What Ingredients Do You Lack?

[fondue]

 I've recently moved to Madagascar, which has forced me to adapt, improvise or overcome some basic provisioning shortfalls.  While I can find eleven different brands of fermented fish sauce, sesame oil is not to be found.  Nor is hot chili oil. White bread in all its glorious baguette-y forms can be had even at gas stations, but just try to find pumpernickel or rye.

  So how about you? Where are you located and how does it affect your food supply?

[Anna N]

 At the moment @Kerry Beal  and I are up on Manitoulin Island for about six weeks or so and it is amazing what is available and what isn’t available and how quickly it changes from day to day. Usually we both reside between two major urban centres in southern Ontario, Hamilton and Toronto, and are accustomed to having access to almost everything one might wish for.  Each year we come up here we have to once again become used to not being able to find the most basic of ingredients.   A bunch of parsley was not to be had anywhere in town a couple of days ago.

[Smithy]

I'm in the United States, currently Minnesota. Thanks to flash-freezing and refrigerated trucking, I can get good salmon and shrimp without necessarily traveling to an ocean coast, and during the summer many good stone fruits that I grew up taking for granted in California. It was a different story when I first moved here, 3 decades ago. How I missed the peaches and nectarines that summer!

 

Southwestern chiles. We get chiles up here, but the selection is different in the Southwestern US. There is always the behemoth Amazon to ship nearly anything, for a price. I travel during the winter and stock up without their help.

 

My best friend spent much of her career living in various African countries. Now that she and her husband have moved to California, they can't bring themselves to purchase pineapple or bananas because they simply don't live up to what they should be. 

 

 

[Duvel]

I live in Hong Kong and am very privileged that I get anything I want. Literally. Sure, I might not want to shell out the money now and then, but you could get everything here. 

There is just one exception: Mett: raw, spiced minced pork meat to be consumed uncooked. That I can get only in Germany ...

By Q4 I will relocate back to my home country and I guess I will feel pretty much like you - and while there is an abundance of Mett most things that I eat here or cook with will be out of reach ...

[Kim Shook]

Reading this reminds me of how lucky I am.  I'm sure there are things in my area that are hard to find, but for the way I cook I'm usually fine.  Right now, though, I'm having a hard time finding Bisto which I haven't been for years!

[lindag]

12 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

Reading this reminds me of how lucky I am.  I'm sure there are things in my area that are hard to find, but for the way I cook I'm usually fine.  Right now, though, I'm having a hard time finding Bisto which I haven't been for years!

 

I can't find Bisto either.  But it's only because I bought some a few months ago via Amazon and it's lost somewhere in my kitchen.  I'll only find it when I've purchased its replacement.

[kayb]

I'm fortunate to live within an hour's drive of Memphis, and I'm there at least once a month. A couple of my stops are always the International Market, which has a wonderful supply of Asian and Indian spices and ingredients, and the Middle Eastern market, where I always feel self conscious as the only woman not in hijab, but no one has ever seemed to pay me any mind as I spend 40 minutes perusing the bajillion kinds of olives they have.

 

The big thing I've had a problem finding is Toulouse sausage. I could get it online, but damn, I hate to pay the shipping, even when I'm jonesing for a cassoulet

 

[Darienne]

We live in East Central Ontario, Canada, in the middle of basically nowhere on a dead end road.  We call our farm "Road's End Farm".   Our nearest  tiny town does not carry a lot of foods we eat, for instance eggplant, Brussels Sprouts, Poblanos, because they can't sell them locally.  Plus they are short-changed regularly, being at the end of the distribution line.

 

We live outside of a small Ontario city.  Only one grocery store carries Poblanos.  And they are mislabeled as 'hot'.  You cannot buy fresh tomatillos anywhere.  The small city is short-changed regularly by distribution in Toronto, because its small and, well, not Toronto.   

 

In Toronto you can buy, as Anna notes, just about anything.  OTOH, I wouldn't live there for love nor money.   I was born and raised in an apartment in Montreal and I love where I live now.  It's my home and whatever I can't get...well, I don't really care much. 

