The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #143570   Message #3314828
Posted By: gnomad
28-Feb-12 - 07:24 PM
Thread Name: BS: Food items one just can't get hold of
Subject: RE: BS: Food items one just can't get hold of
Ovaltine is one of those things with very particular local associations:

To the average Brit it is a last-thing-at-night warm milky concoction with sends-you-to-sleep connotations.

In most of Europe it is sold as a gives-you-ENERGY-and-gets-you-going type of product, sold in ski-cafes and the like as an early to mid-morning pick-me-up.

Given our poor reputation as bedroom gymnasts, the British predilection for it as a bedtime drink is said to have wrinkled a few brows among hotel staff.

Lots of kippers available where I live, though the health 'n' safety killjoys don't approve of traditional production methods. The (intrinsically disinfectant) tar which builds up on the walls of the smoke-houses is deemed to be 'dirt' and therefore a health hazard, so sales are permitted only from the place of production, where a buyer can be duly horrified by the production conditions. I'll grant you it is fire hazard, as will anyone who has seen a kipper house burn, but that danger doesn't stay with the product. As a big concession it is permissible for the makers to sell by post, but local lore has it that the buyer must buy and address the mailer themselves, with the smoker just dropping the kippers into the package, and the package into the mail. Making a virtue out of necessity, the smokers dutifully sell everything retail, and rub their hands with glee looking at their daily queues. I don't blame them in the least.