Comforts
bregalad5
Posts: 3,965 Member
What do you miss from home?
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Replies
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Right now I'm missing canned soup. I've been sick for a few days and really want to go out and buy a can of chicken noodle soup to heat up in the microwave.0
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Mexican Food
Fried Chicken (especially from Raising Cane)
Biscuits and sausage gravy
Fig Newtons
Lomo Saltado
Blood Orange soda
Yakult
Corn Tortillas
Affordable aged cheddar cheese
Mochi
Thai iced tea
Yoshinoya
Many things from Trader Joes
Chewable vitamins for adults (not technically food but still...)
$5 Chinese food lunch specials
Pizza hut deep dish personal pan pizza with pepperoni
Pot Roast
Theres a bunch more but thats all I can think of now0 -
Mexican Food
Haha, that's my number one, as well! Mostly everything else we can somehow get or make from scratch here, but Mexican, no. We can't get any of the right spices, let alone the right produce. Impossible to get an avocado, for example! When I visit the US I always gorge myself on Mexican.
But I've lived so many places and for such a long time that as far as food goes I'm extremely adaptable. However as a vegetarian, I do really miss veggie burgers and other Western "fake meat" dishes.
I would love a proper pizza - I mean a REAL pizza, wood oven, buffalo mozzarella (hell, even fresh mozz would do), etc., not any of that fast food stuff. We have a Pizza Hut here, and I will be honest though, it's still 100 times better than the Chinese pizza chains around... so you can imagine what they are offering up as "pizza" in those places. Once I received a "vegetable" pizza with yellow cheese, and canned corn and maraschino cherries on it!
I also miss soda - like root beer, cream soda, Dr. Pepper, and whatnot. Soda is not as popular here and you can only get a few varieties. The only diet soda available is Coke Zero.
Really I have no right to complain, though - my husband is a Chinese chef and I eat some of the most amazing Chinese food ever on the regs. Since I've been with him my taste has changed considerably.0 -
Online shopping.
You can get most things in Panama that you can get in the US, but there's no mail system. So you have to go to a store and hope they have it, and for some harder to find items, that can be problematic. You can get things shipped from the US through shipping services, but that's costly and slow. So my wife and I now usually ship things to family in the US to bring with them, or to hold for us until we visit to bring back. I was just back in the US last week, and brought a full suitcase, a carry on, and half of another suitcase worth of stuff back with me.0 -
Peanut Butter M&Ms. -_-0
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-Good ethnic food. Swedes can't into ethnic food. They like it bland and Swedishified. No Mexican food in this country. :mad:
-lack of Asian markets. I enjoy Japanese sweets and many Chinese dim sum plates.
-Missing the crockpot...
-cheap lamb. They're using Middle Eastern immigrants as an excuse to drive up prices. 299kr for a friggin' kilo.
-good candy. Swedish people like licorice and all that junky candy. Chocolate variety/quality is severely lacking. (lindt doesn't count!)
-Fresh non native fruit. I make the occasional fried plantains. They import it but the plantains are just not good. The strawberry quality is also sub-par. On that note, Swedish people are notorious for serving you non-ripe fruit. They seriously can't tell when fruit is ripe.
-Good donuts. I have yet to see anything else other than the typical "munkar." :sad:
-American yellow cheddar. They avoid it like the plague. (I guess the Swedes are cheese snobs too?)
-Alcohol. Sweden has a alcohol monopoly. The inventory is ****. I have to travel home to get what I want. Also, it's taxed to hell and back to deter consumption. A lot of good its doing! NOT!
-Baking supplies. It's costly to get ingredients for American recipes....:grumble:
-Eggnog. I like making it myself but I also like store bought.
-Buttermilk. They have no use for buttermilk.
In general, there is a consensus among my ex-pat friends that it is very difficult to introduce new foodstuffs here. Swedes hate change (as exemplified by the reception of my cooking) and that's the end of it. : \
I'll add anything else if I can remember.
/rant0 -
- Healthy food, a higher choice in fruit and vegetables.
- Even through it was hectic at times it was also calm (if that makes since).
- It was a lot safer.0 -
I miss:
*Land o Lakes white american cheese - cheese in Sweden is bland and awful I just can't even find something remotely tasty like american cheese!
*Mozzarella cheese - here you can only get shredded mozzarella or in packages with water, it's really weird! Miss the good old block so you can cut it the width you want for stuff like lasagna! (or just sneaking a piece because it's delicious!)
*Good candy - The stuff here is mainly hard or chewy fruity candies, I would love a little bit of reese's pieces sometimes!
*Cranberries - Every time I've looked for cranberries there are no fresh ones, only frozen in a box and when you use them half of them have gone bad already! Impossible to make a tasty cran-sauce in Sweden!
*Walmart/Target - Stores in Sweden are so small, even the grocery stores are pretty tiny! You basically have to go to a different store for each different thing you need. Only Coop comes close to Walmart/Target if they were shrunk down to about half-size, lol
*People smiling and/or saying hello to eachother on the street when they pass eachother! - Swedes are super anti-social and will give you a weird/dirty look if you attempt to make eye contact and smile!
*Plus-size clothing stores like Lane Bryant and Torrid! - I think the Swedish fashion industry believes all plus-size women are old ladies and the selection in the stores "Generous" sections are so small and really there IS no selection! All the shirts are really long and everything is plain. I do all my shopping on my yearly US trip to visit my parents.
*Customer service - It just doesn't really exist in Sweden and swedes actually find it intrusive! With the exception of small mall stores like for instance, if you walk into a small "fashion" jewelry store they will ask once if you are looking for something specific and if you say no, from then on they will leave you alone!
I could probably go on and on lol0 -
I miss mac and cheese. Cheese here in China is accessible, but super expensive. I like the Kraft stuff anyways We always bring some in our suitcases.0
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I recently found glorious Hass avocados at the supermarket! OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!0