Food & Drink by country E-K England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, from cheddar and stilton, to kir and sake

 England

Food - savoury

Cheddar cheese, stilton blue cheese 

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Fish and chips.

Sweet

battenburg cake, Crumpets, Scones

Cadbury's chocolate

Fox's biscuits

UK ice cream brands, tubs, bars and sticks, include Cornetto, Mangum, Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Daz.

Wine

Sparkling white wine from Nyetimber and others.

Cider. Beer.

France

Food - Savoury

baguette, coq au vin, duck a l'orange, French onion soup

Food - Sweet

chocolatines (pain au chocolat), croissant, nougat, macarons

Drinks

Bordeau, Burgundy, Champagne, Kir (aligote grape and cassis which is black currant) 

Dubonnet, a sweet, fortified red wine, drunk as an aperitif.

Germany

Food - Savoury

Wurst (sasages)

Food - sweet

Stollen

Drink

Riesling

Greece

Food savoury

rice in vine leaves, moussaka

Sweet

baklava, kataife, 

Drinks

Ouzo (anise plant which gives us aniseeed)

Greek coffee

Hungary

Food, savoury. 

Hungarian ghoulash is the national dish of Hungary. 

Food - sweet

Hungary has a marzipan museum, in Budapest, the capital city. The museum's name is the Szabo Marcipan Museum.

Wine

Bull's blood wine

India & Pakistan

Food - savoury

Tandoori chicken

Food sweet

Gulub Jamun

Jelabi

Drink

Lassi - sweet, sour, mango

Ireland

Food - Irish stew, sourdough bread, 

Drink

Guinness

whisky (no e, the e is Scottish whiskey)

Israel

Food - savoury

Israeli salad.

Kosher food

Food - sweet

Halva, slabs of wrapped confectionery, based on sesame seeds.

Parve - neutral, not containing milk, nor a meat product or by-product such as gelatine, therefore can be eaten at both meat only or milk only meals and restaurants.

Kosher wine

meshuval - heated to a high temperature or pasteurised, and can then be already purified and safe to be handled by non-observant Jews and non-Jewish catering staff.

Rules vary from country to country, rabbi to rabbi and year to year and product to product. Please consult locally.

Sabra chocolate orange liqueur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_liqueur

Italy

Savoury

Pasta spaghetti bolognaise, carbonara 

Sweets

Amaretti di Saronno macaroons

Bitter and crunchy little biscuits in half moon shapes.

Ferrero Rocher chocolates

Nutella hazelnut spread

Zabaglione

Cassata Siciliana

biscotti

Drinks

Asti spumante

Prosecco

Illy coffee

Jamaica

Japan

Food

sushi - rice cylinders with topping of  raw fish or egg

Drink

sake - rice wine

Korea

Food - Kimchi (pickles)

Drink - Soju - rice wine

BUYING BACI HAZELNUT CHOCOLATES which originated in Perugia, Italy, in the UK for Christmas

Perugia, capital of Umbria. Gateway. Photo by Angela Lansbury, copyright.

Pastry shop in Perugia. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. You can also find chocolate shops.

Chocolate Problem
I am nuts about nut chocolate. I love the high from chocolate, but like the crunch of the nuts, the variety.  More nut and less sugared chocolate in each bite means you can eat more. Nuts are real food which keep you going.

I tried the Baci hazelnut chocolates in Perugia. Now I want to buy in the UK. Why?

Chocolate Answers
Why Baci? Back is italian for kisses. If you want chocolates from Italy, you have a good choice. Ferrero Rocher, once a rarity, chocolates with hazelnut centres, protected and enhanced by a foil covering on each chocolate, are now in every supermarket and newsagent I enter, at all prices.

We give the Italian Ferrero Rocher Chocolates every year for Christmas and, frankly, it gets a bit boring, no longer a treat and not a surprise. But B a c i, similar but different, would be surprise, a change. The love messages inside are a bonus. But where can I buy them?

I tried checking the Baci and Perugini  and Nestle company websites. Very interesting. I learned a lot of Italian words translating. I even found the English word shop, but that led nowhere.

Mysupermarket
First stop is Amazon. I could combine shipping with other orders to get free shipping or ask a family member who is a member of Amazon Prime at their business.

Sure enough, they have Baci, but at rather high prices IMOH, or should that be IMHO (text speak for in my humble opinion).
The lowest price was just under £13, plus postage if you are paying postage.

I've seen Italian Ferrero Rocher, and Belgian Guylian seashell shape chocolates, in the London, England, Poundshop. Great to put in your pocket for a weekend break, to eat on the train, eat at the hotel if you arrive after supper and want something to eat with a late night drink at the bar, or a bedtime treat to share with your partner arriving late at night at a hotel.

What about the budget supermarkets, Lidl and Aldi and Asda, the big Tesco and Asda branches, open 24 hours for those who must have a late night shop for chocolate?

Asda, on the Edgware Road, near Kingsbury. Open 24 hours. Photo by Angela Lansbury. 

I tried googling the words 'buy' and 'Baci', and supermarket, and found the Mysupermarket comparison website. Very handy, but not for this product. I wasted a lot of time creating a password, being asked to enter my favourite local stores in London, but found no answers about Baci from the local Lidl, not stocked.

