Essential Food Discoveries

Here is the latest and greatest in food adventures and tastings:

Vegetarian haggis (filled with oatmeal, carrots, potatoes, turnips, leeks, etc, and similar normal haggis spices, really quite delicious, especially with mashed potatoes, a must to complement the texture of the haggis. I've decided I like haggis quite a bit now, as evidenced by eating it 4 times in 8 days:) ):


The vegetarian haggis, pre-cooked, looks disturbing:


Pork & Apple Sausage roll (the apple makes it taste deeeelicous):


Steak Puff Pastry (which I burned by using the fan in the oven):


Haggis Roll with required brown sauce (yum):


Full Scottish Breakfast made for friends when they visited(Roll with fried egg, lorne sausage (square sausage), bacon (good bacon, not crappy sliced bacon), tomato slice, butter, and brown sauce...Too much meat for anyone in one sitting but quite tasty):


Lautauro purchased me as a gift the largest bag of potato chips he's seen his entire life (at the grocery store here). Filled with 30 individually wrapped bags. Too much plastic. However, cheese and onion chips are a great flavor:


Baked potato with haggis (topped with sour cream). Suprisingly quite delicious:


HP brown sauce has made a new friend:


My first few blogs have started with foods that stink. Now, either I am getting used to the food (which I am), or, I saved all the good tasting foods for last. I even enjoy Bovril (beef broth), from time to time now.

Now, I just want to know, where are all the vegetables?!?!?

Microwaveable Haggis!

Here is a step by step pictorial tutorial on how to make and eat microwaveable Haggis.

Let me preface this by saying, so far I like haggis, for the most part.

With that said, this microwaveable haggis, recommended to me by George, was suprisingly good, despite the fact that foods in the nuker are usually pretty awful.

1) Admire store-bought haggis. Cringe in thinking I'll eat microwaveable Haggis.


2) Unwrap Haggis. Place on cutting board for examination, photos, and dissection:


3) Cut off rivets and unwrap haggis from casing:



4) Begin cutting haggis:


5) Remember haggis should be eaten with mashed potatoes. Thankfully I have some potatoes. Throw some in the pot and boil them. Hope I have enough butter and milk.


6) Re-read instructions:


7) After starting tatties on the boiler and re reading instructions, continue the haggis cutting:


8) Cook in microwave for 3 minutes. Take out. Stir and break all the haggis up. Nuke it again for 3 more minutes. Bam, your done!


9) Almost ready. At this point, wish I had turnips to make it a complete Scottish meal. Then realize, I've never bought turnips my entire life, so all is normal.


10) Plate the amazingly nourishing and warm bodied meal and enjoy:


The end. You can officially make haggis like a pro.

The Supermarket Trip

Need to take a minute to post on the supermarkets after my trip there tonight, as they were one of the first things that stuck out to me when I got here.

Well, the majority of the supermarkets are reasonably small, 'express' sized supermarkets. There are probably 3 or 4 really big supermarkets. The small ones have an appalling selection of foods. I happen to live about a 15 minute walk from a nice big one, so that's where I have started going. Tesco's, it's called.

So, first things first.

-There is an extreme lack of fresh food. I'm talking produce, vegetables, meat, and fish.
-An incredibly high percentage of the foods are packaged.

If I want to buy tomatoes, they are not usually loose (only at the BIG market is there a small selection of loose, regular old tomatoes). Then, most times, they sell tomatoes in a plastic tin. Sometimes the tin is then covered in the outside in plastic. This is a theme that is repeated ALL over the produce and vegetable aisle. Everything is covered in plastic. Plastic here, plastic there. When you can get loose items, it is of the staples. Today, I got a few loose basic tomatoes, some loose red onions, even loose garlic and loose avocados. There is no such thing as a giant pile of potatoes, a giant pile of apples, a giant pile of anything. Even when loose, they come individually tagged and in crates. But the amount of plastic seen in the fruits and vegetable sections is overwhelming. In the express stores, forget about buying anything that is not packaged. On the bright side, at least some of the supermarkets charge you 10 pence for a plastic bag.

Another oddity is that produce that can be ripened on the counter usually comes unripened. I suppose this is because nearly all the produce is imported and it increases the shelf life if they pick it early. Usually, the plastic wrap will say where it is from. My cheery tomatoes are from Morocco. My asparagus is from Peru. My red pepper is from Italy. My orange is from South Africa. Surprisingly, my green onions and broccoli are from Scotland. One thing you CAN get from Scotlan in bulk, for very cheap, of course, is white potatoes.

I recently read an article that, not surprisingly, most of the surface of the UK has been converted for agricultural use. So, of course, there is an extreme lack of fruits and vegetables, and what they have is mostly imported. The article also said that there really are only about 6 varieties of apples that they grow in the UK. I think that surprised me.

Then, there is a big freezer section, 2 or 3 rows. The baked bean section is great, it is HUGE, the largest I have ever seen my entire life. Lots of human gases must be produced from such a high baked bean consumption. Then, say you are looking for black beans... first you need to look for baked beans. Then slide over 3 or 4 columns and you are in the 'pulse' section, where all the other 'beans' are. Next time I am lost I'll remember to ask the clerk 'Can you please direct me to the pulse section please?'

The breakfast sausage section is massive. You can get them in the traditional form, or squares. And they are CHEAP. Large selection of bacon, too.

Forget about much fresh meat, as in, the butcher just cut it 'fresh'. Just go straight to the refrigerated aisle and pick up a packet. I guess if you want good, fresh meat, go to a butcher.

The selection of frozen and refrigerated prepared foods is massive. All sorts of meat pies. Haggis. Things you couldn't even think of.

On the other hand, I started a trend of buying a few new, random food items each week. If you can't tell from the food blogs, I'm having a lot of fun doing this. There are many things I haven't seen before, which is great, except my heart probably doesn't like, for example, today's combination of pork pies, Haggis, Irn Bru, and Mulligatawny soup that I picked up... it'll just have to work a little harder until I leave:

Irn Bru. A Super Scottish drink they claim cures hangovers. Loaded up with caffeine and sugar. Tasted like any other energy drink. They say it competes with Coke and Pepsi here:


MacsWeen Haggis. George said it was pretty good Haggis, even for being sold in the supermarket, so I went for it:


Mulligatawny soup. Never seen it in a US supermarket (probably wasn't looking). Wikipedia tells me its some Indian-British originated soup with curry flavorings.


'Melton Mowbray Pork Pies'. Sounds like a heart attack and artery clogger. I reckon I'll have a go (reckon that it might be my new favorite word, by the way). Melton Mowbray is a city in England famous for its pies (NOT fruit pies!)