When I first saw this at the grocery store I almost tapped the person nearest me and exclaimed "Look!! It's from Cornwall! So cool!" I didn't, but I'm sure they would have been pretty nonplussed. Jeff and I haven't really gone anywhere fun since I moved here (I know... you've noticed) but I love the idea that I could drive to Cornwall in 4 hours if I wanted to. 4 hours is nothing! British people think driving more than 15 minutes to get anywhere is ridiculous. I once asked the guy who came to measure the upstairs for new carpet if he was from around here. "No, " he said, "I'm from about 30 minutes north of here." Okay, dude, I consider that to be "from around here".
Ah, man. Waitrose, now my grocery store of choice (Whole Foods, how I pine for thee!), has the cutest packaging. Here, they call "cornstarch" corn flour which confuses me pretty much every time I need cornstarch. About halfway through a recipe, I'll open the pantry drawer looking for cornstarch and think "DAMNITTTTTTT, I TOTALLY THOUGH I HAD CORNSTARCH!!!" and it takes me a couple seconds to realize I do have it, only it says corn flour on the box. I actually wrote "cornflour aka cornstarch" on the top of the box, but it hasn't seemed to help. Also, I just love that the baking soda is called "bicarbonate of soda".
My milk (thank god I can at least get organic milk) is from a partnership between Waitrose and Duchy Originals, launched in 1990 by the Prince of Wales (Prince Charles). Apparently, he is really into organic farming. In the early 1980s, The Prince began the process of converting the Duchy Home Farm (part of his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire) to an entirely organic system. Now they have over 200 organic products and all the profits go to The Prince's Charity Foundation. I also get Duchy Originals eggs - they are gorgeous! Clearly, I have a major weak spot for the monarchy.
Anyway, the milk may be good, but the largest you can buy milk here is in 4 pint containers which is only 1/2 a gallon. Jeff and I plow through the milk so we are used to buying 2 gallons at a time in the US. Even if we wanted to buy 2 gallons of milk here we would never have the space in our teensy-tiny under counter fridge. We are constantly running out of milk.
I have to say "soured cream" sounds gross. I was skeptical at first, but not to fear, it tastes just like sour cream - only creamier, because I'm used to buying non-fat sour cream in the US and I don't have that option here. Too bad! I only like cooking unhealthy things so I tend to use a fair amount of buttermilk. This is the only size and brand of buttermilk I have encountered in all the grocery stores around here. For some reason, grocery stores tend to only get about 6 containers at a time - so when I see it I buy as much as I can because chances are they won't be getting more until next week. Sometimes, I have to go to multiple grocery stores looking for it. I've learned to check for buttermilk before I buy anything else for the buttermilk-containing recipe. I know, I know - it is possible to make your own buttermilk but I've never done it and sometimes a lack of buttermilk is a good reason to forget all about cooking and order thai.
