English vs English

[Thursday Next]

I use Alt + 0153 a lot and Alt + 0169 a bit less frequently.

[deanb]

That's ™ and © for the curious. Also we have an Alt Gr key, which the keyboard pic of EU rights raised that US doesn't have the Alt Gr key. Over here it's mainly used for adding accents n umlauts.

 

Anyway for an alternate look here's a "British Foods" aisle in US

http://imgur.com/a/LfaPN

 

hehehe...beaverton

 

My amazement is finding out which ones are int'l brands like Sharwoods, Angel Delight (which I'd taken for being american) n Tango. Also the digestives are mostly gone which is curious as I swear I've heard Americans aren't particularly keen on them especially cos it's a biscuit called "digestives". Doubly funny is I'm pretty sure that there's nothing in them that would aid digestion in anyway.

 

Should any of you come across a shelf like this my recommendations are:

- Yorkshire Tea

- Custard (I'd guess from the amount of variets there you don't have custard. It's best eaten with fresh warm cake)

- Galaxy chocolate anything

- Colemans Mustard (which I know is different to american mustard cos you can't squeeze it from a tube n also cos I think it's "English mustard" but more to  define it from french mustard. American mustard isn't much of a thing*)

- Digestives (best with Yorkshire tea, dunked)

- R Whites (but you have to drink it in secret...for reasons)

- HP sauce, fruity or regular. Good with bacon ("back bacon") butty.

- Pot Noodles, the Chicken n Mushroom (green) is the more common flavour.

- Wagon wheels. My gran is only one I knew to get them. They're large wafer biscuits with marshmallow n jam sandwiched between then coated with chocolate.

 

What I will say is most of the aisles over here of US import food is purely stuff we can't get over here, like fluff, lucky charms, etc. Nothing that has a direct equivalent. Some things on here are very much "you must have this particular brand of things", such as you see the /r/mildlyinteresting post of a restaurant with hienz mayo n hellmans ketchup. It's not the done thing. But some stuff there is a "you take whatever" such as the pickled onions n crabsticks, which to me implies you guys don't have those products. Or the demerara sugar, marmalade n lemon curd too.

 

 

*my mum recently got like a novelty table set, it's a miniature picnic table but with holes for S&P and a tomato bottle n a mustard bottle, as you get in american diners n such. I was confused at the mustard bottle being half empty until she pointed out she'd filled it with brown sauce

[TheMightyEthan]

When I was in college we had an entire store dedicated to British import food.  The name escapes me right now.

 

I did love Yorkies though.

[deanb]

Yorkies are great. Though I have no idea what their current slogan is, if they have one, given it used to be "They're not for girls".

[TheMightyEthan]

"It's not for girls" was the slogan when I got them.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I'd recommend the dandelion and burdock, which is my favourite pop.

 

If you like yorkies, tme, if you ever see their raisin and biscuit version buy the lot as they are lush.

 

My guess is the digestives run out fast is because so many recipes use them, it's the reason if have to buy Graham crackers if I ever saw them even though I know they're nothing to get excited about, would just be curious how similar they are as that's always the recommended substitute

Edited June 6, 2016 by TheFlyingGerbil

[deanb]

Oh yeah, I was gonna suggest D&B too assuming America doesn't have it normally. It's not something that I go out of the way to buy, but I do quite like it, it gets up your nose. Obviously if you can get it one that's suggested is Irn Bru, the drink of Scotland. It's made from girders. I believe that Scotland is the only country where Coca Cola is sold that it's not the most popular drink.

 

Apparently Yorkie phased out "It's not for girls" in 2012.

 

I would imagine that so many /UK/ recipes use digestives. I imagine that Americans are using alternate biscuits for their cheese cake bases. It would strike me as odd to require an item that's quite an uncommon food stuff unless you've a local brit import aisle.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Yeah that's what I meant, Americans use Graham crackers, the substitute we're told to use here is digestives. So if I saw Graham cracjers in a shop I'd buy then just to see how they compare. I imagine the opposite is the case in America hence it selliing out when it's not the most exciting biscuit, though i do actually like a digestive I love the juice you can suck out of them I think it's the only biscuit you can do it with

[Thursday Next]

The juice!? You have now made digestives gross and I cannot eat them.

[Mr. GOH!]

I would imagine graham crackers to not be good subs for digestives because graham crackers are so much sweeter, even the ones that aren't the popular honey graham crackers.

 

Digestives are easy to get at most grocery stores here in NYC. I have no idea why somebody would waste their time with them unless they needed them for a recipe when so many better baked snack options are available. The only worse baked snack good is shortbread, which only exist because Scots are too cheap to sweeten their snacks.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Shortbread is sweet over here, and is often topped with sprinkled sugar too. In fact I would say it is at the sweeter end of the plain biscuit (I.e not with chocolate, caramel, creams etc added) spectrum.

 

I wonder if you have a different version over there or just expect biscuits/cookies to be sweeter than we do.

[deanb]

I'll be honest I find it weird that you're calling digestives n shortbread "baked snacks" rather than biscuits/cookies.

 

Also yeah shortbread is super sweet. And TFG you're pretty fucking weird if you get "juice" from a digestive. Like I'll dunk a digestive, though they can't take it much, but I just eat the junked bit I don't like suck the tea from it.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

The juice!? You have now made digestives gross and I cannot eat them.

Take a bite of an undunked digestive, push it against the roof of your mouth and suck. Something comes out. Juice, sweet malty nectar - call it what you will - it is glorious and you should not resist.

