Cheddar cheese is probably one of the foods I really miss, it used to play such a large part of our diet; - in a sandwich, on toast, with a salad or as a ploughman’s, or just as a tasty cooking ingredient. Well it was great excitement when we were given some here last week. However, with great expectations, much to our disappointment, even when put on a very attractive salad sandwich it was hard to detect its taste. Even the texture was so none descript its presence barely featured and it certainly didn’t out compete the cucumber.
What you seem find in the Seychelles is that much of the food that you get back in the UK, like tomato sa
uce, butter, cheese, is replaced by an equivalent, and so you meals look like they should, eg eggs, baked beans and chips look just as good, bit don't quite taste right. The baked beans are not sweet and tomatoey, the oil that the chips are cooked in has more of a plastic taste and the tomato sauce is kinda like a tomato puree, but without tomatoes in it. The breakfast cereals are another fine example, the packets all look like what you would expect to get back home, they even claim to be the same, however the contents well, they all largely taste the same or don't taste of anything! The coco pops or Temmys choco rice as they are known here, do make the milk go brown, but that is the only real similarity. All the western type foods seem to come from Malaysia, China or Egypt, however a real find recently were the Bran Flakes and 'Crunchy Nut Cornflakes', which came from Sun Oil Ltd in the UK - or so it said on the packet!
Then there are the biscuits, they are all based on a well known brand and aim to resemble them, but on the opening and tasting they fail to even get close. We don’t have fig rolls but date rolls which look identical but are rock hard and sometimes you question if they
are actually made of dates. The tins of peas are quite bizarre, on the label they look like they are going to be mushy peas, which we thought would be good for a change, but on opening the can we found they had a rather fluorescent appearance and despite cooking them for over 20 minutes they still remained like bullets and retained their glowing colour – hmmm? At lean fishing times we have also found ourselves eating tinned tuna, well we should be safe on that front, as the tuna factory is actually based in Mahe, no more than 25 nautical miles away from here, but to our great disappointment, tinned tuna has got a very close similarity to dog food, both in smell and appearance.
However the frankfurters we bought for hotdogs have got to be the most
memorable, both for their taste, together with a conversation we had about them last night at a BBQ with the one of the rangers. In an attempt to try and find variety Melv & I bought a packet of frankfurters, for hotdogs as an easy midday snack. Well yesterday we tried these and to our amazement and bewilderment they tasted of fish. On reporting this during BBQ small talk last night, one of our rangers, Regis, started to defend his local processed food and he protested, well of course they taste like fish, what do you want them to taste like – dog?
What you seem find in the Seychelles is that much of the food that you get back in the UK, like tomato sa
uce, butter, cheese, is replaced by an equivalent, and so you meals look like they should, eg eggs, baked beans and chips look just as good, bit don't quite taste right. The baked beans are not sweet and tomatoey, the oil that the chips are cooked in has more of a plastic taste and the tomato sauce is kinda like a tomato puree, but without tomatoes in it. The breakfast cereals are another fine example, the packets all look like what you would expect to get back home, they even claim to be the same, however the contents well, they all largely taste the same or don't taste of anything! The coco pops or Temmys choco rice as they are known here, do make the milk go brown, but that is the only real similarity. All the western type foods seem to come from Malaysia, China or Egypt, however a real find recently were the Bran Flakes and 'Crunchy Nut Cornflakes', which came from Sun Oil Ltd in the UK - or so it said on the packet!Then there are the biscuits, they are all based on a well known brand and aim to resemble them, but on the opening and tasting they fail to even get close. We don’t have fig rolls but date rolls which look identical but are rock hard and sometimes you question if they
are actually made of dates. The tins of peas are quite bizarre, on the label they look like they are going to be mushy peas, which we thought would be good for a change, but on opening the can we found they had a rather fluorescent appearance and despite cooking them for over 20 minutes they still remained like bullets and retained their glowing colour – hmmm? At lean fishing times we have also found ourselves eating tinned tuna, well we should be safe on that front, as the tuna factory is actually based in Mahe, no more than 25 nautical miles away from here, but to our great disappointment, tinned tuna has got a very close similarity to dog food, both in smell and appearance.However the frankfurters we bought for hotdogs have got to be the most
memorable, both for their taste, together with a conversation we had about them last night at a BBQ with the one of the rangers. In an attempt to try and find variety Melv & I bought a packet of frankfurters, for hotdogs as an easy midday snack. Well yesterday we tried these and to our amazement and bewilderment they tasted of fish. On reporting this during BBQ small talk last night, one of our rangers, Regis, started to defend his local processed food and he protested, well of course they taste like fish, what do you want them to taste like – dog?
1 comment:
Ciao, I am again Lidia, I saw the foto of my friends and I remember the time I had BBQ in Aride.
I would like be there with you.
Good night.
Ciao ciao da Firenze
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