Planning To Travel With Cake? Chocolates? Apples?

Red and green apple. Photo by Angela Lansbury.Copyright.

Apples

I often take an apple. Better for my teeth than chocolate. One year I took two apples from the airport hotel breakfast buffet because I had to rush for the shuttle bus.

I ate one apple. Ate it gradually. Kept it in my hand luggage. Eventually disposed of the core in a litter bin.

I forgot about the second.apple. I was stopped in the USA by a man with a sniffer dog. The man asked, 'Do you have any fruit or vegetables in your hand luggage.'

I replied, "No but I had the core of an apple I ate, rolling about. I've now thrown it away."

"Fine. You can go."

I travelled right around the USA. Back home in London I unpacked. To my horror I found the second apple. 

I started going hot and cold and blushing, just thinking about it. My stupidity. The risk. Dear, oh dear.

Now what about cakes? Yummy cakes!

Iced Xmas and Birthday Cake

 I used to take a plain white iced cake from Marks & Spencers in England to Singapore. That was when Marks in SIngapore was small and you could not get a Christmas cake out there. You had to be careful not to buy a cake which had an expiry date before the date when you wanted to eat the cake.

A restaurant might be buying a cake or pudding for a pre-christmas dinner. You might be planning an ofice Xmas arty, a club party. 

However, for Xmas day itself, of boxing day, watch the expiry day.

A traditional Christmas cake or pudding contained brandy or another spirit because that acted as a prservative. The preservative was need principally because the cake was made well in advance. Which saves time at the Christmas holiday. And means you can buy the fruits and nuts in the summer season when they are plentiful and cheap. If your cake or pudding lasts, the alcohol helps prevent the food from going mouldy when you have removed it from the protective packaging and have leftovers without any icing or even a cover.

Cutting & Cake Knives

You might nnot be able to travel with a cake knife. You can take it in your own car. Not on a plane.

If you buy a large cake, especially a celebration birthday cake, from a bakery overseas, such as in SIngapore, it often comes with a plastic cake cutting knife. This sort of knife is strong enough for a sponge cake, a cream cake. 

I often saw cakes served at club meetings, Toastmasters International Clubs. The organizers would thro away the box, the ribbon, and the plastic cake knife. About the third time this happened I asked if I could keep the knife.

In a hotel or restaurant you might ask if they have any cake cutting knives which they are not re-using but throwing away.

Later, I had my own cakes at home, and received my own knife which I could save for a later occasion. 

An alternative is to buy a cake knife from a kitchen department of a department store. Or online.

Some countries such as Australia and New Zealand are very restrictive. Be careful cautious, about checking what you can move from one country to another. 

I used to wonder why they were so fussy. Then I learned about how the tiny bug phylloxera had destoryed the vines for the entire wine trade in (resistant in USA) imported by ship to Europe, spotted in the UK, but outbreak in the winde industry in the southern Rhone, Wines started to wilt in 1863. They only discovered it was an inset years later. It reached Bordeau around 1870. Different bugs attack different plants.  

We grew six vines in London bought  from a UK nursery.  Our vines were fine for about six or seven years. Then they grew raised pimples on the leaves. End of our garden harvest of grapes.

Now we understand why those sniffer dogs are parading around the airport at arrivals in Australia and Neww Zealand and the USA.

So how does any food get exported from one country to another? The manufacturers and exporters pay fees for their goods to be inspected. And they definitely declare them.

Anything To Declare?

I remember having to wait a long time on arrival in New Zealand with a box of chocolates. We did not want to risk going through nothing to declare, getting stopped, and finding that one chocolate contained pistachios or cherries and we were facing a four figure fine.

In the event, we waited about an hour behind all the other people who were unpacking their bags, showing their goods, talking to inspectors, signing forms, getting stickers. Once we reached the checking point we were quickly waved through.

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