A general search, persistence, eventually produced results.

I found:
https://www.flowersbuydelivery.co.uk/shp/list.php?filter=1&brand=88
They offered all kinds of Baci products, from the white chocolate to the dark. Also varied numbers of chocolates and styles of packaging and prices.

The 'sticks' are the cheapest, not as generous nor as grand packaging as a box, but a useful novelty stocking filler.

Useful websites:
https://www.flowersbuydelivery.co.uk/shp/list.php?filter=1&brand=88

I was beginning to wonder whether it would be easier to go to Perugia. If you are going to Perugia, remember to bring me back some Baci. Or maybe somebody would send me some for Christmas. I can add it to my Christmas wish list. Along with the request - instead of a big present or an expensive Christmas meal, I'd like a travel trip to a city. (That's what I said about a wedding anniversary, and we went to Cambodia.) Read my previous posts on Cambodia and Italy.


TRAVEL TO PERUGIA, UMBRIA AND ITALY
www.umbria.it

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
For more on chocolates, chocolate shows in the UK, Chocolate exhibition in Perugia, and Perugia and Umbria Tourist sites, see my previous posts. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Nutella and Nutty Chocolate Kisses in Umbria

The story of nutty Nutella and the story of Umbrian nutty chocolate Kisses (Baci) are similar.

The Story of How Nutella Chocolate Spread
As a chocoholic I had read, with eyes the size of chocolates, about the Story of Nutella Chocolate Spread in a UK newspaper obituary after the demise of the founder of the company, from the Ferrero family.

Before that I had not even registered that Nutella was of Italian origin. I vaguely thought that peanut butter and chocolate spread must be from the USA, invented by a marketing team who said, "What else can we do to sell chocolate and peanuts? Make them into spreads." I was wrong. Yes, eventually companies spread worldwide and you can find a company which started in one country is now under a global umbrella. But the origin of Nutella is very Italian and very interesting. It's a story illustrating the well known principles of 'necessity is the mother of invention' and as Dale Carnegie said, 'if you've got a lemon, make lemonade'.

The story of Nutella starts in north Italy in Piedmont which means foot of the mountain. In 1946 at the end of WWII chocolate was in short supply, rationed and taxed. But hazelnuts where plentiful in Piedmont. First the father of the company, Pietro (Peter) made solid chocolate blocks.

Reverse 46 and you get 64 - in 1964 his son Michele (in English Michael) issued a spread which he named Nutella. It is now both produced and sold worldwide, consuming a quarter of the world hazelnuts, and in 2014 an Italian postage stamp was issued featuring a jar of Nutella.

I saw Nutella on the breakfast buffet table in the Castello di Monterone, a castle hotel which is a couple of miles outside Perugia. Perugia is the capital of Umbria which is known as the heart of Italy.

Upstairs, in my grand, countryside castle hotel, hidden in a wooden box in the hotel bedroom, was a local chocolate, containing a nut, a hazelnut. This chocolate was invented in the Perugia area, a story very similar to the story of Nutella.

The Story of Chocolate Kisses with Hidden Hazelnut Umbrian
The lady was making chocolates with soft creamy filling, called praline, and wondered what to do with her leftover hazelnuts. She tried placing them stuck on top of an individual chocolate, but people were afraid of swallowing the nuts and choking. So she then placed the nuts hidden underneath, encased in the chocolate shell. Customers were surprised - and delighted!

The name of the chocolate was changed. The chocolates are now called Baci, meaning kisses (like Hershey's kisses). The shape and the name and the foil wrap have been a great success. Now the little domed and foil wrapped chocolates, a Perugia speciality, are a favourite throughout Italy.

Later, in 1982 along comes another Ferrero chocolate with a hidden nut, Ferrero Rocher, rocher being French for rock, named by devout Michele after the rock cave in Lourdes and the shape of the chocolate like a big boulder or rock.

In England my favourite bar was always Cadbury's fruit and nut. Why do I prefer this to plain chocolate? Solid chocolate is hard to break and gives you an overdose of sugar. With fruit or nuts you are getting protein and something to sustain you as well as the immediate sugar rush. Plus the fun and slow down effect of the crunch crunch, munch munch on the nut, as well as the suck and swallow of the chocolate. Lick the chocolate, crunch the nut, swallow slowly, long lasting and doubly satisfying way to eat chocolate.

Chocolate Shops in Perugia
If you visit Perugia, there's a chocolate factory. If you miss it, like I did, you will still enjoy seeing the chocolates in the windows of the shops. Go inside and look around.

If you have time, try the chocolate factory tour. The factory is about 15 minutes drive from Perugia.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1186124-d196147-Reviews-Perugina_Chocolate_Factory-San_Sisto_Perugia_Province_of_Perugia_Umbria

www.castellomonterone.com
https://www.baciperugina.com/uk/en/
www.umbriatourism.it

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Follow me on Facebook and like me on LinkedIn. Read about my books on YouTube. Come back tomorrow and the day after for more posts about Umbria and other destinations and inside stories and humorous comments.