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[il cacciatore]

Hello There,
Have just read the comments and knowing quite a few of quite a few other English living in the area, I would like to pose a question.
If you can't do without your all your so called English foods then why move to Italy in the first place and even more so why move to the countryside in Italy??????
I know it's going to offend alot of you, but compared to the fresh natural foods here I wouldn't be seen dead with a cupboard full of English foods stuffs.

[Jinty]

Originally Posted by il cacciatore

Hello There,
Have just read the comments and knowing quite a few of quite a few other English living in the area, I would like to pose a question.
If you can't do without your all your so called English foods then why move to Italy in the first place and even more so why move to the countryside in Italy??????
I know it's going to offend alot of you, but compared to the fresh natural foods here I wouldn't be seen dead with a cupboard full of English foods stuffs.

While I agree the quality of the food in Italy is far superior to the UK - there are occasions when something of your own "culture" is desirable - and if this wasn't the case we wouldn't have decent olive oil or parmesan (or curries - this list could go on and on....) in the UK at ALL!!

I had NEVER eaten haggis until I moved from Scotland to England and a boyfriend presented me with one as a "present" on Burns Night - I had to phone my mother to find out what to do with it! and now I love it!
While I was living in England I craved something called "square sausage" which now I am back living in Scotland I wouldn't eat if you paid me.
All I can say in our defence is what's with the Nutella thing in Italy - THAT I don't understand

[Carole B]

It's often a matter of 'nostalgia'...it doesn't last forever and after a number of years those flashes of craving for a distant remembered taste really DO disappear.

Over a number of years I have found some reasonable substitutes for some old favourites and make do with those. However... there are still one or two tastes/memories that just cannot be found here and for that reason they do tend to become (mentally) more important - at least that's the case for me.

Things like Lincolnshire and Cumberland sausages, Marmite (no, NOT Vegemite - yuk), English 'salted' butter, Roses Lime Marmalade, Terry's Chocolate Orange ....and (believe it or not) an occaisional Hovis Granary loaf. Oh and one thing that may seem totally daft....PARSNIPS!

But back to the question posed by il cacciatore:

If you can't do without your all your so called English foods then why move to Italy in the first place and even more so why move to the countryside in Italy??????

It's not really a question of not being able to do without - and I didn't move to Italy for the food - though of course that was a very nice part of my 'new life' way back then. I can see little wrong with indulging myself in an occasional 'taste memory' from my past even if others do find that strange. It doesn't offend me when people pose that question (no you're not the first to do so...) - it makes me smile as I wonder how the questioner would act given the same situation?

[AllanMason]

Originally Posted by il cacciatore

If you can't do without your all your so called English foods then why move to Italy in the first place and even more so why move to the countryside in Italy??????

Given how Italians are notorious for considering the food from the next village along the road virtually inedible, it is somewhat ironic to be chastised by an Italian for not accepting that I can now only eat food which is – to me – foreign.

By this "logic" the Italians, Chinese, Poles and people of every other nationality who immigrated to, for example, the USA should have just forgotten the tastes they grew up with and accepted whatever was the dominant food culture of the area they moved to. It hardly needs saying that they haven't, so I don't see why I should feel guilty about enjoying things from abroad that many Italians have never even heard of, never mind been adventurous enough to try.

Italian food is good, but it is pretty damn boring after a while for anyone who was brought up in a more varied and cosmopolitan food culture.

If it was possible for the Italian culture police to force me to eat, drink, talk, think and behave exactly as native-born Italians do, I would never have moved to this country. There are many positive things about Italy and I enjoy living here, but I am not an Italian and I have no intention of trying to pretend that I am one.

One sometimes gets the impression that any suggestion that non-Italians might like non-Italian stuff occasionally is taken as a personal insult by some Italians. It should hardly need saying that it isn't, no more so than it's an insult to Spanish-American culture and cuisine for people with an Italian family heritage living in the Southwest USA to enjoy traditional Italian cooking.

Oh, and to address the original topic of the thread, I'd be interested to know how much it would cost to get tins or bottles of dry English cider to our place in Abruzzo.

Al

[Sebastiano]

Originally Posted by Carole B

It's often a matter of 'nostalgia'...it doesn't last forever and after a number of years those flashes of craving for a distant remembered taste really DO disappear.

