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Entry tags:
digestives
A week or so ago, I was in the Fergus Scottish Corner Shop to pick up a few UK treats, and on a whim picked up a pack of M&S Digestives. When we got home, I had one with my tea, and was suddenly flooded with memories.
I remembered liking these cookies when in England, but I didn't remember liking them this much. It seemed tastier and better quality than our domestic digestives, and it somehow tasted very English.
I always enjoyed shopping for groceries at M&S. The prices seemed generally fine, there were wonderful items that we don't have here, and the quality of the food was always outstanding. This was a given in all of my UK experiences with food. Stores, restaurants, whatever: it always seemed that they took more care in preparing their food, used better ingredients, etc. I remember my first fried egg (in a cafe in Halifax) and remarking on how orange the yolk was — I'd never seen anything like it. I was told that this was a sign of the hens being provided with quality feed, and that this was the norm here.
Our first day of our first trip to England, we were in a hotel that had a Tesco in the ground floor. We were hungry and knew where nothing was yet, so we opted for pre-made cello-wrapped sandwiches from there, knowing we were slumming. Except that we weren't: that sandwich tasted fresher and made of better things than if I had just made it fresh myself back home. Even the cheap crap over there is neither.
I see this as only one part of a more general British mindset. The first grocery store I ever went into over there provided its cheeses in a special section with the products artistically displayed on wooden shelving, with a friendly cheese manager standing by on duty. This struck me as wildly extravagant but also spiritually satisfying.
And even seemingly little things like the furnishings and fittings in fast food chains there. Tables and chairs were wood. Serving trays were wood [or sometimes metal]. Stair railings were wood. Flooring was stone. Here, all those things would be plastic. It was as if the British had an aversion to plastic. The prevalence of natural materials and quality ingredients was soothing on some inchoate, primal level.
I feel like this approach to feeding people must be more expensive than the artificial plasticness that pervades the food industry over here. And yet the prices there didn't seem to reflect that. I got the impression that companies there were willing to settle for smaller profits in the interest of providing a more nourishing and satisfying and human experience for people. [Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it feels to me, even now.]
Overall, it felt like a kinder and richer and more civilized way to live. No wonder I miss it.
I remembered liking these cookies when in England, but I didn't remember liking them this much. It seemed tastier and better quality than our domestic digestives, and it somehow tasted very English.
I always enjoyed shopping for groceries at M&S. The prices seemed generally fine, there were wonderful items that we don't have here, and the quality of the food was always outstanding. This was a given in all of my UK experiences with food. Stores, restaurants, whatever: it always seemed that they took more care in preparing their food, used better ingredients, etc. I remember my first fried egg (in a cafe in Halifax) and remarking on how orange the yolk was — I'd never seen anything like it. I was told that this was a sign of the hens being provided with quality feed, and that this was the norm here.
Our first day of our first trip to England, we were in a hotel that had a Tesco in the ground floor. We were hungry and knew where nothing was yet, so we opted for pre-made cello-wrapped sandwiches from there, knowing we were slumming. Except that we weren't: that sandwich tasted fresher and made of better things than if I had just made it fresh myself back home. Even the cheap crap over there is neither.
I see this as only one part of a more general British mindset. The first grocery store I ever went into over there provided its cheeses in a special section with the products artistically displayed on wooden shelving, with a friendly cheese manager standing by on duty. This struck me as wildly extravagant but also spiritually satisfying.
And even seemingly little things like the furnishings and fittings in fast food chains there. Tables and chairs were wood. Serving trays were wood [or sometimes metal]. Stair railings were wood. Flooring was stone. Here, all those things would be plastic. It was as if the British had an aversion to plastic. The prevalence of natural materials and quality ingredients was soothing on some inchoate, primal level.
I feel like this approach to feeding people must be more expensive than the artificial plasticness that pervades the food industry over here. And yet the prices there didn't seem to reflect that. I got the impression that companies there were willing to settle for smaller profits in the interest of providing a more nourishing and satisfying and human experience for people. [Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it feels to me, even now.]
Overall, it felt like a kinder and richer and more civilized way to live. No wonder I miss it.