No, that wasn't blog material. Far too mundane. Most of it would simply be about trade names. There are some things, the sort of things we occasionally get a hankering for, from Quality Street and Ovaltine to Piccalilli and English mustard, which can be tricky to get hold of but capitalism is a wonderful thing and, if there's a demand, there'll be a supplier. Where we Britons gather together, on the coast for instance, there is usually someone ready to scratch that itch be that Walker's crisps or Bovril. To some extent it happens in Pinoso where HP Sauce and Heinz Sandwich Spread rub shoulders with the Ybarra mayonnaise on the supermarket shelves. The only indispensable item, British style tea, is fortunately available from Mercadona supermarkets which are everywhere even in the places where Brits only pass through on their way to somewhere else. Anyway nowadays there's always an online supplier.
I wondered if I could focus the blog on the things we'd had to forego. The staple things. The only thing that came to mind was milk. When we first got here fresh milk was hardly available and we had no option but to make do with UHT milk in cartons. If I ever could taste the difference I can't any more. When I occasionally do get to the UK I fondly expect the tea to taste better for fresh milk but it doesn't. In fact fresh milk is readily available here nowadays but we don't ever buy it. That aside I couldn't think of a single thing. I asked Maggie and she told me that there were far fewer varieties of sugar - no Spanish caster sugar and no soft brown sugar for instance. Then she remembered that, in the past, there were no chillies to be had either. That's no longer a problem for us. One of the local supermarkets carries them probably just for we islanders. Spaniards don't, generally, care for spicy food so chillies are a bit unusual. My guess would be that it works the other way around too. Rabbit is a very common meat here, available in the smallest supermarkets, and I'm sure that it's available in the UK from specialist butchers and probably from M&S or Waitrose but it's hardly a staple in most households.
The only time that the food supply here is at all problematic is when you decide to try something that is a bit different. The sort of meal you build from a recipe which calls for the sort of ingredients that are not kitchen cupboard staples. So, whilst quails eggs and panceta might be a bit exotic in the UK they aren't in Spain. On the other hand sesame oil, tahini or garam masala would be tricky ingredients to find in Spain.
This means that some commonplace British food is difficult to prepare. Thai curry would be an example. My guess is that nowadays it's probably student food in the UK but I'd be surprised if anything but a small percentage of culinary adventurous Spaniards have ever tasted one. In that case you're going to need the Internet or maybe a touch of space in the suitcase of those visiting UK friends to supply that fish sauce, shrimp paste, the makrut lime leaves or even the thai curry powder.
So no. Apparently there's no blog there.