Over a number of years I have found some reasonable substitutes for some old favourites and make do with those. However... there are still one or two tastes/memories that just cannot be found here and for that reason they do tend to become (mentally) more important - at least that's the case for me.

Things like Lincolnshire and Cumberland sausages, Marmite (no, NOT Vegemite - yuk), English 'salted' butter, Roses Lime Marmalade, Terry's Chocolate Orange ....and (believe it or not) an occaisional Hovis Granary loaf. Oh and one thing that may seem totally daft....PARSNIPS!

But back to the question posed by il cacciatore:


It's not really a question of not being able to do without - and I didn't move to Italy for the food - though of course that was a very nice part of my 'new life' way back then. I can see little wrong with indulging myself in an occasional 'taste memory' from my past even if others do find that strange. It doesn't offend me when people pose that question (no you're not the first to do so...) - it makes me smile as I wonder how the questioner would act given the same situation?

whilst i generally agree with cacciatore,i'd just like to say that parsnips grow very well here if you don't have clay soil.they are eaten in italy but not everywhere,you can get seeds to plant them.Also mulino bianco do a sliced brown granary bread (called pane rustico)available in most supermarkets which is in fact better than the Hovis loaf,so a lot of these "problems" can be resolved very easily,like for example making your own beans in tomato sauce (without sugar!) which are fantastic and you'd never eat baked beans after trying that.ok marmite no comment!

[Annamaria]

My Italian-born nephews love Bird's custard powder! They have never left Italy but their mum tried it on them when they were small just to get milk down them. I, who lived a VERY long time in England and Kenya and who had the stuff stuck on jellies at school (YUK!!!) can't stand the stuff....

[HelenMW]

Originally Posted by il cacciatore

Hello There,
If you can't do without your all your so called English foods then why move to Italy in the first place and even more so why move to the countryside in Italy??????
I know it's going to offend alot of you, but compared to the fresh natural foods here I wouldn't be seen dead with a cupboard full of English foods stuffs.

Because I'm English!!!! I have chosen to live in Italy for many reasons but as someone else said not the food (although it is a wonderful bonus to living here) and my digestion will not tolerate pasta 365 days of the year.I don't want a whole cupboard full of stuff but there are times when fresh natural foods don't hit the spot and / or a taste of home is required, therefore I will continue to bring over Bisto gravy browning, Birds custard powder (very nice on the crumble made with local wholemeal flous & apples & blackberries which grow freshly & naturally on my land) and Galaxy chocolate (as the regular stuff here (in my opinion) is over priced and not particulary good and if you don't like praline you're a bit stuck). By the way I didn't find the comment offensive just extremely annoying especially as going by that rule most Italians should never venture abroad as they believe their food is absolutely superior to any other food on the planet.

[AllanMason]

Originally Posted by HelenMW

...by that rule most Italians should never venture abroad as they believe their food is absolutely superior to any other food on the planet.

As a rule, Italians don't venture abroad. Historically, there have been an awful lot of immigrants seeking a better life beyond the borders of il bel paese, but those still living in Italy tend to opt for the familiar surroundings and "safe" food on offer in Italian coastal resorts when they take a holiday.

Al

[Penny]

Originally Posted by Sebastiano

i'd just like to say that parsnips grow very well here

But what about us poor souls who live in town?? Do you know anywhere I can bu a parsnip for my Christmas dinner?

I think it is human nature to yearn after home comfort foods. It doesn't mean you think they are "better", just they remind you of family and nostalgia. When my German family came over to visit us in the UK (mum is German), they always came with a whole car loaded up with salami, pates and schinken for my mum and nan who would also send "home" for stuff they ran out of. They didn't particularly cook German and had both been in the UK since their teens, but it did leave me with a taste for Maggie, puffas, goulash & marble cake which, along with my craving for Marmite & a cup of proper builder's tea (I am a cockney after all!) in the morning, means I have distinctly eclectic food tastes.

And today I am cooking risotto with salsicce and bietola. Yesterday we had mulligatawny soup. Mix and match I say - so long as you cook it from scratch and it is fresh. The other Italian girls I worked with in the office were fascinated by what we ate each day and would question me in some detail and want to know how we cooked it all and what we ate with what. I think they were surprised we didn't each bacon & eggs every morning!