As much as I like to complain about the lack of choice here where we live, we can drive into Glasgow and buy peanut or coconut mochi and pancit noodles. It’s not that bad, really. It’s mostly the convenience factor that’s lacking. If we lived in London, I wouldn’t have near as much to bitch about food-wise just a whole other realm of things to moan about.
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But being stuck out in the ‘burbs, leaves us with little to choose from in terms of anything slightly exotic other than Pot Noodle and Irn Bru. Kidding, of course, we do have some wonderful farmer’s markets and even a great fishmonger up the road from us: Fence Bay. But for everyday shopping, we’re stuck with the bog standard Tesco, Morrisons and Asda. Not exactly glowing with inspiration.
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Much to my delight, I have found that Morrisons’ bakery is far superior than those of the other two. (I was reminded of this by a post on Not From Around Here’s expat blog about the UK lacking bagels.) We’ve had some excellent artisanal bread from Morrisons and I say this with an appreciation that comes from having lived in France. Spelt and rye. Date and walnut. And most recently, a fruited buckwheat batch loaf. Now this is the type of bread the general population of America has never had the pleasure of tasting, being brought up on Wonderbread as the norm. Maybe France and the UK can ship some bakers over and in return, the US can send over our bagel makers and some stuffing recipes.
It sounds as if Morrisons would be a great improvement to my breakfast! I’ve been sticking to more local specialties like crumpets and (English) muffins with the occasional nutty/seedy loaf from M&S to hold me over. But if you can find better bread than these you are quite fortunate indeed!
Yes, we definitely have things to learn from each other in the bread department!