Back to the UK : Part 1 - Food

A little Background

As a few of you may know, I was recently visiting the UK for the first time in 18 months, back to the town where I grew up and lived the vast majority of my life (I have an aversion to referring to it as home now as it no longer is).  The reason for this was not the greatest in the world in that my Dad died a couple of weeks back, so I was there for the funeral and to see family and such.  As this has never been a blog about such personal things, I'll leave that there.

The Spindly City of Liverpool

Englandish Foods

So, the only upside to this turn of events was that I got to go back to England and do two things.  One, to buy all the glorious amazing English food that one cannot buy in Berlin.  And Two, to reflect on how good/bad England is and how much better/worse things are when compared to Berlin.

One of the first places I visited is the cathedral like expanse of the giant Tesco 'extra' (no, its fine, just make the font of the e bigger, don't capitalise it, that would be silly)

The 'extra' being how absolutely fooking huge the place is.  Now, in my mind, this place is a magical wonderland of absolutely any type of food that you could possibly ever want.  All housed in one giant, blindingly white, overly well lit place.

Why so Yellow and Blue?

And, to a certain extent it is. I walked around, marvelling at the huge number of isles.  The huge variety of bits n bobs that you can buy.  All the while thinking, well, kaisers and rewe back home aren't like this.  They're tiny by comparison and have nowhere near the choice.  Which is true.  But, and its a giant bulbous butt, although there is more selection, its mostly more selection of the same things.  So, 40 types of tomato sauce rather than 10, 8 different makes of apple juice rather than 2, giant isles filled with crisps from every manufacturer but mostly of a stock few flavours.

All in all, a bit of a disapointment, rose tinted glasses and all that jazz.  But, that is not to say there weren't things that were better.  The drugs section is ridiculous when compaired to a pharmacy here.  Let me give you a little comparison :

Paracetamol
UK = €0.22
DE = €2.90

Ibuprofen
UK = €0.24
DE = €4.50

How is it that drugs in Germany are allowed to cost so much when they can obviously be produced for much less?  Is it price fixing or do the pharmaceutical companies have to jump through 10 or 20 extra hoops and pay extra taxes?  Either way, one needs to give ol' Aunty Merkel a little slap round the chops.  (plus, this isn't even mentioning the Tesco's own Claritin for €0.80, here €5 upwards).

The gluten free section did have a couple of things that you can't get here (read, naan bread and lovely cake), but there were equally less of a selection of pre-made bread.  The drinks section was pretty much the same, except for the fact that you can buy decent Polish vodka in the UK.  Even the international foods section wasn't quite as good as I remember it being, apart from a few extra Indian ingredients (which you can get here if you look hard enough), it was about the same.

But, perhaps I am missing the point.  All of these things WERE available under one roof.  In the UK I could go to one place and get pretty much everything I wanted (even if it was a 15 minute drive away).  Here, I have to go to a couple of extra places.  But on the flip side, there are no really huge supermarkets nearby and smaller shops thrive, meaning you can get all those little obscure things that a place like Tesco would never stock.  Now, sure there are things in the UK that I can't buy here.  But, the reverse is true, and the number of these things that I can't get here is far less than it seems like it is.

In the end, I think its a state of mind.  Yes, I could be pissed off that I can't get some british wibbles or wobbles here.  But thats like getting pissed off because I can't get decent american hash browns here, I don't live in America.  I don't live in the UK anymore, of course there are a few things missing, but its a choice whether to pine for what you can't have or embrace what you can have.

Chips and Curry

Saying all that (and somewhat having ranted away with one's self and blown a giant gripe load), there are things outside of the world of Tesco.  For instance :

Ahh, something I truly miss, and perhaps its better that I do, Chips and Mushy Peas.  If I moved back the UK now, I'd be as wide as tall in the space of a few months (possibly).  I know, I could buy a deep fat fryer, potatoes and such here, but, well, it just wouldn't be chippy chips.

On another night, I ventured out to southern Manchester.  To a little aladins cave of neon and piss soaked streets (imagine a red light district, but replace the brothels with Indian Restaurants) :

Rusholme.  The smells of the food are glorious.  The scroats and scallies walking around, not so much, so we quickly rushed to my favourite place on the street, Mughli.  Basked in the sumptuous interior and without haste, ordered some poppadoms (why is this word spelt differently depending upon where you are) :

and some luscious Fresh Mango Lassi.

Which, rather oddly, came in a brass cup.  The mango lassi was good.  The popadoms were heavenly, fresh, large and crispy.  Not like the weird, super thin, 'spicy' dry puppadom efforts that most places seem to sell here.

Alas, the Chicken Karahi that I ordered, whilst looking delicious, was rather bland and tasteless.

Reminiscent of the curries I've had here.  Leaving me wondering whether my taste buds have just died from excessive vodka tasting.

The keema pilau rice, though, was absolutely every bit as good as I remember it being.

(it didn't look like diseased maggots in real life,

thats just the picture)

So, again, things were good.  There were things that I can't get here and they were yummy, but all in all it wasn't as much of a difference as I remember it being.  There were downsides to the nobhead filled streets of rusholme aswell as upsides.

Whilst I do miss these things, if I know suddenly moved to Canada I could revel in the delights of Poutine and Timmy HoHo's, but I'd miss Eisbein, Würst and having 20 coffee shops within 5 minutes walking distance.  And if I then moved again, I'd miss all things Canadian.

My point being, the past is the past, get over it and move on motherfuckers.


Coming up in Part 2, reflections on the town of Warrington and shopping in the cavernous Trafford Centre.

PS. Seeing this van made me not want to eat Doner Meat, it should be 'produced' not 'manufactured'.