 

 

[lindag]

33 minutes ago, Darienne said:

We live in East Central Ontario, Canada, in the middle of basically nowhere on a dead end road.  We call our farm "Road's End Farm".   Our nearest  tiny town does not carry a lot of foods we eat, for instance eggplant, Brussels Sprouts, Poblanos, because they can't sell them locally.  Plus they are short-changed regularly, being at the end of the distribution line.

 

We live outside of a small Ontario city.  Only one grocery store carries Poblanos.  And they are mislabeled as 'hot'.  You cannot buy fresh tomatillos anywhere.  The small city is short-changed regularly by distribution in Toronto, because its small and, well, not Toronto.   

 

In Toronto you can buy, as Anna notes, just about anything.  OTOH, I wouldn't live there for love nor money.   I was born and raised in an apartment in Montreal and I love where I live now.  It's my home and whatever I can't get...well, I don't really care much. 

 

 

Kind of the same situation here; I used to live in Portland with easy access to most anything but I am much happier here where if I find something quite unusual it's a pleasant surprise.

Some say that living in Montana is like traveling backwards in time and in some ways it's true, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Edited July 4, 2019 by lindag (log)

[lemniscate]

1 hour ago, Kim Shook said:

I'm having a hard time finding Bisto which I haven't been for years!

 

I did an experiment, I looked up Bisto, and then I looked up on hand quantities at World Markets in VA. 

Bisto Gravy Granules # 364581

Free Pick Up In Store

Available for Pick Up Today

Charlottesville 1615-A Emmet Street
Charlottesville, VA 22901
(434) 295-6232

 

So if you're in the Charlottesville area, not exactly next door, there some to be had.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by lemniscate
contraction (log)

[Kim Shook]

55 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

 

I did an experiment, I looked up Bisto, and then I looked up on hand quantities at World Markets in VA. 

Bisto Gravy Granules # 364581

Free Pick Up In Store

Available for Pick Up Today

Charlottesville 1615-A Emmet Street
Charlottesville, VA 22901
(434) 295-6232

 

So if you're in the Charlottesville area, not exactly next door, there some to be had.

 

 

 

Thanks so much!  I'm about an hour from Charlottesville, but we go there a lot - if I haven't found it before, we'll stop by.  We do have a World Market, so I'll check there.  Also, Publix usually carries it (they are from Florida and therefore carry a lot of British items for the expats, I guess).

[liuzhou]

If you had asked the question 23 year ago when I moved to China, the list would be very long. However, I can now get most things. online if not in the local markets or shops.

 

The only thing that springs to mind now is fresh herbs other than coriander leaf/cilantro and mint. I managed to find some basil seeds and had a healthy crop when I left for three weeks in the UK. Hope they survive.

 

I'd grow more but it's illegal to import the seeds.

Edited July 10, 2019 by liuzhou (log)

[caroled]

50 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

If you had asked the question 23 year ago when I moved to China, the list would be very long. However, I can now get most things. online of not in the local markets or shops.

 

The only thing that springs to mind is fresh herbs other than coriander leaf/cilantro and mint. I managed to find some basil seeds and had a healthy crop when I left for three weeks in the Uk. Hope they survive.

 

I'd grow more but it's illegal to import the seeds.

At the end of the season can you let a plant go to seed and harvest them? Ours do it every year, but I've never reused the seeds to see if they are viable. 

[liuzhou]

3 minutes ago, caroled said:

At the end of the season can you let a plant go to seed and harvest them? Ours do it every year, but I've never reused the seeds to see if they are viable. 

 

I have tried, but they never germinated.

[fondue]

I'll add some new things to the list a francophile country does not import: Bagels, cream cheese, Kosher salt (I want to make my own sauerkraut,  because that's another item lacking); molasses, bay leaves, paprika, baking soda.

  Hard to find anything German. Go figure! 😏

[JoNorvelleWalker]

10 hours ago, fondue said:

I'll add some new things to the list a francophile country does not import: Bagels, cream cheese, Kosher salt (I want to make my own sauerkraut,  because that's another item lacking); molasses, bay leaves, paprika, baking soda.

  Hard to find anything German. Go figure! 😏

 

Ask @Panaderia Canadiense about her baking soda.