22h ago

To Americans of Lemmy: What food item(s) from Europe can you not live without?

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Twinings (UK version) Extra Strong Breakfast Tea with Digestives dark chocolate biscuits.

Preparing EU exit tariffs for the upcoming trade war with the US?
In that case, fancy wines that rich people buy.

I'm trying to think of the last food item I've eaten that was made in Europe, without success.

Seitenbacher vegetarian broth
- Seitenbacher Museli is delicious too.
  But you can make a kick ass veg broth with scraps, dried shitake, and a piece of kombu.
  And the Museli I can also make at home.

German chocolate is like a whole other food than the wax that Hershey's pretends is the real thing.
- Try Belgian chocolate next
- Soapy-tasting wax, at that.

Croissants (made here but I think of them as so French)
Good cheese (there is some great cheese being made here but in Europe they make different ones and they are so, so delicious)
Cava wine, the Raventos Blanco Blanco de Blancos Vino Cava holy crap that stuff is so good it convinced me wine can be simply delicious on its own.

I don't think there's any food product from Europe that I regularly consume.
Now, Mexico and South America, on the other hand...
- Every time I go to Mexico, one of the first things I do is get tacos! I NEEEED EM!!!
- Same. But I did enjoy some of it. There was some local spring water in Bosnia that was awesome, cevapcici is cool, and I enjoyed the Georgian wine I had in Ukraine. Also the Netherlands' food surprised me. I loved everything I tried, especially bitterballen and mustard soup.

I love that Smarties (the chocolate) are naturally colored. All our candy is basically carcinogenic
Also, our Smarties are basically chalk. Delicious chalk
Edit: clarity
- Smarties are two different things in the US and Europe so you have to specify.
- Which ones, the chalky fruity ones or the candy coated chocolates?

Cheese, cured and uncured dried meats, dairy...actual food standards that protect consumers and aren't pumped full of antibiotics, they just taste so much better.

Most of it... Last trip I took to Europe, I was staying in an airB&B in Iceland with a few friends, and it had a kitchen. I went to the Bonus (local grocer) and got bread, cheese, eggs, and butter and made a simple fried egg sandwich for breakfast every day. Best damn food ive ever made for myself.
We dont have good cheap bread state side, cheese product is most of whats on the shelves and Euro eggs were just better. It took about a week after coming home for random food items to stop tasting like plastic...

Danish butter cookies are pretty awesome
- Those tins never contain cookies when I see them.

As a french reading the replies in this thread: Ew
- Fine. I’m putting my Campari in Champagne now 🙃

Off the top of my head the only European food product I consistently buy is Kerrygold butter. But I could use a domestic version. Other than that I'll on rare occasion buy a wine that'll be from Italy or France rather than a domestic.
The only international foods that really make up any significant part of my grocery list are fruits from the tropics.
- The domestic versions of kerrygold are getting better! Not quite as good but very good!

Probably just the swiss chocolate in the Holls chocolates I get for some holidays. The bonbons/truffles themselves are made in Vienna....West Virginia.

I can find alternatives with enough effort, but I love me some heavy peated Scotch. The smokier the flavor the better

I'm Canadian, but... Fruit, I guess. Some fruit we get from places like Greece, Spain or Italy, both canned and fresh. We could live without them, but surely there'd be moments in the year when we couldn't get fresh peaches, for example, at the supermarket, without European imports.
But it's not a majority. We get quite a bit from South America, North Africa, and, astonishingly, as far as South Africa, too.
Though there isn't much else. It's rarely worth it to import food from another rich country, all the way across the ocean, in today's world.
Though interestingly, I bought "canned" soup (actually packaged in a plastic bag) that came from Lithuania, of all places.

Barry's tea
cheese, all of them
wine and scotch
- I've infiltrated the European place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesey comestibles!

I've moved and become Canadian... but I was born American and raised in it.
I love the shit out of quality marzipan.

McCann Oatmeal
- Bob's Red Mill makes an adequate substitute. It's not as uniform as McCann, but it is good.

Marmite. I enjoy it on toast, but I use it more often as a vegan beef bullion replacement and umami booster, of which I think it's unparalleled.

Quinces. I live on quince cider as my go-to non-water drink.
- I've seen quince cider made in the U.S., but I'm guessing it's all hard cider?
  
  There's other versions of it, but it's rare. Quince cider allegedly had to be revived from ancient Akkadian recipes (very recently too) after being lost and undrank for a few thousand years. Supposedly people back then had alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions of it. We are slowly re-perfecting it again.

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