Daughter going on exchange trip, we need gifts. They bought us Kinder choccies so I'm thinking that kind of thing.
So far we have salt and vinegar crisps, what else?
Brown sauce and chilli were hard to get when I lived in the Germanic part of Switzerland. And humour.
Brown sauce is horrible though.
Sovereignty, apparently.
Get them a Curly Wurly just to make them pronounce it.
And worcestershire sauce flavour crisps.
Support your country of residence mols - welsh cakes, laverbread, leeks, edible tom jones cupcake toppers.
Lemsip.
Lol, we already sent her back with Welshcakes and bara brith; I'll check out the Tom Jones cupcake toppers.
Jellied eels, parmo and BSE.
We've spent a lot of time in the German and Austrian mountains in the last 10 years and the only crisps are unsalted and paprika flavour (it doesn't matter what flavour they're supposed to be they're just paprika crisps with varying labels)
jaffa cakes
Blue passport, Tetley tea?
Jingoism and a general feeling of self entitlement.
But seriously....
Kettle Chips are avaliable in Germany and as such so are salt n vinegar, too. Kettle have even introduced paprika flavoured crisps for the German Market. You could go for shitty crisps like Hula-Hoops, Quavers, Monster Munch and the like. Riffled crisps are exciting and exotic here.
Marmite is on the shelves, albeit at 8€ for a medium jar. Bovril isn't.
"Proper" tea, as in black and in a bag, is hard to find. German supermarkets have a whole aisle dedicated to tea, but it's mostly fake tea like strawberry, fennel with aniseed, blackberry or some other made up shite.
Proper ales are hard to find, although there are a fair number of smaller breweries doing their version of a hoppy IPA and it's all the better for it. There is only so much larger you can drink, and trust me, I've tried.
Decent sausages and proper bacon, i.e. not crappy American wafer thin crap, are hard to find. Their sausages have the consistency of something that has been through the grinder several times over and are generally devoid of any seasoning. Oh, and the Currywurst is an English invention thanks to the soldiers stationed in Berlin who had the idea of throwing some curry powder into the mashed up meat.
Nice biscuits are few and far between. Their offerings are usually incredibly dry and with some shitty kind of dried up Nutella. Hard to find decent dunkers. Shortbread is in the normal supermarkets.
Iced buns and that sort of sickly stuff isn't available in the bakery, thank god.
Crumpets are none existent.
Worcester sauce is available. HP sauce isn't, but they've not got decent bacon to go with it anyhow.
Baked beans are everywhere. I personally find Edeka's own (German Tesco) better than Heinz as they're not as sweet.
Decent pubs, rather than bare walled beer halls, but I guess you can't put one in your suitcase. Honestly, that's about the only thing I miss about Britain.
Cadburys creme egg
The concept is so gross no one else would ever come up with them
Golden syrup apparently
Adding to my earlier suggestions of welsh foods - glamorgan sausage and crempogs; might be best if your daughter practiced making crempogs at home and would/might then be confident to make them for her host family.
Roast potatoes. Yeah, I was surprised,too.
Yeah, but let's be honest.... A roast dinner is mostly shit. Boiled veg, meat that had died out and sad spuds. (other than by my cousin Rebecca, her roast was f-in good back in October....surprisingly good given how drab her mother's roasts were).
Schweinsbraten mit Knödel und Sauerkraut ftw.
A roast dinner is mostly shit
I suppose a shit roast dinner would be shit, so don't eat those. A good roast dinner is a thing of joy.
She can't take a roast dinner on a 14 hour bus trip FFS.
Golden Virginia isn't available in Germany.....
That'd go down well.
She can’t take a roast dinner on a 14 hour bus trip FFS
Nice one. Proper laughed at that comeback 😂
She can’t take a roast dinner on a 14 hour bus trip FFS
Defeatist.
Any kind of Brexit memorabilia. Mugs, tshirts, etc. My german cousins find the whole Brexit thing simultaneously morbidly fascinating and hilarious.
Marmite is on the shelves, albeit at 8€ for a medium jar.
Bargain! €12 a jar here when I checked the other day (I have someone smuggling a jar to me from Tesco's next week)
Golden Virginia isn’t available in Germany…..
Thank god. Hateful wet stuff that won't burn for toffee. Thankfully they sold big bags of Drum for about 4 DM when I lived over there so even on trips back to the UK I wouldn't have to suffer Golden Vag
Riffled crisps are exciting and exotic here.
Riffled crisps sound exciting and exotic anywhere, sufficiently that I had to google them.
Plain old crinkle cut, or in German they're called Krinkelschnipp
And chutney.
Can get mango chutney from Edeka. They used to stock Tiptree jams and chutney but that stopped a few years ago. Can't think why. Try your local Asian supermarket if you can't find it at one of the bigger stores.
Hateful wet stuff that won’t burn for toffee.
