Immigrants: what foods from home do you miss most?

Illona88
Illona88 Posts: 903 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I personally moved from the Netherlands to the UK.
The foods I miss the most is the applesauce (British ones taste funny and I can't find the right apples here to make it myself), chocolate sprinkles with butter on bread, snert (pea soup at the thickness of a stew), stewed pears (can't find the right pears), peach flavoured milk, bolognese flavoured crisps and Frisian spice and sugar cake.

The meals I can make myself, so I don't really have to miss those. Unfortunately snert is delicious, but takes hours to make and can only really be made in quantities that will feed an army.
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Replies

  • _noob_
    _noob_ Posts: 3,306 Member
    Boiled crawfish and decent seafood mostly.

    The food here in SE Texas is just so generic...no identity like my homeland in Lousisiana.
  • melissaann262
    melissaann262 Posts: 27
    empanadas chilenas!
  • cathnealrobb
    cathnealrobb Posts: 8 Member
    I am Irish and have been living in the US for 14 years. I have never recovered from missing Irish cadbury's chocolate. Dairy Milk from the fridge, specifically! I can find it here, but it is just not easily accessible when I get the craving.
  • jkmiller82
    jkmiller82 Posts: 214 Member
    Boiled crawfish and decent seafood mostly.

    The food here in SE Texas is just so generic...no identity like my homeland in Lousisiana.

    What city do you live in? I don't think I could live without my TX barbeque and Texmex. Albeit, after visiting my sister in Seattle I do admit our seafood leaves something to be desired.

    I used to live in Buffalo, NY and I miss beef on weck. Thinly sliced (right in front of you) roast beef with aus jus on a kemmelweck roll (a soft flaky roll topped with caraway seeds and kosher salt. I could attempt to make it myself, but I don't think it' would compare.

    P.S. I totally googled the recipe for Snert and will definitely be making it in the future! Yum!
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
    I personally moved from the Netherlands to the UK.
    The foods I miss the most is the applesauce (British ones taste funny and I can't find the right apples here to make it myself), chocolate sprinkles with butter on bread, snert (pea soup at the thickness of a stew), stewed pears (can't find the right pears), peach flavoured milk, bolognese flavoured crisps and Frisian spice and sugar cake.
    I love those chocolate sprinkles when I go to the Netherlands!
  • fionarama
    fionarama Posts: 788 Member
    love the OP. My mother was Dutch it really brings back memories. apple sauce with all sorts of things, like mashed potato!

    I'm from NZ so we don't have much cuisine i miss. Kumara (NZ sweet potato) is the main one, and the mussels you buy actual live and farmed in the supermarket, huge much bigger than European ones.
  • bluefox9er
    bluefox9er Posts: 2,917 Member
    passion fruit from kenya..it's wrinkled and black, not smooth and purple like other varieties. I can find it occasionally in the UK, but I overdose on it whenever I return to Kenya for visits
  • Yeller_Sensation
    Yeller_Sensation Posts: 373 Member
    Char Kuay Teow. Fried with lard only, please.

    I'm from Singapore.

    I don't know the proper translation of the dish and I don't exactly want to try because it will just ruin it.
  • luisalg14
    luisalg14 Posts: 202 Member
    I miss, from Peru: aji (yellow chillies) and super fresh ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice); from my Chinese home: steamed rice bowls my dad would cook for me, but other than that, almost everything Chinese can be found where I'm at right now; from my adopted home, New Zealand: green lipped mussels, really good fish and chips, really good lamb....
  • captmorg151
    captmorg151 Posts: 1 Member
    I like peas, the description of snert sounds good, if not the name itself, but snert is fun to say.

    snert......snert.......snert.......

    now the word has lost all meaning. :smile:
  • mynameiscarrie
    mynameiscarrie Posts: 963 Member
    Not the exact same, but I moved from California to Georgia. I miss good artichokes. Random, but true. and In and Out Burger.
  • SmallMimi
    SmallMimi Posts: 541 Member
    From the US but lived in Germany for a short time, I really miss Jaeger Schnitzel. Tried several recipes from on line without much success.
  • Contrarian
    Contrarian Posts: 8,138 Member
    When I lived in the UK, I missed peanut butter, dill pickles and Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Also, my mother's butter tarts.

    Now, being back in Canada, I miss M&S caramelised onion chutney, caramelised onion and balsamic crisps and twirl bars.
  • CapnGordo
    CapnGordo Posts: 327
    Funeral Potatoes. It's a Utah thing.
  • ldrosophila
    ldrosophila Posts: 7,512 Member
    Not an immigrant, but a transplant to California and I miss real hot New Mexican food. This blah watered down California stuff doesnt even come close to home. I also miss some of the food from Nigeria like the roadside corn and the thin slices of hot spicey meat wrapped in newspaper. Oh and I also miss the Lebanese cooking from the immigrants in Nigeria....MMMMMM.

    Oh and mangoes and guava fresh from the tree...yum yum drool drool.
  • Dunkirk
    Dunkirk Posts: 465 Member
    A nostalgia thing, I miss milk in bottles.
  • michellechawner
    michellechawner Posts: 892
    I currently live in California, but was born and raised in New York. Not different countries, but different ends of the same county.

    No Dunkin Donuts?
    No Carvel?

    Seriously... although, we are getting a Dunkin in 2014, so is rumored. But it's on a military base, and well, i'm not military, so probably won't be able to go.

