What I (Didn't) Eat Wednesday

Recently I received an email from my grandpa saying that I was not posting enough on my blog about food so this post goes out to him! (Side note: this is a little bit of sarcasm, my grandpa emailed me saying he is enjoying my "food blog" because it seems I post more about food than travel so I thought I would run with the joke and talk about it some more!) 

My last What I Ate Wednesday was all about what I have been making myself to eat since I've been here.  And I thought it would be appropriate this week to talk about all the things I cannot eat because Ireland seems to have different taste buds than America does.

Luckily, this whole post is on a happy note because along with the recent arrival of my friends came some of my favorite foods that I have been missing so much!

My stash of goodies thanks to Emily and Marty

1. Mac and Cheese (both Annie's and Kraft). I have not found anything resembling mac and cheese here, not even another knock off brand.  While I can make it homemade, and I have a few times, there is nothing like the good fake stuff.  When asking them what to bring I truly could not decide which one I missed more so I had them bring one box of each. 

2. Goldfish! This is one of my all time favorite go to snacks at home, and I have been unable to find cheese snacks of any variety here (that means no cheez-its, chex mix, etc.). This is due to the fact that snacking is significantly less common in Europe. Both my French and German roommates have never heard of most of our snacks, or the concept of eating all throughout the day, or on the go, because it is not common in European cultures.  This has made me have to adjust a lot and eat more at each sitting. 

3. Jif peanut butter.  Now this one was me just being picky.  I have found one type of peanut butter here (panda butter) that is excellent for Irish peanut butter, but just ok in comparison to the good stuff we have back home.  They have peanut spread which is a lot stickier and leaves a funky after taste in your mouth.  But when the opportunity arose to get the really good stuff (Jif) I had to take it! 

4. Last, but not least, pretzal M&M's.  For some reason I have been unable to curb my sweet tooth, even though I have tried hard to.  This treat is perfect because it is both sweet and salty, however they do not have this type of M&M over here; they call their version "crunchy" M&M's. 

And while what I really miss most is home cooking from Mom, Dad, and especially Grandma, that cannot be transported across seas as easily as a few of my favorite American snacks. Now the hard part is rationing out these snacks so they last me until December, when all I want to do is eat the whole bag of goldfish in one sitting!