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Hard to Find Ingredients


nakji

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I haven't had a bit of cheese that wasn't Australian mass-produced "Tasty" in a year.

To label this cheese tasty is an absolute travesty. I think they missed the "Not"

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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I grew up in NJ and am now call SC home. It's a big culinary culture shock.

Good bread is near impossible to find. Here anything that resembles decent bread is "artisan", whereas where I came from it was just what bread was. It of course has the "artisan" price tag as well. Somewhat along the same theme, what I would give for an honest to goodness bagel or bialy. And I'd give even more for a sfogliatelle! I miss the baked good of a real bakery as well.

Good Italian sausage is even harder to find. And yes, mushrooms are near impossible here as well. It took me forever to find something besides bell and hot peppers.

Good meat at a reasonable price is also poor in comparison and forget the seafood unless you buy it frozen in a bag or go to Fresh Market or Whole Foods.

You can find some good stuff if you look, but growing up you just go down the street to the bakery or any grocery store and you got everything I now miss. And I have yet to find comparable pizza. After three years I found an acceptable pizza like substance, but still nothing that is really good.

On the flip side, there's stuff here you just aint gonna find in NJ. I remember the first time I say packages of pigs feet and pig ears, I thought it was hilarious. And of course, the BBQ.

Oh, you can totally find piggy (and beefy and whatever) bits here in NJ. Bodegas! Asian markets, of which we have thousands. Those are the best places to shop.

That's all I got. Living in NJ, there's nothing I can't find. Last year, I would have come to complain about the lack of good fresh goat meat, but I found a guy. Now I feel like kind of a jerk on this thread...leaving now!

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I haven't had a bit of cheese that wasn't Australian mass-produced "Tasty" in a year.

To label this cheese tasty is an absolute travesty. I think they missed the "Not"

And that's why I buy 'extra tasty'! :laugh:

Actually, when I first moved here I remember standing in the cheese section at the grocery stores seeing all this white cheese that was labelled 'Tasty'. I'd never had much experience of non-orange cheese and combined with the 'tasty' label I kept thinking it must be processed cheese (which I loathe). It was a relief to find it was just cheddar (and not terribly tasty...). Then I tasted the insult to cows known as 'lite white' milk. Blech.

Other than the usual issues related to living in the suburbs I don't have fresh ingredient problems, although I miss being able to find decent raspberries and blueberries in anything other than miniscule amounts for often ludicrous prices. Hence the 4 blueberry bushes I planted last year (and the raspberry canes that are hopefully in my future). Of course, now I get pretty much all the tropical fruit I can handle to make up for that!

What I do miss is certain baking ingredients, like decent lard for pastry, corn syrup and unsweetened chocolate. Thankfully the last few years it's easier to get some things like cake flour. And I finally discovered a decent source of lard at a deli (now I just need to improve my pie crust skills to match). Mostly I just adapt the recipe or I simply don't make it.

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I can't get epazote here: can anyone get it outside of Mexico? A lot of other Mexican ingredients seem to have made their way here to the Southern US, but not that.

Even in SoCal, I've only ever seen fresh in the ethnic markets or the supermarket chains that target the Hispanic population. I have never seen dried in the stores.

--Roberta--

"Let's slip out of these wet clothes, and into a dry Martini" - Robert Benchley

Pierogi's eG Foodblog

My *outside* blog, "A Pound Of Yeast"

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I haven't had a bit of cheese that wasn't Australian mass-produced "Tasty" in a year.

To label this cheese tasty is an absolute travesty. I think they missed the "Not"

And that's why I buy 'extra tasty'! :laugh:

lol! This could turn into a living in Australia thread. Mostly it's not the things I can't get but the cost of the food I covet.

But stuff I miss includes year round limes, reduced fat Oreos (so shoot me - I like them better), Swiss Miss fake-hot-chocolate (gee I'm really sounding like a boor), Triscuits, Goldfish, whole wheat tortillas, decent decaf coffee except from the Victoria Market in Melbourne, those red tins of sweet paprika (and the yellow tins of hot paprika I've only found in Pennsylvania), decent Swiss cheese (but I have found goat cheese), Tilamook cheese in general but especially monty-jack, blue corn tortilla chips (oh how I miss those!), wild salmon, and decent tasting orange juice.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

eta: ok, the junk food doesn't count as ingredients, sorry.

Edited by haresfur (log)

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

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Here in Chicago, pretty much the only thing I can't find is a high-quality super-thin flour tortilla. I've lived here since 1986, and have found that something I completely took for granted while living in AZ has turned into a Holy Grail for me here. . .that's really the only thing, though. You can find virtually anything you need in Chicago.

Edited by sundevilpeg (log)
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lol! This could turn into a living in Australia thread. Mostly it's not the things I can't get but the cost of the food I covet.