    However, we have in n out - and a lot of my NY friends are jealous of that.
  • BigDnSW
    BigDnSW Posts: 641 Member
    Fresh goat cooked on a rotisserie/open flame on real fresh flat bread with tons of grilled veggies bought at the Suk (North Africa).
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,961 Member
    I used to live in the Netherlands and miss old goat gouda most of all. Also raw herring which I used to call working man's sushi. I also miss fillet americain.
  • bumblebums
    bumblebums Posts: 2,181 Member
    The only thing I cannot get in NYC is Zwack Unicum. It's not a food, it's booze. And it's not from my home country but it is foreign. So there, I am not exactly on topic.
  • kimmymayhall
    kimmymayhall Posts: 419 Member
    I spent a lot of my childhood in Malaysia. I miss roti canai, rambutans, and good Chinese food :sad:
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    Originally from Iowa, U.S., and been living in Canada for 11 years. What I miss:

    - A&E small curd cottage cheese
    - Oscar Meyer beef balonga
    - Fastco hot dogs
    - chocolate milk

    Up here, all the foods that have casing (sausages, hot dogs, cottage cheese) come with thick casing. I found hot dogs that I like, except biting into them is like biting into minced meat stuffed into a 1/2" chunk of plastic. Cottage cheese does not taste "right", extremely blah. The chocolate milk is somewhere between red and purple in color rather than a brown.

    I also miss the cheapness. Food's much more expensive when it has to be shipped on an overnight ferry.
  • MelissaL582
    MelissaL582 Posts: 1,422 Member
    Funeral Potatoes. It's a Utah thing.

    I had this a few years ago. My husband's fav.
  • taunto
    taunto Posts: 6,420 Member
    I was in US for 10 years, I missed many things. Some of them I could cook myself or find in restaurants but they weren't the same and some I simply cannot find in US.

    Ful (pronounced fool) fava beans boiled till they break, with veggies, cheese, falafel, olive oil, spices. It is extremely yummy. Cannot find anything close to even the real thing in US.

    Hummus: What is it about Americans and getting rid of the chick pea flavor in hummus. The US hummus tastes like cream to me. You're supposed to taste the chick peas in it. With olive oil

    Mutabbaq: veggies with meat and eggs on cheese wrapped in very thing dough and then lightly fried! yes please. Cannot find anything even close to it in US

    Biryani: Cannot find good biryani in US

    Many other things really but these were the biggies.
  • MSam1205
    MSam1205 Posts: 439 Member
    Just a lower NY transplant to WNY but I so miss the NY thin crust pizza:sad: :sad: Nothing like it in Buffalo... We overdose on it when we go home to visit family. I understand the beef on weck issue, but what i've heard is the salt does not travel well when they are shipped!:bigsmile:
  • Booksandbeaches
    Booksandbeaches Posts: 1,791 Member
    I spent part of my life in Asia. I miss fruits like mangosteen, rambutan and things like jackfruit, string
    hoppers (like a noodle pancake).
  • Contrarian
    Contrarian Posts: 8,138 Member
    I spent part of my life in Asia. I miss fruits like mangosteen, rambutan and things like jackfruit, string
    hoppers (like a noodle pancake).

    Mangosteen is the best fruit in the entire world. I could happily spend eternity eating only that.
  • bumblebums
    bumblebums Posts: 2,181 Member
    I was in US for 10 years, I missed many things. Some of them I could cook myself or find in restaurants but they weren't the same and some I simply cannot find in US.

    Ful (pronounced fool) fava beans boiled till they break, with veggies, cheese, falafel, olive oil, spices. It is extremely yummy. Cannot find anything close to even the real thing in US.

    Hummus: What is it about Americans and getting rid of the chick pea flavor in hummus. The US hummus tastes like cream to me. You're supposed to taste the chick peas in it. With olive oil

    Mutabbaq: veggies with meat and eggs on cheese wrapped in very thing dough and then lightly fried! yes please. Cannot find anything even close to it in US

    Biryani: Cannot find good biryani in US

    Many other things really but these were the biggies.

    Next time, try Dearborn, MI.
  • taunto
    taunto Posts: 6,420 Member
    I was in US for 10 years, I missed many things. Some of them I could cook myself or find in restaurants but they weren't the same and some I simply cannot find in US.

    Ful (pronounced fool) fava beans boiled till they break, with veggies, cheese, falafel, olive oil, spices. It is extremely yummy. Cannot find anything close to even the real thing in US.

    Hummus: What is it about Americans and getting rid of the chick pea flavor in hummus. The US hummus tastes like cream to me. You're supposed to taste the chick peas in it. With olive oil

    Mutabbaq: veggies with meat and eggs on cheese wrapped in very thing dough and then lightly fried! yes please. Cannot find anything even close to it in US

    Biryani: Cannot find good biryani in US

    Many other things really but these were the biggies.

    Next time, try Dearborn, MI.

    Lived about 45 minutes away from Dearborn MI (Flint, MI). Believe me, I've looked.
  • _meesh_
    _meesh_ Posts: 73
    Not an immigrant, but a Canadian ex-pat in Japan.

    Most of the foods I miss aren't really good for me but I obviously didn't eat that great if I'm here trying to lose weight.

    Humpty Dumpty Cheesies (or cheese sticks if you prefer), Though I did recently find Herr's baked cheese curls at a foreign food store, and they're pretty close.

    Cheeze Whiz!

    Campbell's Tomato Soup (again I can find it but it's really expensive ~3$ per can)

    Sour cream, I can find it here but it's almost like cream cheese texture and super expensive, but I have recently started using greek yogurt which has been a decent substitute,

    Powdered onion soup mix (for dips)

    The choice in pre-made frozen dinners. The only kinds you can really find easily here are pasta, I miss lean cuisine type meals.

    What will I miss when I go back to Canada? Garigari-kun bars and Melon Soda.

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