Food

I learn a lot from the vegetable stand. They seem so British and yet have such a range of tropical fruits: pineapples that shine yellow through the skin, papaya richly orange, limes greener and larger than I’ve seen before. Names are different as well:

Australian American

Rock melon Cantaloupe

Rocket Greens akin to dandelion but less bitter

Spinach Swiss chard

English spinach Spinach

Scallions, eschallots, shallots Scallions

French shallots Shallots

Spring onions Scallions with small onions attached

Cob Romaine lettuce

The supermarket doesn’t refrigerate the eggs. They are in the aisle with the long-term milk. Long-term milk is the milk that needs no refrigeration, like Parmalat. Eggs are bluntly sorted into cage, barn laid, and liberty eggs. That’s calling a spade a spade.

If you search in the produce section for scallions you will find them sometimes called “eshallots” and sometimes scallions. What do they call shallots? Shallots.

Australians refer to eggplant as aubergine, like the British, but unlike the British, they call a zucchini a zucchini, not a courgette. The homely bell pepper of the United States becomes capsicum (Latin for pepper) and ground beef is mince. Raisins are usually called sultanas but exceptions occur.

The supermarket has an amazing selection of sweeteners:

White sugar

Caster sugar

Icing sugar (which I think is the same as caster sugar)

Raw sugar

Raw caster sugar

Brown sugar (but not light brown and dark brown)

Honey

Treacle

Golden syrup

I think golden syrup is a little like corn syrup that we can get in the States and is generally used at home for making candy. Treacle is like molasses but is different somehow. Molasses is generally called “sulfured” in the states, perhaps treacle is un-sulfured?

Here are some item names:

Uncle Toby’s Nut Feast Cereal

Sultana Bran (instead of Raisin Bran--that’s what they call raisins here)

Rice Bubbles (instead of Rice Krispies)

I also bought some cheese because it was described by the ad copy on the front as being “sharp and bitey”. I think the funnier part of these names is that Microsoft Word keeps trying to correct the spelling of things: “bitey” became “bites” and earlier “eshallots” became “shallots”.

While in the supermarket I overheard an American woman saying “What is Mexican food doing here with the jams and jellies, what are they thinking?” I had two thoughts: one was “if you want things to be just like the Unites States why not stay in the Unites States?” And the other was “I wonder how long it will be before the novelty wears off and I too make a comment like that?”

Streets is an ice cream manufacturer that has a line of ice cream bars called: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, revenge, and sloth. Oddly enough covetousness is not one of them.

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Last revised: October 2003