Patsy

We had a lovely BBQ at the weekend and it got me thinking how much i would miss certain foods.....We like to look forward to things like dips for starters, Taramasalata, humus....ready made chilled pasta already done for u in their pots...etc.Tesco's finest....sainsburys Taste the Difference...all those luxuries!!!!..Can i get these things in canada (obviously not the Tesco and Sainsburys bit) and if not, how readily available are the ingredients such as cods roe, olive oil, garlic gloves, tahini sauce and chick peas, so i can make them?
I know foods can be missed but are there any foods that i havent had the pleasure of yet, which exBrits would really miss if they returned to UK?

dbd33

I hope you're joking. This is a fabulous place for food. We've not been able to find instant grits but, otherwise, I can't imagine there's any type of food not available here.

This is a good place to start :

http://www.stlawrencemarket.com/shopping/forsale.html

otherwise there's an ethnic neighbourhood for just about every ethnicity where people actually from country x sell the products of country x.

Tarama, humous and the other items above are not very challenging examples. They're available from chain supermarkets and independent stores without going to Greektown.

Patsy

Thats great news!!! so is it just things like heinz beans and cadburys chocolate people cant get?

Souvenir

This has to be a wind-up. My local supermarket (by no means a huge store and serving a fairly heterogenous clientele) makes your average Sainsburys look like Quiksave. The fresh bread counter alone is about 50 feet long and I haven't even tried to count the cheeses (read: cheese atlas of the world).

And they pack your bags for you.

There is only one thing I haven't been able to find around here and we all know what that is (my needs as a rare Englishman in Quebec do not justify the shelf space).

dbd33

Both of those are available but at premium prices. Curiously my partner, an American, likes Cadburys so we get it from time-to-time, it's $5 for the big bar. I think Cailler is the very best chocolate, it's a vending machine brand in Switzerland and costs, perhaps, a buck. Here it's $30 a bar !

Over the summer we've been working through the recipes in : http://www.barbecuebible.com/ and have never been stuck for an ingredient. We experiment a fair bit with different foods, tahini from the arab supermarket in Scarborough, lychees from Chinatown east, things labelled only in foreign languages. The availability of foods my parents wouldn't try is the best feature of Toronto.

Patsy

lol..the mind boggles!!!! ..no... i got the impression that it was going to be the end of me luxuries...maybe im getting confused when i read posts from peeps missin walkers crisps etc...and eh...ive seen the colour of the juices and cereals over there :scared:
ohhh and theres the bacon issue

Souvenir

It's the "M" word.

The food colouring thing varies. When I lived in Ontario we bought Becel (ie marg) that was yellow. In Quebec it's white (no colouring allowed).

Bacon is hardly an issue. If you want meaty stuff, go for peameal. And, yes, you can buy brown sauce to put on your butties.

And Branston.

Biiiiink

That's the impression I got from reading this forum too, and as I said only the other day in here, it's all tosh. Superstore seems to get slagged in here with regularity but I rather like the place and it's got an impressive range of imported foods for a supermarket.

i've never eaten so well. As the waistband of the trousers I unpacked from a box this morning confirms.

Souvenir

That's nothing to do with the food, dear. If you don't wear clothes for a while, they shrink. Fact.

Or so my Mrs tells me.

Biiiiink

lol

Patsy

lol...am i thick? Milk? nah Meat? hmm an englishman in quebec? mousse? if its that bad pm me!!! erm marmalade?....malt whisky?...muffins? lol

Patsy

lol..and i consoled myself after the bbq by saying to myself..well at least i'll be thin!

TrishP

And here's me thinking it was MARMITE!!!!

Souvenir

Think toast and ........

BTW, muffins are illegal in Canada.

CalgaryBlade

I would agree with the above. We use Superstore for bulk buying and Safeway for the day-to-day stuff.

Superstore has great variety and plenty of the names that Brits would recognise (Lea&Perrins, HP, Branston). One benefit of the larger houses here is that you can buy stuff in bulk. We bought a freeezer for the basement on sale that is "catering size". If meat or whatever is on sale, we bulk buy.

Safeway is at least as good, if not better, than the Sainsbury's store we used in London. They have a brand called "Safeway Select" which caters for more diverse tastes. Become a club-card member and then you can take advantage of many "buy 1 get 1 free offers".

BBQ'ing is a great way to cook. Especially when you can just walk out onto you deck and turn it on. Ours is located next to the kitchen door so we can use it year round (and no refills as it's on the main supply).

The only thing I think we've missed (well my son misses) is Ribena. You can get it here, it's just it's sold as it used to be in the UK as a health drink in little bottles which are expensive.

However, we've weened him onto Cranberrry juice which is in plentiful supply and probably contains less sugar.