Thursday, June 15, 2006
British Folk Still Bring Food Abroad
"A SURVEY has revealed that loads of British folk still take their own tea-bags, biscuits and baked beans when they go abroad on holiday.", says Tam Cowan in the DailyRecord. Whist I would advise you to bring your own Marmite - only because it is cheaper in the UK - because I can buy it, if I want to, as close as a small supermarket in Buenavista del Norte, I do find this funny.
Most of the larger shops and certainly most of the supermarkets on the south of the island carry everything you are used to seeing in the UK and then some.
UK readers may not be familiar with the American favorite, Oreo Cookies, for example, but you can even get those in my local store in the El Palmar valley. My mother has taken them back to the UK before. They had Custard Creams and Bourbon biscuits too not that long ago and, whilst they don't sell baked beans there (in Buenavista and all major supermarkets they do), they carry mermelada de naranja amarga (bitter orange marmalade, to you) for my breakfast!
Unless you choose to live well away from civilization, as I do, you even have access to actual English supermarkets, such as Iceland, where you can find every brand imaginable, just like you would at home. Why you would want to and not try the local delicacies while visiting a new country, is the mystery to me, but, at least there is no excuse for lugging this stuff to Tenerife.
And this is forgetting that sometimes the local versions are better. My mother used to drag her tea bags with her every time she came to visit me, that was, until I made her try Al Campo's own brand Breakfast Tea (yeah, it wasn't easy to get the typically British, over 80, died-in-the-wool tea drinker to try a new brand). As shown, it is even called and labeled Breakfast Tea, in English.
The result: "Oh, I won't bother bringing my tea bags again, I like this better."
Next time she comes, I can see scads of tea bags getting stuffed between her laundry going back, just as now sachets of Maggi pure de patatas (Spanish "Smash") and assorted biscuits do. Oh, no, those can't go in her hand luggage, because that's where the important things, like wine and liqueur have to go!
There's be a lot more, if a) she could carry it and b) it would travel well, but, having tried the local brands here - and lived - the transport of food and domestic items is now all one way and that is out of Tenerife and not to use on holiday.
