?

Exactly. I'm not taking any chances with any meat because I know that's a battle not worth fighting. I have LOADS of the dried fruit options available, actually.

I'm still confirming what can and can't be mailed. So far I'm not seeing much of a problem.

Mr Flibble · May 23, 2013

TedTheewen said:
I was told maple syrup was something not very common in the UK. But that was years ago and things might have changed.

We sell it in our (tiny) local shop. From the same people who make golden syrup (Lyles?) and about the same price. Ofc I don't know if it's the same as the US version. We also sell jerky and dried fruits (again, not sure if they are the same)

Your original list sounds good. With the exception of microwave popcorn, I don't think any of those are widely available.

clee984 · May 23, 2013

Grits definitely, and what about (north american) biscuits? They're fecking awesome. I love those things.

Oh god, chips and gravy or curry sauce. Can't get that where I live. *drools*.

firedrake · May 23, 2013

mirandashell said:
It's not common where I'm from but we have heard of it. Someone did say it was expensive though.

Over £5 a bottle in our local Co op.

Mr Flibble · May 23, 2013

Wow. We sell it for...er.. about £1.50. (The Lyles one that is)

cornflake · May 23, 2013

Mr Flibble said:
Wow. We sell it for...er.. about £1.50. (The Lyles one that is)

That's the same stuff as the many brands in the U.S. like Log Cabin, Ms. Butterworth, etc., that are just basically corn syrup with maple flavouring.

Real maple syrup is always expensive; it's made by boiling down the sap from maple trees. Even in larger mapling operations, it's not a really industrialized process - they have to tap each tree, collect the sap and boil it in big vats over fire for a long time. Right off a farm that produces the stuff, in a maple syrup-producing area, it's still like $25/qt. or so.

Mr Flibble · May 23, 2013

Ahhh...that explains it! Can't stand the stuff myself, so am not up on differences

cornflake · May 23, 2013

Mr Flibble said:
Ahhh...that explains it! Can't stand the stuff myself, so am not up on differences

The real stuff is better than the fake. Less cloyingly sweet (though it too is sugar, basically), richer, more nuanced flavour, less goopy and sticky. It also has antioxidants and I think I've read someplace it doesn't spike blood sugar the same way that more refined sugars do.

Though it's not really such a thing there so I'm guessing the bottle mentioned above for the fiver is quite wee and not so readily available.

There are lots of things made with the real stuff that are good too, though I've mostly only seen them in the heavy maple syrup-producing states. Maple drops (hard candies made of maple syrup), maple sugar, maple sugar candy, maple tea, yada yada. It's a thing. Starbucks does maple coffee in the fall I think it is, there are maple sugar doughnuts to be had, maple ice cream - a thing, I tell you!

Mr Flibble · May 23, 2013

Hmm maybe I'll try some

FWIW it looks like it's about £15 a litre which is er....carry the one....Oh, wait, US quarts are different....about $25 a quart. Ish. So roughly the same price?

Jack Parker · May 23, 2013

cornflake said:
That's the same stuff as the many brands in the U.S. like Log Cabin, Ms. Butterworth, etc., that are just basically corn syrup with maple flavouring.

Real maple syrup is always expensive; it's made by boiling down the sap from maple trees. Even in larger mapling operations, it's not a really industrialized process - they have to tap each tree, collect the sap and boil it in big vats over fire for a long time. Right off a farm that produces the stuff, in a maple syrup-producing area, it's still like $25/qt. or so.

Exactly! Don't confuse maple syrup with pancake syrup. HUGE difference! Surprisingly, I hate maple syrup. But, I'm going to send the good stuff. It will be expensive but I know she'll love it.

Need Suggestions from our UK Friends!

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