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My British expat friend and I like to get together over a few hot beverages—tea and coffee—each week and commiserate on how much France sucks because they just don't have great food.
As an American expat in Europe, it's been 10 years since I returned to my home country. While there are a lot of American food franchises like Burger King and KFC, they don't represent "home" to me as I never visited these franchises before moving (you might like them, but I think they're shite).
My friend had the opportunity to cross La Manche and returned with a tin of Coleman's mustard powder for me, which I've already nearly used up. They have my vow to procure some authentic brown sugar (not the pseudo beetroot cassonade crap available in France, but honest-to-goodness brown sugar that's the byproduct of rum and molasses production)—the stuff that's so common in our own grocery stores it makes us cry when we can only find the pseudo version.
That, and Nestlé real chocolate chips, which, despite Nestlé brand being everywhere in Europe, are nonexistent because Europeans hate chocolate chip cookies. Or good-tasting cookies in general. Or proper cuts of meat, missing common veggies, spices—OMG who do you have to know to get sumac??
The list of complaints for what is lacking for expats in their new homelands is endless. Vive la différence, but would it kill the French to offer a nice brisket?
Discuss.
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#1
As a British person living in China I feel compelled to contribute, but apart from my family, I'm struggling to think of something I really, truly miss that makes life here worse. I sometimess crave a good jam doughnut.
Final score:
3points
#2
Wait wait wait……you’re from ENGLAND and you complain about the food from ANY other country, much less FRANCE?? 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Final score:
1point
#3
The French no likey the spicy, and the only chilli peppers I can commonly find are the piment Maroc, which is a milder, skinnier version of jalepeno, the habanero pepper, often called piment antillais, as if these peppers have a need for a passport to get from the Yucatan (and generally, the French don't buy them anyway, only those in the know of Creole cuisine) or the petite birdseye Asian peppers, which, again, the French don't touch. As for the mountains of prepared harissa available, most french don't even use it on their kebab. Because the French no likey the spicy.
Final score:
-2points
#4
The French have one job, and that's to make tasty bread. So why do most breads in France suck? Even the baguette, which is supposed to be a UNESCO Heritage protected recipe isn't equally produced everywhere, isnt produced equally from boulanger to boulangerie. And that's all they make! No rolls, no breads you can sink your teeth into without needing a denture replacement, except the pain de mie Which has a shelf life of a carbon atom and is so thin, even Ebenezer Scrooge turns his nose up at the aurerity.
Final score:
-3points
#6
Coffee in different roasts, not just "burnt to a crisp". France has cured me of my coffee addiction.
Final score:
-3points
#7
"Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get" in the USA. In France, it's all praliné or ganache. Just like life in France.
Final score:
-3points
#8
Soft, chunky cookies. I've yet to eat a cookie in France that wasn't drier than the Sahara and thinner than Kate Moss.
It's supposed to be a treat, not a punishment!!
Final score:
-3points
#9
Flannel sheet sets: top sheet, fitted bottom sheet and 2 rectangular pillow cases, sold together in the same color/pattern that fit the size bed indicated in metrics. I SWEAR that every country in Europe uses their own version of "metrics". 160x200 cm seems to be measured differently by country. Sometimes by ruler, sometimes by "pouces". Whatever a pouce is....
Final score:
-4points
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