 

Edit: I guess dean replied too while i was writing, but I'd already put the undunked bit in my post. Dunking is an abomination. The juice sucking works best with mcvities I think they're less dry than some other brands

Edited June 9, 2016 by TheFlyingGerbil

[deanb]

This is why we make jokes about the welsh!

[Mr. GOH!]

I wonder if shortbread got less sweet when Scots immigrants came to the U.S., or if it got sweeter in the U.K. over the years. My family's shortbread recipe is definitely not very sweet and it dates from the late 1800's. The joke about Scots being skinflints is and old one from the Scottish side of my family (proud members of Clan Campbell).

 

But you're right; I've definitely had sweeter shortbread, but due to my childhood hatred of the family recipe, I don't think of it as the same thing and just assumed it was Americanized or non-Scottish shortbread. 

 

This does not change the fact that digestives are gross.

[deanb]

Oh we have the jokes of Scottish being tight too. Same with Yorkshiremen too.

[Thursday Next]

 

The juice!? You have now made digestives gross and I cannot eat them.

Take a bite of an undunked digestive, push it against the roof of your mouth and suck. Something comes out. Juice, sweet malty nectar - call it what you will - it is glorious and you should not resist.

 

Edit: I guess dean replied too while i was writing, but I'd already put the undunked bit in my post. Dunking is an abomination. The juice sucking works best with mcvities I think they're less dry than some other brands

 

 

I know that of which you speak. Calling it "juice" is what has turned it gross.

[deanb]

Aww this is pretty sad. Found out America doesn't have much of a tradition of pantomime, and where they do the focus is more on the "mime" party than the "panto" bit (if "panto" meant anything on it's own...). I'll have to see if I can dig out some panto acts on Youtube, though obviously you lose a bit if you're not in the audience, and especially if you're not a kid. I think when I was younger not a year went by when we didn't go to at least one panto show, sometimes a "proper" one at town, usually at the local amateur dramatics club my aunt n cousin participated in. I love all the rituals of panto and the campiness (which might be part of why it's not super huge in the US, n the idea of majority of the cast in drag or crossdressing in some form is probably frowned upon). It's always a bit weird, given the shared cultural heritage, how there's quite a few genres that don't make it across the pond (panel shows being a biggy)

 

[TheMightyEthan]

So what exactly makes it panto? I was expecting something with maybe a narrator where the actual characters didn't talk.

[Mr. GOH!]

We just call it children's theater. That video seems elaborate and has a much larger audience compared to what I saw growing up, though. 

 

I think our tradition of of that sort of theater for adults died with vaudeville.

[deanb]

There's usually a lot of specific tropes to pantomime, and it has nothing to do with mime in a "pushing against invisible wall" type. The video I linked is maybe not the best example but it's hard to pull examples from youtube, mainly the amateur dramatics stuff. It's not the kind of thing that gets recorded for DVD release or whatnot, sometimes TV release as the above video was. Certainly not intended for primarily adult audience, they're made for kids n families.

 

Usually they pull from fairy tales n such, the kind of stories Disney adapt into animation, though it's a vague framework rather than anything adhering strictly to the original. Usually changed for comedic purposes, fair few musical numbers put in. Everything is hammed up in the acting, and it's all rather colourful. Regardless of the story there's usually a "Widow Twanky", a man in drag, and Buttons, which appears in the above, who usually has a jacket covered in numerous buttons n most I've been to have some form of prize if you can guess how many buttons on Buttons. There's absolutely no fourth wall in pantomime too, there's not only recognition of the audience but they'll have segments which work with audience such as the "he's behind you" and "oh no it isn't!/Oh yes it is!" stuff. 

 

The wiki article is pretty good on the various tropes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime#Modern_pantomime_traditions_and_conventions

 

 

It is by no means a serious form of theatre in the likes of Shakespeare n such though you may sometimes have crossovers in the actors appearing (but that's mainly a side-effect of UK only having like 10 actors to spread around). Mainly the more professional works feature soap opera stars, c-list celebs, the odd x-factor/britians got talent star.

[Mr. GOH!]

Yeah, we don't have all the same tropes, and they tend to be more, uh, multicultural here, but it is called children's theater. A cousin of mine used to write for one in California. It is not ubiquitous here by any means and it is mostly amateur. I think A lot of community theaters put on broadly similar types of shows. I thought they were dumb when I was a kid.

[deanb]

So watching a lot of "Maker" type videos I'm learning there's a huge amount of differences in naming tools and materials. 

 

Saran wrap - See when I first heard of this I assumed it something similar to muslin, but instead it's cling film.

Elmer's glue - So I first misheard this as "Elmo's glue" as in the seasame street character but it's Elmers. Though I had correctly figured the equivalent - PVA glue. We mainly use that at school for like papercraft projects n such.

Cynoacrlayte - it's entirely possible that this is just used as a professional term, though I've also seen it as "crazy glue", but we'd call it "super glue".

 

I'll maybe add more later cos I feel listing just three things isn't the "huge", but I've not been keeping a running list, just sorta mental atm.

[Mr. GOH!]

We call that stuff super glue, too.

 

Most of the terms you mentioned are just brand names standing in for the generic name. Like "Kleenex" for facial tissues or "Xerox" for a copy machine.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Mr. GOH!

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, Saran Wrap is a brand name, as is Elmer's Glue.  The generic term we'd usually use for Saran Wrap is "plastic wrap".  I've only ever heard a generic term for Elmer's once, and they called it "white glue".

 

I've never heard of cynoacrlayte, the usual term would be super glue.