More blueberries, but hold the Kreem-o-wip

It has been said that England and America are two nations divided by a common language. This is certainly true when we talk about food. Not only do the same things have different names on either side of the pond e.g. aubergine (UK) = eggplant (US), but the same words are used for different things: ‘biscuit’ means something quite different in the US and UK. Unless someone has an interest in the food of all nations, however, I find that on both sides of the pond we are deeply ignorant of each other’s language of food. A friend of mine once spent ages scouring her local supermarkets for zucchini which an American pen-pal had told her were a healthy food. When she told me she had asked everywhere but couldn’t find any I had to tell her we call them courgettes. But why did neither of them know this? Why did the shop not know? Since we all correspond and talk on the subject I think we should try and find out. I mean, I don’t eat butter but I know how much there is in a stick, even though it isn’t sold in sticks in the UK.

Then of course there are some foods which are common on one side of the water but rare or unobtainable on the other. Quite a few varieties of greens on the food databases I have never seen on sale here, and the cheese buyer for the Kensington Wholefood store has just responded to my enquiry after fat-free mozzarella to say it isn’t available in the UK. (One US item I know I can now get here – the Oreo cookie has just been introduced to the UK. Gee – thanks.) I would like to make clam chowder but so far a complete lack of canned clams is proving a bit of a poser. If anyone spots some on sale, drop me a line. I am pleased to report however that blueberries, which used to be a rare luxury item are now readily available if wildly variable in price from week to week depending on country of origin. The odd thing is I believe they are grown in this country but I have never seen English ones on sale.

The worst problems recipe-wise come with branded products. This, I have to say is much less of a problem with CRON recipes as they tend to use a high proportion of fresh foods, but many American cookbooks use a lot of branded stuff as ingredients, much more so than English ones. I saw a review on the English Amazon site of a low calorie cookbook sold and bought in perfect good faith, which the buyer said she had found unusable as it was American and made extensive use of products unheard of over here and with no equivalent. You know the sort of thing I mean – ‘take one box of Mrs Bagel’s reduced fat blueberry waffle mix, a cup of Kreem-O-wip, a package of instant Choco-pud, one teaspoon Acme buttered popcorn flavouring’ - etc etc – I think the buyer of the book had a lucky escape - that sounds disgusting! (Actually I made up that example, but it’s not so far from the reality)

I am not sure what the answer to this is. CRON should be international. I know there is a feeling that the American terminology ought to be the standard one, and I can see why, but maybe the Wiki ought to have a table of ingredients with alternative names and suggestions as to what one might use if unable to get the item specified. At any rate, since we are an international organisation we should be sharing information with each other much better than we are. What do other people think?