Adventures in Shopping

“With the exception of dessert, food is food.”
From Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich

One of the most disconcerting experiences that I've had since moving to England is shopping. Of course I knew that it'd be different than the US. I was prepared for not having good peanut butter. I wasn't, however, prepared for the other items that would be missing or different.
In general I don't really have too many usual food requirements. I'm notorious at home for not finding things that are right in front of me (to my sister's eternal frustration), so I've always learned to adapt what I eat to what I can locate. My first clue that I 'wasn't in Kanas anymore' was when I went in search of zucchini. I was at the greengrocer and spotted the desired veggie on the shelf. I went to pick it up when I glanced down at the label - it read "courgette". I examined the green item in my hand, definitely a zucchini. There are some fruits and vegetables that I'd not bet my pinkie finger on their names, but zucchinis aren't one of them. I turned to my old standby - Google (if anyone questions whether Google is going to take over the world, human's dependence on our smartphones for information should clear up any doubts). Once I determined that zucchini and courgette were the same thing (apparently courgette is French, so of course the English would call it by that name), I happily finished my shopping and headed home.
While almost every shopping trip I find something that surprises me (I've slowly accepting that I can't have such things as hydrogen peroxide or graham crackers) I still respond with shock when my British flatmates look at me with confusion when I ask about certain products. More recently I've encountered my most shocking absence in the British supermarket - they don't have applesauce! In an attempt to be healthy (well, healthier because I was adding chocolate chips) with my banana bread, I decided to use applesauce instead of sugar in the recipe. I scoured the shelves on every aisle for the elusive item, but nothing! I even went to the baby food section in a last ditch attempt to find something that resembled applesauce - but to no avail (there wasn't a simple baby food that just had apples). When I got home that evening I asked one of my British flatmates if she knew if they sold applesauce here. Not surprisingly I got the classic blank look, which (predictably based on previous similar encounters regarding my food searches) turned into a slightly nauseated look when I described the item as "smashed up apples, kinda like baby food", and was followed by an assurance that she'd never heard of such a thing in the UK. *Sigh* no applesauce for Amy.
Thankfully sugar is universal so I still made my chocolate chip banana bread and it tasted great! And that, in the end, is what really matters.