Not saying it's good and I agree with you. Baccy is silly cheap compared to the UK.
Truffle marmite?
seemingly not available in Brussels so perhaps also not available in wherever Germany? And it is the most delicious marmite. Uncertain whether any native Belgian, or German, eats marmite though. Several Swedish colleagues were definitely not fans.
in the same vein as the BREXIT memorabilia how about some monarchy souvenirs?
How about some locally-made chocolates?
or even some non-local yet delicious hotel chocolat ones?
in the same vein as the BREXIT memorabilia how about some monarchy souvenirs?
Or some anti monarchy ones?
Pies.
There are no pies on sale in Germany. I did find one in Switzerland, it was great but €21 for something that would sit in the palm of your hand it was very spendy.
So pies. Not the sort with horrible meted pony type jetty, hoof trimmings, earlobes ringpieces and "flaps" but just a nice tasty meat / steak pie. Like the ones in Tescos.... small, round, suet pastry.....
I've just had a lard-on pie-gasm....
There are no pies on sale in Germany.
I don't think anywhere else has meat pies like we do, do they?
I was very surprised and please to find sausage rolls in the Netherlands, that's the first time I've seen such pastry products outside the UK. They even had them with a bit of barbecue sauce down the middle, those were good. But no pies, pasties or steak bakes or other pastry goodies.
Crisps other than BBQ or paprika. Marmite. Biscuits selection is not great. Crap beer.
I'd agree with the posters above advocating bacon, but make 100% sure they know exactly what it is.
Me and t'missus were vastly amused to return home from work one day to find her parents ( who were visiting) sat looking a bit green at the gills.
Further enquiry showed that they'd bought a pack of "speck" from sainsburys to have for lunch with their asparagus and potatoes. Apparently they'd persevered through three slices each before admitting defeat.
She's going on a bus trip for 14 hours, in summer. How on Earth can she take bacon??! Even if it survived it would be a supremely odd house visiting gift.
She can’t take a roast dinner on a 14 hour bus trip FFS
That's the point. She doesn't have to take anything - I'd rather a visitor showed me how to cook a new, unfamiliar dish with locally available products than simply throw some ultra-processed, over packaged sh!te at me. And anyone who thinks a roast dinner isn't good isn't doing it right. My sister's German husband much preferred this kind of traditional food to the bland stuff he grew up on.
Kimmt drauf oan wo der Bub augwachsn ist....
Preiß?
It may no longer be the case but it used to be de rigeur (though in German of course) to take flowers when visiting.
Wurst Kaise scenario is the flowers get eaten but personally I'd prefer a pie. They usually have enough preservatives in them to survive a nuclear winter....
I can just imagine how greasy and yummy that would be after 14hrs on a bus in central Europe in summer....
Fray Bentos?
Following Brex$hit you're not meant to take any meat, processed or otherwise, or dairy products from the UK into the EU. We are persona non grata, for obvious reasons. Even going back to Ireland it's supposedly forbidden.
Jaffa cakes?
A Viz annual?
A king charlie tea towel?
She doesn’t have to take anything – I’d rather a visitor showed me how to cook a new, unfamiliar dish with locally available products than simply throw some ultra-processed, over packaged sh!te at me
She's a 14 year old schoolkid not Gordon bloody Ramsey! She can cook a few basic items but not much more. In any case, it's tradition to bring a small gift when visiting people's houses in Germany. When the exchange student came here she gave us chocolates, for which we were grateful because it's a nice gesture and we're not snobs.
Decaf tea bags and proper bacon
Decaf tea bags and proper bacon
Awaits another tirade from molgrips about people having the damnable temerity to respond in good faith to his OP with suggestions....
😏
She’s a 14 year old schoolkid not Gordon bloody Ramsey!
Oh, in that case, easy - Lucozade and Monster Munch. But for the full teenage Brit experience, they should then be encouraged to go outside to somewhere nice, maybe a park, and dump all the resulting litter. Preferably close to a litter bin.
German kids ain't cool enough to vape. Maybe she could introduce that trend.
A nice big jar of Stevia sweetener.
Sarsons vinegar
Proper gloss paint, like Dulux One Coat or similar
Proper gloss paint, like Dulux One Coat or similar
She’s a 14 year old schoolkid not Max bloody Ernst!
😆
When I visit my daughter and ex wife I usually get asked for Robinsons orange squash, Bisto Gravy and cheap paracetamol from Tesco. I used to have to bring biscuit selection boxes, Frey Bentos pies and Walkers crisps. I think apart from Frey Bentos the biscuit and crisp selection has improved from paprika or peanut flavour... I do like the peanut flavour though.
...bring a small gift...
Rishi Sunak...
The Boris Johnson book of actual facts...
A carrot in a box...
Proper take away curry!
Tea bags
Daddies brown sauce + back bacon
I’ve never found Tangfastics
Marmalade.
Proper coarse stuff, not the orange jelly.
