A very, very important question of global scope

[sqbr]

So I was looking up recipes for hokey-pokey icecream today and was overcome by an almost inconceivable suspicion: it's not eaten in America! Or in fact anywhere beyond the Pacific region!

Is this true? Because you guys are missing out. On the plus side afaict it's just made by mixing vanilla icecream with honeycomb (or "sponge toffee", which sounds terrible), though I plan to make it with butterscotch flavoured icecream(*).

What are the foods/recipes from a country you've lived in which you can't believe people overseas don't eat?

Personally I have trouble understanding how people can not like vegemite, but intellectually I can see how it might be something you need to have grown up with :)

(*)When I can find somewhere that sells oat/almond milk and honeycomb, Coles having neither this evening. Bah!

Comments

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Root beer! :) It's not alcoholic. It's made from a tree from here (the real kind).

Pretzels are not found in the UK that taste any good anyhow.

Actually good pizza.

Craisins (dried cranberries)

Sour patch kids

Al these things are probably found in Canada, being our neighbor. I'm sure I can think of more examples.

I'd say peanut butter, but while it is from here (George Washington Carver), I think it's found in other places maybe, though I guess not typically eaten. More for us. :)


Squash maybe? As in the plant(s). It's from the Americas.

[theducks.livejournal.com]

I have peanut butter on a regular basis. In fact, I keep up to three bottles open at once (crunch, smooth, and super-crunchy)

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

Pretzels (hard only... I've only just come across soft ones—although, I seem to recall they were available in Germany) are available in Australia.

Craisins we get in our supermarkets.

Peanut butter is definitely available, and eaten widely.

Squash, yes. Possibly not in such a wide range.

[alias_sqbr]

We have sarsparilla, though its not that common and I'm pretty sure none of it contains any actual organic content apart from artificial flavours.

Oh we eat a lot of peanut butter, but it's not as primary a part of our cuisine, so there aren't all the fancy flavours and confectionaries. Cam LOVES peanut butter M&M's and sometimes gets overpriced packets from import stores.

And I'm sure every country with a significant italian-descended population thinks it makes the "best" pizza. Italy for example :D

What we don't have is sweet spiced pumpkin stuff like pumpkin pie. I love it, and have to make my own (admittedly I would anyway, since I can't eat all the cream etc)

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Actually, American root beer often does not have sarsaparilla in it, even if it is natural. Sometimes it does though. Also, we have birch beer as well.

http://www.greydragon.org/library/brewing_root_beer.html

Pumpkin pie doesn't have cream in it necessarily. I mean you can make it with sweetened, condensed milk, but you don't have to.

But, do you have orange fleshed winter squash in general? Like just for roasting? Or no?

[fred-mouse.livejournal.com]

what alias_sqbr doesn't know, is that root beer is readily available here, just not in the supermarkets - it is commonly available in places that cater to immigrant Asian populations. Sometimes, it is even possible to get A&W root beer.

There are lots of different 'squash' available here, most of which are called pumpkin! I was bemused when my brother-in-law told me that Canadians don't do pumpkin soup, and then promptly bought what I thought was a pumpkin, and made us squash soup!

[wintal.livejournal.com]

We don't call it winter squash... probably because it's not seasonal here ;)

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, but it's almost always used in a savoury way.

[wintal.livejournal.com]

What I find amusing is that the latest italian pizza I had (as in, made by an italian) most remind me of pizza hut :P (Ok, I'm being unfair, it wasn't that bad, but it was quite oily and was fried in a layer of olive oil).

As far as I'm concerned, anyone claiming to have 'real authentic pizza' has a major misunderstanding of the homogenity (or lack thereof) in Italian food ;)