Tantrums in Tesco...

Tantrums in Tesco…

Cooking in another country can be extremely over-whelming. So you can imagine having lived here for only a week or so and browsing through recipes online (or getting them from mom) then making the journey to the supermarket only to discover they don’t have the ingredient(s) you need. This concept caused many tears and tantrums, specifically in the baking aisle of my local Tesco and Dunnes stores. I never stopped to think about the many things that are available in the states that aren’t available here. So I would make the trip back home completely empty handed, depressed and homesick! I decided that Google was probably one of the best resources available to me at the time, so I started searching for things, and I discovered that many of the things I had been looking for, had been right under my nose the whole time, I just never realized that it was referred to by a different name here! I have compiled a list of many of the things that I had trouble with over the course of the past year, with hopes that it will help some one out there from having to go through the same thing I went through.

US Name	British Equivalent
Baking Soda	Bread Soda
Cornstarch	Cornflour
All-Purpose Flour	Plain Flour
Bread Flour	Strong Flour
Confectioner's (Powdered) Sugar	Icing Sugar
Raw Sugar	Brown Sugar (Demerera or Muscavado)*
Rutabaga	Swede
Zucchini	Courgette
Eggplant	Aubergine
Hamburger	Beef Mince
Swiss Cheese	Emmental
'American' Cheese	Singles
Heavy Cream	Double Cream
Steak Sauce (ie: A1, Heinz 57 etc.)	Brown Sauce
Cookies	Biscuits
Chips	Crisps
Candy	Sweets
Pudding	Custard
Jello (Gelatin)	Jelly**
Chicken Fingers (Tenders)	Chicken Goujons (Dippers)
French Fries	Chips
Ice Pops (Popsicles or Ice Cream Bars	Ice Lollies
Diapers	Nappies
Trash Bags	Bin LIners
Saran Wrap	Cling Film
Hot Cocoa Mix	Drinking Chocolate
Coffee Creamer	Whitener
Cilantro	Coriander
Buns (burger or hotdog)	Baps
Parchment Paper	Baking Paper+
Bandages (Band-aids)	Plasters
Scotch Tape	Sellotape

*Brown (Demerera or Muscovado Sugar) is more closely related to our ‘Raw’ sugar in the states, but there is also Light and Dark Soft brown sugar in Ireland & the UK that is the same as Brown Sugar in the states.
**Jelly in Ireland and the UK is typically found in a concentrated block of gelatin, but the directions are very similar to those of Jello. However, a powder form of gelatin is available, but it is typically of the sugar-free variety.
+Baking paper can also be substituted for wax paper, which is usually only available in specialty shops.

Now, there are some things that I wasn’t able to find an exact match for, so here are some of the items that I have experimented with that work well with making American recipes. I have yet to find tomato sauce, but what I have found that works well is Passata. Passata is made from tomatoes that have been pureed and sieved to remove skin and seeds. It is typically sold in jars and can be smooth or chunky depending on the sieving process. Along those lines, instead of tomato paste in most of my recipes, I substitute tomato puree, which is usually sold in small tins or tubes much like tomato paste in the states. Another thing that we have discovered is Jacobs Mediterranean Lightly Salted are similar to saltine crackers we would have in the states. If you’re looking for corn syrup…look no further than Golden Syrup, it’s not exactly the same, but it has a sweet taste and a thick viscous consistency, which makes it a perfect substitute for corn syrup. There are way too many examples for me to list here, but hopefully this will be enough to get you started in the kitchen! And if you are completely desperate for American Foods, Amazon has a variety of delicious American treats available here.