groups

MM living outside the large countries can be trying to say the least! We lived in several 3rd world countries and purchasing American or English products is probomatic to say the least. There isn't any real distribution channel.

In our case, many products that were in the souk are either excess from private shipments or stolen from pass through ships! In some cases, by the time you purchase these products, there date codes have already expired!

One yr for Christmas, I brought a case of real lettuce back to Pakistan and we gave it away as Christmas gifts. You wouldn't believe how excited people got over a real head of lettuce.......... It's amazing what you take for granted!

For a long time in the seveties and eighties, good cheese was difficult to come by in the Philippines. Hongkong at the time had everything British and more. So as gifts and sometimes by request, those of us who had HK as part of our territory, brought cheese back to the P.I.

We can get pretty much anything in South Africa. The supermarkets are well stocked and fresh produce is abundant. However, travel just north of our border and the shelves are bare.

Sometimes it's strange living on a continent which is so third world but in my little corner, it could be Europe.

In Uganda it was difficult to find many things outside the capital. You could never depend on a shop having something from week to week.

I know about taking things for granted, dream69, I'm now in heaven with all the stuff I missed while away. Even celery is a big deal. Ohhh...and I bought strawberries. End of the season but they were still good.

In Castilian Spanish eggplant is berenjena but maybe it's a different word in Mexico. There are two other words in English : aubergine & brinjal.

There's not much you can't buy here in Australia though some things might be a little more expensive if they are imported from beyond the Asian region.

In both the UK and Uganda eggplants are aubergines, and zucchini are courgettes.

They call eggplant something other than berenjena here. And I have never heard the word brinjal. Nor courgettes.

Of course, in every language there are regional vocabularies.

When I left the CZ in 2008, two things that I bought on a regular basis were readily available on the shelves of two local supermarkets (T-Gel shampoo and Sea Breeze astringent). So, I didn't bother to pack them when I came back here recently. So now - guess what? I FINALLY found one pharmacy that sells T-Gel, but still can't find any Sea Breeze, no matter how many stores I visit.

What I think is strange is that name-brand foods sold here do NOT taste the same as they do in the U.S. Hellman's Mayo, for example, tastes more like Miracle Whip than mayonaisse. Hunt's Ketchup is super runny and really sweet here. Lay's potato chips are thicker and browner than the ones sold in the U.S. My theory is that U.S. companies sell their 'reject' products to unsuspecting Czech stores - but who knows, maybe they are specially created for the Czech market. Another thing I think is strange is that asparagus here is white, not green. What's up with that?

Eggplants seem to be pretty abundant in the produce sections of the grocery stores here right now, which surprises me, as I've never heard a colleague talk about cooking eggplant or seen it offered in a restaurant (which isn't saying much, as I rarely eat in restaurants). In winter, the produce selection can be pretty slim, but there are always mounds of potatoes, onions, cabbage, garlic, red peppers, and (what I think are) leeks. I hate it when all the stores run out of broccoli for what seems like weeks at a time.