But stuff I miss includes year round limes, reduced fat Oreos (so shoot me - I like them better), Swiss Miss fake-hot-chocolate (gee I'm really sounding like a boor), Triscuits, Goldfish, whole wheat tortillas, decent decaf coffee except from the Victoria Market in Melbourne, those red tins of sweet paprika (and the yellow tins of hot paprika I've only found in Pennsylvania), decent Swiss cheese (but I have found goat cheese), Tilamook cheese in general but especially monty-jack, blue corn tortilla chips (oh how I miss those!), wild salmon, and decent tasting orange juice.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

eta: ok, the junk food doesn't count as ingredients, sorry.

Yeah, not an ingredient, but I am with you on triscuits at least (and I would add stoned wheat crackers and graham crackers)! Every once in a while I think I'd like to order some, but the prices drive it out of my mind. But I like the orange juice here (it beats the frozen concentrate I grew up on), and good cheese is more widely available than it was 15 years ago.

For blue corn tortillas/chips, check out the mexican ingredients in oz thread. Fireworks Foods carries them. And I'm not sure what kind of swiss you are after, but you might check out Fromart. And Heidi Gruyere is meant to be very good.

Now, can anyone tell me if it's possible to get sulguni cheese here? I know that it's being made in New Zealand, but I haven't come across it here. I would love to make a couple of recipes using it from Darra Goldstein's Georgian Feast.

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lol! This could turn into a living in Australia thread. Mostly it's not the things I can't get but the cost of the food I covet.

But stuff I miss includes year round limes, reduced fat Oreos (so shoot me - I like them better), Swiss Miss fake-hot-chocolate (gee I'm really sounding like a boor), Triscuits, Goldfish, whole wheat tortillas, decent decaf coffee except from the Victoria Market in Melbourne, those red tins of sweet paprika (and the yellow tins of hot paprika I've only found in Pennsylvania), decent Swiss cheese (but I have found goat cheese), Tilamook cheese in general but especially monty-jack, blue corn tortilla chips (oh how I miss those!), wild salmon, and decent tasting orange juice.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

eta: ok, the junk food doesn't count as ingredients, sorry.

Yeah, not an ingredient, but I am with you on triscuits at least (and I would add stoned wheat crackers and graham crackers)! Every once in a while I think I'd like to order some, but the prices drive it out of my mind. But I like the orange juice here (it beats the frozen concentrate I grew up on), and good cheese is more widely available than it was 15 years ago.

For blue corn tortillas/chips, check out the mexican ingredients in oz thread. Fireworks Foods carries them. And I'm not sure what kind of swiss you are after, but you might check out Fromart. And Heidi Gruyere is meant to be very good.

Now, can anyone tell me if it's possible to get sulguni cheese here? I know that it's being made in New Zealand, but I haven't come across it here. I would love to make a couple of recipes using it from Darra Goldstein's Georgian Feast.

Have you tried Simon Johnson?

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I am swiss chef on the lookout for Yuzu. A good yuzu juice would work. Good enough to encorporate it into some simple desserts. It's about time we introduce this rather fasionable flavor to swiss foodies. Fresh would be even better of course. We are located in Basel, Switzerland - but anything accessible over the internet could work too..

Best Yuzu juice around. Well worth the cost for commercial use! If you try it report back,

http://www.chefswarehouse.com/Yuzu-Juice-750-ml/M/B00202SZ2Q.htm

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fresh sardines (canned sardines easily found). Worst part is that I live on the coast of OR, where sardines are considered bait fish. I didn't know they existed (any more) on the west coast until I was in SF for dinner last year & we chose an Italian restaurant w/fresh sardines on the menu--I tried the fresh (stuffed) sardine dish & it was great. I asked, "where'd you get the sardines"? "Here", I was told. Monterey area, I guess. When I got back to OR I started asking around and the one "local fish" seller here, said, maybe in June, but didn't get them in. Latest I've heard is that some chefs in Seattle are using them.

First chance I get I'll go down to the docks/harbor here & ask one of the fishermen selling tuna if they'd be willing to sell me some sardines. Once we establish what a sardine is, the names of fish seem to vary sometimes depending on which coast (in the US) you're on and sometimes even where on the west coast. Then I just have to hope that one of the fishermen might consider it worthwhile to sell me a few, rather than deciding that if he/or the occasional she, can't sell many it's not worth dealing with the fish at all.

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Now, can anyone tell me if it's possible to get sulguni cheese here? I know that it's being made in New Zealand, but I haven't come across it here. I would love to make a couple of recipes using it from Darra Goldstein's Georgian Feast.

Have you tried Simon Johnson?

Yup! I emailed them and they got back to me a couple of days ago. They don't carry it, although they kindly told me they carry many other European cheeses...

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