Food like it used to taste... a HUGE discovery...

suki1964

I've been over the moon with the small smoked ham joint I bought ys last week in tesco. Cost me just 1.45 for around a pound of meat. Bad it was just one piece of meat, not a cobbled together bit of ham as most of ours is

That pound of meat done 3 adults 4 meals with the trimmings given to the birds. Very very tasty

I also adore their mustards. So unlike our own

meritaten

its ALL imported from Poland? sorry - but I will stick with my German Discounters who sell 'home grown' produce. and their Cornish Caulis have to be the best I have ever tasted. and I have no complaints about the rest of the veg either.

pigpen

meritaten wrote: »

its ALL imported from Poland?

Food miles have to be factored in absolutely.. and the environmental costs of shipping food long distances.. I bet if you actually look at where many of those foods are produced you will find they are from the exact same places as the stuff in Tesco.. the difference is one gets theirs on the shelf immediately and the other freezes and defrosts repeatedly, keeps and repackages old produce to cheaper stickers and finally reduces in order to still make some money on it.

Air craft fuel is disgusting and its effects on the environment are phenomenal .. definitely a thing to consider if you want a planet for your grandchildren to live on!

We have LOADS of Polish shops.. a huge one at the end of my street (opposite direction to the post office!) and a few smaller noes by the PO.. but I'll not be going, unless I pop in to ask where they source their stock!!

honeythewitch

Charlton_King wrote: »

I've become a regular at our local couple of Polish shops. I buy quite a lot of our food there - for the reason mentioned by the OP - but still use the supermarkets for household essentials: loo rolls, toothpaste etc.

I'm afraid I've lost all faith in British shops to sell decent tasting basic ingredients for meals. Yes, that includes the German discounters.

Polish shops every time. The tomatoes and carrots might be all knobbly and misshapen - but they taste wonderful.

Why would they bring carrots and tomatoes over from Poland? Is the difference that great? and is it much more expensive?

meanmarie

I mainly just buy fresh yeast from my local Polish shop, sometimes different flour, cheese and delimeats....I find the assistants very pleasant. I choose to buy most of my food from A and L, as I find that they stock a good range of irish food....I like to buy as much Irish as possible.

DigForVictory

I ambled in when I was smitten with the sugar lambs for easter. I've gone back, repeatedly, for the fresh black bread.
I can decipher cyrillic (studied russian as a schoolgirl) but hesitate to use the oppressors tongue even where I can remember the words. The staff vary from helpful to sullen, but frankly, for bread that delicious? When I get the same ratio of sullen at the big places?
Time to experiment some more, possibly with a collins gem dictionary if my library will lend me one!

[Deleted User]

omg, they sell black bread!! I haven`t tasted that since I was a child, I absolutely loved it, cut thin and spread with butter, topped with fresh ripe tomato slices and black pepper. I have never been into one but will be taking a trip this friday. My father was polish, died, 46 years ago and we used to eat a lot of lovely polish food.

Maitane

I love Polish grocers for the ham and previously for the bread. Just thinking about how delicious that bread is makes me sad.

There is one in Bearwood near Birmingham and it's wonderful - meat counter, amazing bread and dumplings, delicious dumplings. Great pickles too.

I found no issues with wandering in and buying stuff, no one cared if I was Polish or not but I learned the Polish for thank you, good night (I always went after work and it's dziękuję dobranoc) to make some effort despite the Polish language being my linguistic nemesis... Taught myself Portuguese in three months flat but still throw my text book across the room ten years on with Polish :rotfl:

Oooh, forgot to mention - bread and ham may not necessarily be coming from Poland. There are enterprising people who have set up Polish food manufacturers in the UK including a lovely bakery that is on my side of the border I believe and plenty in larger cities.

nursemaggie

My DD lived and worked in Poland for nearly 7 years. Most of her time was spent in Warsaw. We visited her for a holiday. This was well before the Poland joined the EEC.

We could not stay with DD but my youngest DS stayed with them he was about 6 at the time. They lived in like a Studio flat which whole families lived in.

The first thing I tried was their fruit juices just squeezed juice no sugar or additives. They did not have modern soft drinks. I loved them. You can buy the carrot and fruit juice even in out supermarkets now can't remember how to spell it but pronounced coobush meaning carrot. It is the only bit of Polish I can remember apart from sorry which means the same. My DD was fluent. I think she may have forgotten a lot now it is about 14 years ago.

They have never grown anything but organic so it is probably a lot more organic than our organic food. When we went on the train to Krakow we saw all the fields in strips just like in the middle ages. Oxen pulled the ploughs. I found it at about the same level of Egypt.

We managed to food shop most days without any Polish. The first morning we tasted there delicious bread which DD bought twice a day. Most of the vegetables were bought on street corners. Veg were very limited. We went in the cherry season and you could buy them in every street just from baskets on the pavements about 5p for a Kilo. DS managed to go for bread for breakfast all on his own having learned the word for bread.

We had delicious cheeses and hams for breakfast every morning.

I do worry about the food miles. I do buy some Polish ham in Ald! and Polish shops.

We stayed in an old communist hotel very basic and very cheap.

Alan_Cross

Just coming back to this one to say I couldn't give a flying xxxx about the 'food miles' when your friendly neighbourhood local big four supermarket makes next to zero effort to source things locally. How many times have I seen 'country of origin: Israel, Egypt, South Africa or Chile' on Mr Sainsbury's offerings..?

Exactly the same with Aldi and Lidl...

... and frankly, until British farmers and growers go back to producing things that are tasty rather than packable/presentable, any 'local sourcing' can also go hang.

Just yesterday tried this cold, smoked pork loin calling itself 'Poledwica' and the family is still raving about it. Will get some more tomorrow if it's still there. I'd love to be a 'food patriot' but I think we're all being taken for a ride by the UK producers and merchants. The scales have dropped from my eyes.